Improvisation for Classical Musicians: A Bibliography in Progress

This growing and still preliminary bibliography incorporates many of the sources listed in Phillip Eugene Rush's  excellent A String Player’s Guide to Improvisation in Western Art Music (D. Mus Treatise, Florida State University, 2004), some additional sources listed in the relevant articles at www.grovemusic.com, and others found through periodic searches of JSTOR and Google.  Not every online article and audio/video file has made on to this list, at least yet, so check the links on the main improvisation page of this site as well.)

Andrews, Kerry. “All Scores Are Graphic, but Some Are More Graphic Than Others.” http://coma.org/article_3.htm.

Arnold, Bruce. My Music: Explorations in the Application of 12 Tone Techniques to Jazz Composition and Improvisation. New York: Mus Eek Publishing Company, 2003.

Babell, William. XII Solos for a Violino or Hautboy[sic]: with a Figured Bass for the Harpsichord: with Proper Graces for the Adagio by the Author: Part the First of his Posthumous Works (1725). New York: Performer’s Facsimiles, 1997.

Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel. Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments (1753). William J. Mitchell, trans. and ed. New York: Norton, 1949.

Badura-Skoda, Eva, Andrew V. Jones, William Drabkin. “Cadenza.” The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed. London: Macmillan, 2001. 4:783-790.

Badura-Skoda, Paul. Kadenzen und Eingänge zum Violinkonzerten in G-dur, W.A. Mozart, K.V. 216. Wien: Doblinger, 1961.

Badura-Skoda, Paul and Eva. Interpreting Mozart on the Keyboard. Leo Black, trans. London: Barrie and Rockliff, 1962.

Benda, Franz. “33 Sonatas for Violin and Basso Continuo.” In Improvisation in Nine Centuries of Western Music: An Anthology with a Historical Introduction. Ernst Thomas Ferand, ed. Köln: Arno Volk Verlag, 1961.

Belgrad, Daniel. The Culture of Spontaneity: Improvisation and the Arts in Postwar America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.

Bergeron, Katherine. “The Castrato as History.” Cambridge Opera Journal, Vol 8 No. 2 (Jul. 1996) 167-184.

Beyer, Franz. Cadenzas to Mozart’s Violin Concertos K. 216, K. 218, K. 219. [n.p.]: Eulenburg, [n.d.].

_______. Kadenzen zu Viola-Konzerten von Stamitz, Zelter und Hoffmeister. Adliswil, Switzerland: Kunzelmann, 1971.

Bonneau, Gilles Christophe. “Playing Upon a Ground: An Analysis of the Improvisation Technique of Christopher Simpson as Presented in The Division Viol (1665), with an Edited Transcription of Simpson’s Musical Examples.” D.M.A. Diss., The University of Texas at Austin, 2000.

Borghi, Luigi. “Sixty-Four Cadences or Solos for the Violin (1790).” In Masters of the Violin. Gabriel Banat, ed. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1981.

Borgo, David Richard. “Reverence for Uncertainty: Chaos, Order, and the Dynamics of Musical Free Improvisation.” Ph.D. Diss., University of California at Los Angeles, 1999.

Boyden, David D. “The Corelli Solo Sonatas and their Ornamental Additions by Corelli, Geminiani, Dubourg, Tartini and the Walsh Anonymous.” In Musica Antiquae Europae Orientalis.[n.p.]: Bygdgoszcz, 1972.

_______. The History of Violin Playing from its Origins to 1761 and its Relationship to the Violin and Violin Music. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990.

Brown, Earl. Available Forms I. New York: Associated Music Publishers, 1962.

_______. Folio. New York, Associated Music Publishers,1952-3.

Brown, Howard Meyer and Stanley Sadie, eds. The Norton/Grove Handbooks: Performance Practice: Music After 1600. New York: Norton, 1989.

