Named a Library Journal Best Reference of 2023 - "Bravo! An invaluable source for scholars and concertgoers.” - Library Journal In the history of the Western musical tradition, the Baroque period traditionally dates from the turn of the 17th century to 1750. The beginning of the period is marked by Italian experiments in composition that attempted to create a new kind of secular musical art based upon principles of Greek drama, quickly leading to the invention of opera. The ending is marked by the death of Johann Sebastian Bach in 1750 and the completion of George Frideric Handel’s last English oratorio, Jephtha, the following year. The Historical Dictionary of Baroque Music, Second Edition contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 500 cross-referenced entries on composers, instruments, cities, and technical terms. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about baroque music.

The contemporary music scene thus embodies a uniquely broad spectrum of activity, which has grown and changed down to the present hour. With new talents emerging and different technologies developing as we move further into the 21st century, no one can predict what paths music will take next. All we can be certain of is that the inspiration and originality that make music live will continue to bring awe, delight, fascination, and beauty to the people who listen to it. This book cover modernist and postmodern concert music worldwide from the years 1888 to 2018. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Classical Music contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 500 cross-referenced entries on the most important composers, musicians, methods, styles, and media in modernist and postmodern classical music worldwide, from 1888 to 2018. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about modern and contemporary classical music.

Sacred music is a universal phenomenon of humanity. Where there is faith, there is music to express it. Every major religious tradition and most minor ones have music and have it in abundance and variety. There is music to accompany ritual and music purely for devotion, music for large congregations and music for trained soloists, music that sets holy words and music without words at all. In some traditions—Islamic and many Native American, to name just two--the relation between music and religious ritual is so intimate that it is inaccurate to speak of the music accompanying the ritual. Rather, to perform the ritual is to sing, and to sing the ritual is to perform it. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Sacred Music contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 800 cross-referenced entries on major types of music, composers, key religious figures, specialized positions, genres of composition, technical terms, instruments, fundamental documents and sources, significant places, and important musical compositions. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about sacred music.

When we speak of “classical music” it often refers rather loosely to serious “art” music but at the core is really the music of the classical period running from about 1730 to 1800, give or take. This was truly one of the most glorious periods for both composition and performance and it is this classical music which is still at the core of today’s repertoire. Obvious names connected with this period are Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, but there were many more still reasonably well known like Gluck and C.P.E Bach, and dozens more who are regrettably little known today. This Historical Dictionary of Music of the Classical Period includes not only these composers, but also eminent conductors and performers, patrons, and publishers. There are also dictionary entries on major centers of music-making, typical instruments, important technical terms, and emerging musical forms, including the symphony and opera. Indeed, with a 1,000 cross-referenced entries, there is information on most matters of interest. This is prefaced by an extensive chronology, tracing the course of this period from year to year, and an introduction taking a careful look at the period as a whole. Finally, there is a substantial bibliography. Surely, this is a book which will appeal not only to students and researchers but all music-lovers.

A Library Journal Starred Review (March 2024) praises the book as a "remarkable resource that will please both musical professionals and amateurs, along with teachers and their students, and conductors and singers.” Throughout the ages, people have wanted to sing in a communal context. This desire apparently stems from a deeply rooted human instinct. Consequently, choral performance historically has often been related to human rituals and ceremonies, especially rites of a religious nature. Historical Dictionary of Choral Music, Second Edition contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 1,300 cross-referenced entries on composers, conductors, choral ensembles, choral genres, and choral repertoire. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about choral music.

Presenting information heretofore difficult or impossible to find in English, this work opens a window on the colorful panorama of Finnish music. The 500-plus entries present historical and modern composers, the accomplishments of hundreds of internationally acclaimed performing artists, as well as more general articles on folk music, early manuscripts and publications, cantors and hymnals, early Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Lutheran music, leading orchestras and choral groups, festivals, and much more. No other such extensive and comprehensive work on Finnish music exists in any language other than Finnish and Swedish. This English-language dictionary makes the subject available to readers throughout the world. In addition to the entries, chronologies of Finnish history and Finnish music, as well as a map of Finland, correlate history and locations with the entries. A general bibliography and entry-specific bibliographies offer further resources. The Dictionary interprets a sometimes limited amount of available information, describing forms and styles of compositions, operatic roles performed, the content of scholarly work, and significant and unusual events in the lives of the musicians.

From capsule descriptions/assessments of individual feature films to extended essays on areas such as Irish animation, short film, experimental film and documentary production along with discussion of a wide range of key creative and administrative personnel, the Dictionary combines a breath of existing scholarship with extensive new information and research carried out especially for this volume. It is the definitive guide to Irish cinema in the 21st century. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Irish Cinema contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 500 cross-referenced entries on key Irish actors, directors, producers and other personnel from over a century of Irish film history. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Irish Cinema.

Library Journal praises the book as "an excellent one-volume ready reference resource for students, researchers, and others interested in music history." Historical Dictionary of Romantic Music, Second Edition covers the persons, ideas, practices, and works that made up the worlds of Western music during the long 19th century (ca. 1780–1918). It’s the first book to recognize that Romantic music was very nearly a global phenomenon. It includes more women, more Black musicians and other musicians of color, and more exponents of musical Romanticism from Central and South America as well as Central and Eastern Europe than any other single-volume study of Romantic music—thus challenging the conventional hegemony of musical Romanticisms by men and by Western European nations. This book includes entries on topics including anti-Semitism, sexism, and racism that were pervasive and defining to the worlds of musical Romanticism but are rarely addressed in general studies of that subject. It includes Romantic musicians who were not primarily composers, as well as topics such as the Haitian Revolution, spirituals, and ragtime that were more important for music in the long 19th century than is generally acknowledged. The result is an expansive, inclusive, diverse, and more richly textured portrayal of Romantic music than is elsewhere available. Historical Dictionary of Romantic Music, Second Edition contains a chronology, an introduction, an extensive bibliography, and a dictionary section with more than 600 cross-referenced entries on traditions, famous pieces, persons, places, technical terms, and institutions of Romantic music. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Romantic music.

Russian music today has a firm hold around the world in the repertoire of opera houses, ballet companies, and orchestras. The music of Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Sergey Rachmaninov, Sergey Prokofiev, and Dmitri Shostakovich is very much today’s lingua franca both in the concert hall and on the soundtracks of international blockbusters from Hollywood. Meanwhile, the innovations of Modest Musorgsky, Alexander Borodin, and Igor Stravinsky have played their crucial role in the development of Western music, influencing the work of virtually every notable composer of the past century. Historical Dictionary of Russian Music, Second Edition contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 600 cross-referenced entries for each of Russia’s major performing organizations and performance venues, and on specific genres such as ballet, film music, symphony and church music. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Russian Music.

Vaudeville, as it is commonly known today, began as a response to scandalous variety performances appealing mostly to adult, male patrons. When former minstrel performer and balladeer Tony Pastor opened the Fourteenth Street Theatre in New York in 1881, he was guided by a mission to provide family-friendly variety shows in hopes of drawing in that portion of the audience – women and children – otherwise inherently excluded from variety bills prior to 1881. There he perfected a framework for family-oriented amusements of the highest obtainable quality and style. Historical Dictionary of Vaudeville contains a chronology, an introduction, an extensive bibliography, and the dictionary section has more than 1,000 cross-referenced entries on performing artists, managers and agents, theatre facilities, and the terminology central to the history of vaudeville. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about vaudeville.