Keyboard music before 1700 /

Although music has been written for keyboard instruments since the late 14th century, the literature for organ, harpsichord, and clavichord composed before 1700 is relatively unknown to present-day audiences. This is in part due to the pervasive Bach centrism among scholars, performers, and audiences, most of whom until recently regarded the earlier music as merely precursive to the culminating works of the great Johann Sebastian. With the present volume, Silbiger (Duke Univ.) takes some first steps toward forming a canon of pre-Bach keyboard music. The book's five sections, each written by a specialist in the music of a particular region (Alan Brown on England, Bruce Gustafson on France, John Butt on Germany, Robert Judd on Italy, and Robert Parkins on Spain and Portugal) focus on a selection of "the composers and pieces that we believe still have most to offer in terms of artistic interest and value." Silbiger avoids direct comparison with Willi Apel's monumental but somewhat dated survey The History of Keyboard Music to 1700 (1972), which Silbiger complements but does not replace. The more user-friendly Apel is better organized for quick reference--its table of contents is a model of clarity. Silbiger, however, is an essential purchase because its state-of-the-art scholarship approaches this wonderful music entirely on its own terms. All collections. E. Gaub Grinnell College