Bruscia, Kenneth.  Improvisational Models of Music Therapy. Springfield, Illinois: Charles C. Thomas, 1987.

Burney, Charles. The Present State of Music in France and Italy: Facsimile of the 1773 Edition. New York: Broude Bros., 1969.

_______. Dr.Burney’s Musical Tours in Europe. Oxford: [n.p.], 1959.

Butt, John. “Improvised Vocal Ornamentation and German Baroque Compositional Theory: An Approach to ‘Historical’ Performance practice.” Journal of the Royal Musical Association, Vol. 116 No. 1 (1991), 41-62.

Cantirck, Robert. “Does ‘Musical Improvisation’ Refer?” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 44 No. 2 (Winter 1985), 192-193.

Chase, Mildred Portney. Improvisation: Music from the Inside Out. Berkeley: Creative Arts Books Co., 1988.

Childs, Barney, et al. “Forum: Improvisation.” Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 21, No. 1 and 2 (Autumn 1982 – Summer, 1983), 26-111.

Chosky, Lois, et al. Teaching Music in the Twenty-First Century. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2001.

Cowell, Henry. String Quartet no. 3, “Mosaic.” New York: Associated Music Publishers, 1962.

Corelli, Arcangelo. Complete Works. Joseph Joachim and Friedrich Chrysander, eds. London: Augener and Co., 1890.

Couperin, François. L’Art de toucher le clavecin (1716). Margery Halford, ed. Sherman Oaks, CA, U.S.A.: Alfred, 1975.

_______. Pieces de clavecin (1713). New York, Broude Bros., 1973.

Cutter, Paul F. “The Old-Roman Chant Tradition: Oral or Written?” Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 20 No. 2 (Summer 1967) 167-181.

_______. “The Question of the ‘Old-Roman’ Chant: a Reappraisal.” Acta Musicologica, Vol. 39 (Jan. – Jun. 1967), 2-20.

Czerny, Carl. A Systematic Introduction to Improvisation on the Pianoforte: op. 200 (1829). Alice L. Mitchell, trans. and ed. New York: Longman, 1983.

Dannreuther, Edward. Musical Ornamentation. [n.p.]: Best Books, 2001

DeLio, Thomas. The Music of Morton Feldman. London: Greenwood Press, 1996.

Dolmetsch, Arnold. The Interpretation of the Music of the XVIIth and XVIIIth Centuries as Revealed by Contemporary Evidence. London: Novello, 1969.

Donington, Robert. Baroque Music: Style and Performance. New York: Norton, 1982.

_______. The Interpretation of Early Music. London: Faber and Faber, 1989.

_______. “Ornamentation Galore.” (Record Review) The Musical Times, Vol. 110, No. 1517 (Jul. 1969), 738-739.

_______. A Performer’s Guide to Baroque Music. New York: Scribner and Son’s, 1973.

_______. String Playing in Baroque Music. London: Faber and Faber, 1977.

Ferand, Ernst Thomas, ed. Improvisation in Nine Centuries of Western Music: An Anthology. Koln: Arno Volk Verlag, 1961.

_______. Improvisation in Music. Köln: Arno Volk Verlag, 1961.

Flothuis, Marius. Cadenzas to Mozart’s Violin Concertos nos. 2, 3, 4 and 5. The Hague: Alberson and Co., [n.d.].

Fuller, David. “The Performer as Composer.” In The Norton/Grove Handbooks: Performance Practice: Music Since 1600. Howard Mayer Brown and Stanley Sadie, eds. New York: Norton, 1989.

Geminiani, Francesco. The Art of Playing on the Violin (1777). David Boyden, ed. London: Oxford University Press, [n.d.].

Giegling, Franz. Giuseppe Torelli: Ein Beitrag zur Entwicklungsgeschicte des italienischen Konzerts. Kassel und Basel: Barenreiter, 1949.

Greenan, April Nash. “The Instrumental Eingang in the Classical Era.” Ph.D. Diss., University of Maryland at College Park, 1997.

