The Italian 'trio' sonata

"This is the first in-depth study of Italian instrumental ensemble music during the seventeenth century based on the great majority of surviving primary sources. Most previous studies have tended to confine themselves to a fixed location or a single composer, rather than offering a correlated account of the genre in its entirety. This book provides comprehensive coverage of every major composer of Italian 'trio' sonatas until Corelli, and is intended as a standard work of reference. It also attempts to undermine the mythology surrounding the development of the free sonata acquired from successive generations of historians, eventually seeking to present Corelli's works, not as the inevitable culmination of the pre-history of the sonata, but as the product of the precise interaction of two regional traditions. The musical development is placed within a broad historical perspective examining such factors as performance and function, and thus placing the sonata within its cultural setting."--BOOK JACKET.