Harry White is Professor of Music at University College Dublin and a Fellow of the Royal Irish Academy of Music. He is widely acclaimed as the foremost cultural historian of music in Ireland.

• Preface and Acknowledgements


• Introduction: Servitude, Autonomy and the European Musical Imagination


• Chapter 1: The Minstrelsy of Heaven: Servility, Freedom and the Dynastic Style


• Chapter 2: The Virtuoso of Submissiveness: Fux and the Concept of Authority


• Chapter 3: The Steward of Unmeaning Art: Bach and the Musical Subject


• Chapter 4: 'A Darkness Which Might be Felt': Handel, Fux and the Oratorio


• Chapter 5: Steps to Parnassus: Fux, Caldara and Bach


• Conclusion: Well, well, well: Fux, Bach and Handel


• Select Bibliography


• Select Index

The Musical Discourse of Servitude presents a new theory of how the late baroque musical imagination developed by comparing the compositions of Johann Joseph Fux, J. S. Bach, and G. F. Handel.