Griffiths, Paul. “Aleatory.” The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed. Stanley Sadie and John Tyrell, eds. London: Macmillan, 2001. 1:341-6.

Griffiths, Paul. Modern Music and After. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.

_______. Modern Music: The Avante-Garde Since 1945. New York: George Braziller, 1981.

_______. Modern Music: A Concise History. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1985.

_______. The Thames and Hudson Encyclopedia of Twentieth Century Music. London: Thames and Hudson, 1986.

Hall, Edward T. “Improvisation as an Acquired, Multilevel Process.” Ethnomusicology, Vol. 36 No. 2 (Spring – Summer 1992) 223-235.

Hancock, Gerre. Improvising: How to Master the Art. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Hansell, Sven Hostrup. “The Cadence in 18^th-Century Recitative.” The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 54 No. 2 (Apr. 1968) 228-248.

Harris, Ellen T. “Integrity and Improvisation in the Music of Handel.” The Journal of Musicology, Vol. 8, No. 3 (Summer 1990), 301-315.

Hefling, Stephen E. “’Of the Manner of Playing the Adagio’: Structural Levels and Performance Practice in Quantz’s ‘Versuch.’” Journal of Music Theory, Vol. 31, No. 2 (Autumn 1987), 205-223.

Hibbard, Lloyd. “On ‘Instrumental Style’ in Early Melody.” The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 32, No. 1 (Jan. 1946), 107-130.

Hitchcock, H. Wiley. “Vocal Ornamentation in Caccini’s ‘Nuove Musiche.’” The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 56 No. 3 (Jul. 1970), 389-404.

Hoeckner, Berthold. “Schumann and Romantic Distance.” Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 50, No. 1 (Spring 1997), 55-132.

Holloway, John. “Corelli’s Op. 5: Text, Act . . . and Reaction.” Early Music, Vol. 24 No. 4 (Nov. 1996), 635-640 + 642-643.

Horsley, Imogene. “Improvised Embellishment in the Performance of Ranaissance Polyphonic Music.” Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 4 No. 1 (Spring 1951), 3-19.

Hull, Arthur. Drum Circle Spirit: Facilitating Human Potential Through Rhythm. Tempe: White Cliffs Media, 1998.

Jarvinen, Arthur. Experimental Etudes. Sylmar, CA: Leisure Planet Music, 1996.

Jones, Tim. “Mozart’s Keyboard Concertos Reconsidered.” Early Music, Vol. 25, No. 3 (Aug. 1997), 479-484.

Kenny, Barry J. and Martin Gellrich. “Improvisation.” In The Science and Psychology of Music Performance: Creative Strategies for Teaching and Learning.  Richard Parncutt and Gary E. McPherson, eds. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Lawson, Colin and Robin Stowell. The Historical Performance of Music: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Levin, Robert. Cadenzas to Mozart’s Violin Concertos. Wien: Universal, 1992.

________. “Improvised Embellishments in Mozart’s Keyboard Music.” Early Music, Vol 20, No. 2 (May 1992) 221-223.

________. “Performance Prerogatives in Schubert.” Early Music, Vol. 25, No. 4 (Nov. 1997), 723-727.970

Logothetis, Anestis. Odyssey. New York: C.F. Peters, 1963.

Longyear, R. M. “An Ornamented Opera Aria of c. 1815.” Early Music, Vol. 15 No. 1 (Feb. 1987), 71-73.

Mather, Betty Bang and David Lasocki. The Art of Preluding 1700-1830 For Flutists, Oboists, Clarinettists, and Other Performers. New York: McGinnis and Marx, 1984.

Mathieu, W.A. Harmonic Experience: Tonal Harmony from its Natural Origins to Its Modern Expression. Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions, 1997.

______.  The Listening Book: Discovering Your Own Music. Shambala, 1991.

Mead, Virginia.  Dalcroze Eurythmics in Today’s Music Classroom. New York: Schott, 1994.

