Austro-German Printed Sources of Instrumental Ensemble Music, 1630 to 1700

This dissertation provides a comprehensive survey of the printed Austro-German ensemble-music repertoire from the period ca. 1630-1700, a corpus comprising approximately 120 publications. After a consideration of the composers represented, the varied functions for which the music was intended, and general aspects of publication, detailed attention is given to the related questions of genre and the character of the prints themselves. Their contents and internal organization are examined in depth, revealing, by comparison with Italian, French, and English practices, a distinctively Austro-German approach in the grouping of pieces to form larger structures. As has been observed in the contemporaneous Italian repertoire, however, the labels applied to individual genres are often vague and imprecise. By contrast, and in a further parallel with the Italian sources, it is shown that the numerical terminology applied to performing forces is largely free of ambiguity. The following aspects of the repertoire are summarized in tabular form: geographical distribution of publications; types of publications; re-publication; missing works; genre; organizational principles; texture and instrumentation; basso continuo practices; and ad libitum practices.