I would like to begin this contribution by taking the reader back to a year in the life of Ludwig van Beethoven. The year is 1792, and in that year, Beethoven was a young man in his early twenties. Although he was not well known outside his native city of Bonn, where he lived and worked, he had already been making a name for himself as an exceptionally talented musician and composer. Yet for a man of his promise a provincial town like Bonn was clearly too confining a place. It lacked the sorts of opportunities he would need to...

It is a commonplace idea that after 1600, everything in music changed completely. The Baroque era started with monody, figured bass, opera, the “affects” and so on, whilst old-fashioned polyphony remained the same; so goes the accepted cliché. One can create wonderful antipodes likeprima praticaagainstseconda pratica, the good Monteverdi as opposed to the bad Artusi, and good advancement against bad conservatism. Of course, history is not so simple. Musical style has many aspects – form, sound, harmony, counterpoint, articulation, melody etc. – and not all of them changed at the same time. The basic principles for organizing sound progressions,...

Although it is well known that improvisation played an important role in Renaissance musical life, the details of this polymorphous practice in the sixteenth century have not been sufficiently investigated. There are many angles from which to look at improvisation: Anna Maria Busse Berger has written about the importance of memory and visualization in music up through the 15^thcentury; Ross Duffin has done hands-on experiments in 15^thcentury improvisation; Richard Sherr, Timothy McGee, Tim Carter, Rob Wegman and Jane Flynn have looked at its social and liturgical functions in the 16^thcentury; Klaus-Jürgens Sachs has made a sweeping survey...