Melkus, Edward. “On the Problem of Cadenzas in Mozart’s Violin Concertos.” R. Larry Todd and Peter Williams, eds., Perspectives in Mozart Performance. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Moore, Robin. “The Decline of Improvisation in Western Art Music: An Interpretation of Change.” International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, Vol. 23, No. 1 (Jun. 1992), 61-84.

Mozart, Leopold. A Treatise on the Fundamental Art of Violin Playing (1756). Edith Knocker, trans. London: Oxford University Press, 1948.

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus. Thirty Six Original Cadenzas to the Piano Concertos, K. 264. New York: Broude Bros., [n.d.].

Nachmanovitch, Steven. Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art. Los Angeles: J.P. Tarcher, 1990.

Neumann, Frederick. Ornamentation and Improvisation in Mozart. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986.

_______. Ornamentation in Baroque and Post-Baroque Music with a Special Emphasis on J.S. Bach. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1978.

Nettl, Bruno and Melinda Russel, editors. In the Course of Performance: Studies in the World of Music Improvisation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.

_______. “Thoughts on Improvisation: A Comparative Approach.” The Musical Quarterly, vol. 60 No. 1 (Jan. 1974), 1-19.

Nettl, Bruno, Robert C. Wegman, Imogene Horsley, Michael Collins, Stewart A. Carter, Greer Garden, Robert Seletsky, Robert Levin, William Crutchfield, John Rink, Paul Griffiths. “Improvisation.” The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed. Stanley Sadie and John Tyrell, eds. London: Macmillan, 2001. 12:94-128.

Nyman, Michael. Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Overduin, Jan. Making Music: Improvisation for Organists. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. 

Oshinsky, James. Return to Child: Music for People’s Guide to Improvising Music and Authentic Group Leadership. Goshen, Connecticut: Music for People, 2004.

Pelz-Sherman, Michael Lawrence. “A Framework for the Analysis of Performer Interactions in Western Improvised Contemporary Art Music.” Ph.D. Diss., University of California at San Diego, 1998.

Peters, G. David and Robert F. Miller. Music Teaching and Learning. New York: Longman, 1982.

Penderecki, Krzyzstof. Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima. Warsaw: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzycne, 1961.

Pincherele, Marc and Isabelle Cazeau. “On the Rights of the Interpreter in the Performance of 17^th- and 18^th-Century Music.” The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 44 No. 2 (Apr. 1958), 145-166.

Quantz, Johann Joachim. On Playing the Flute (1752). Edward Reilly, trans. and ed. 2nd ed. New York: Schirmer, 1985.

Quist, Pamela Layman. “Indeterminate Form in the Work of Earle Brown.” D.M.A. Diss., Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, 1984.

Rangel-Ribiero, Victor.  Baroque Music: A Practical Guide for the Performer. New York: Schirmer, 1981.

Rendleman, Ruth. “A Study of Improvisatory Techniques of the 18th Century Through the Mozart Cadenzas.” Ed.D. Diss., Columbia University Teachers College, 1979.

Riley, Maurice. The History of the Viola. Ann Arbor, Michigan: Braun- Brumfield, 1980.

Rink, John. “Schenker and Improvisation.” Journal of Music Theory, Vol. 37 No. 1 (Spring 1993), 1-54.

Rogers, Patrick J. A Neglected Source of Ornamentation and Continuo Realization in a Handel Aria. Early Music, Vol 18. No. 1 (Feb. 1990), 83-89.

Rush, Phillip Eugene. A String Player’s Guide to Improvisation in Western Art Music. D. Mus Treatise, Florida State University, 2004. Available at http://etd.lib.fsu.edu/theses/available/etd-10272004-130500/ .

Schott, Howard. “Controlled Improvisation.” The Musical Times, Vol. 133, No. 1796 (Oct. 1992), 518.

