In this collection of essays, Mary Cyr explores some of the written and unwritten performance conventions that applied to French and English music of the seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries. Using composers' own notations, marks added by eighteenth-century performers, historical treatises, and pictorial evidence, she investigates both vocal

Mary Cyr is Professor of Music, Emerita, at the University of Guelph, Canada.

Contents: Part 1 Vocal Music in France: Ã0/00lisabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre: a biographical essay; The sacred and secular cantatas of Ã0/00lisabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre: an introduction; Representing Jacquet de La Guerre on disc: scoring and basse continue practices and a new painting of the composer; A new Rameau cantata; Performing Rameau's cantatas; Towards a chronology of Rameau's cantatas; Declamation and expressive singing in recitative; 18th-century French and Italian singing: Rameau's writing for the voice; On performing 18th-century haute-contre roles; Basses and basse continue in the orchestra of the Paris Opéra, 1700-1764; The dramatic role of the chorus in French opera: evidence for the use of gesture, 1670-1770; The Paris Opéra chorus during the time of Rameau; 'Inclina Domine': a Martin motet wrongly attributed to Rameau; Preface to François Martin, Petits Motets for One and Two Solo Voices with Instruments; Bach's music in France: a new source. Part 2 The Viol and Violin in England: A 17th-century source of ornamentation for voice and viol: British Museum ms. Egerton 2971; Carl Friedrich Abel's solos: a musical offering to Gainsborough?; Books on old violins and 19th-century playing from the bequest of T.W. Mills; Tempo graduations in Purcell's sonatas; Violin playing in late 17th-century England: Baltzar, Matteis, and Purcell; Ornamentation in English lyra viol music: part 1: slurs, juts, and thumpes and other 'graces' for the bow; Ornamentation in English lyra viol music: part 2: shakes, relishes, falls, and other 'graces' for the left hand; Index.