The Stylus Phantasticus and Free Keyboard Music of the North German Baroque

The concept of stylus phantasticus (or ?fantastic style?) as it was expressed in free keyboard music of the north German Baroque forms the focus of this book. Exploring both the theoretical background to the style and its application by composers and performers, Paul Collins surveys the development of Athanasius Kircher?s

The concept of stylus phantasticus (or fantastic style) as it was expressed in free keyboard music of the north German Baroque forms the focus of this book. Exploring both the theoretical background to the style and its application by composers and performers, Paul Collins surveys the development of Athanasius Kirchers

Based on primary sources, many of which have never been published or examined in detail, this book examines the music of the late seventeenth-century composers, Biber, Schmeltzer and Muffat, and the compositions preserved in the extensive Moravian archives in Kromeriz. These works have never before been fully examined in the

Guides modern performers and scholars through the intricacies of German Baroque metric theory, via analyses of treatises and organ music by J.S. Bach and other leading composers, such as Buxtehude, Bruhns, and Weckman.

The twentieth-century revival of early music unfolded in two successive movements rooted respectively in nineteenth-century antiquarianism and in rediscovery of the value of original instruments. The present volume is a collection of insights reflecting the principal concerns of the second of those revivals, focusing on early keyboards, and beginning in