Seletsky, Robert. “18^th-Century Variations for Corelli’s Sonatas, Op. 5.” Early Music, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Feb. 1996) 119-130.

Smiles, Joan E. “Directions for Improvised Ornamentation in Italian method Books of the Late Eighteenth Century.” Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 31, No. 3 (Autumn 1978), 495-509.

Spitzer, John. “Grammar of Improvised Ornamentation: Jean Rousseau’s Viol Treatise of 1687.” Journal of Music Theory, Vol. 33 No. 2 (Autumn 1989) 299-332.

_____ and Neal Zaslaw. “Improvised Ornamentation in Eighteenth-Century Orchestras.” Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 39, No. 3 (Autumn 1986), 524-577.

Stamitz, Karl. Concerto in D Major for viola and orchestra op. 1 (1774). Ulrich Drüner, ed. Winterthur, Switzerland: Amadeus, 1995.

_______. Concerto in D Major for viola and orchestra (1774). Robert Levin, ed. München: G. Henle Verlag, 2003.

Solomon, Larry. “Improvisation II.” Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 24 No. 2 (Spring – Summer 1986), 224-235.

Stockhausen, Karlheinz. Klavierstück XI. London: Associated Music Publishers, 1957.

Stowell, Robin. Violin Technique and Performance Practice in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

_______. The Cambridge Companion to the Violin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Swain, Joseph P. “Form and Function of the Classical Cadenza.” The Journal of Musicology, Vol. 6 No. 1 (Winter 1988) 27-59.

Tarling, Judy. Baroque String Playing for Ingenious Learners. London: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Tartini, Giuseppe. Traité des agréments de la musique (1771). Sol Babitz, ed. New York: Carl Fischer, 1958.

Todd, Larry R and Peter Williams.  Perspectives on Mozart Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Tosi, Pier Francesco. Observations on the Florid Song: or, Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers (1723). Geneva: Mieroprint, 1978.

Treitler, Leo. “The ‘Unwritten’ and ‘Written Transmission’ of Medieval Chant and the Start-up of Musical Notation.” The Journal of Musicology, Vol 10 No. 2 (Spring 1992), 131-191.

Türk, Daniel Gottlob. Klavierschule (1789). Raymond Haagh, trans. and ed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982.

Walls, Peter. “Ornamentation and Improvisation in Mozart.” (Review) Early Music, Vol. 16, No. 2 (May 1988) 261, 263, 265. 

Watkin, David. “Corelli’s Op. 5 Sonatas: ‘Violino e violone o cimbalo’?” Early Music, Vol. 24 No. 4 (Nov. 1996), 645-646, 649,-650, 653-654, 657-663.

Wheelock, Gretchen A. “Recovering Mozart’s Fantasy.”  Early Music, Vol. 24, No. 2 (May 1996), 349-351.

Whitmore, Philip. Unpremeditated Art: The Cadenza in the Classical Keyboard Concerto. London: Oxford University Press, 1991.

Wigram, Tony. Improvisation: Methods and Techniques for Music Therapy Clinicians, Educators, and Students. London and New York: Kingsley, 2004.

Williams, Peter. “Creative Pitfalls.” The Musical Times, Vol. 126 No. 1711 (Sep. 1985), 536.

Wilson, Dora. “Lohlein’s ‘Klavierschule’: Toward an Understanding of the ‘Galant’ Style.” InternationalRreview of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Dec. 1981), 103-115.

Wollner, Gertrude Price. Improvisation in Music: Ways Towards Capturing Musical Ideas and Developing Them. Boston: Bruce Humphries Publishers, 1963.

Zaslaw, Neal. “Ornaments for Corelli’s Violin Sonatas, Op. 5.” Early Music, Vol. 24 No. 1 (Feb. 1996), 95-116.

Other Resources?

Please send them to eric@ericedberg.com and I'll add them to the bibliography.