The History and Literature of the Wind Band and Wind Ensemble, volume 2
One of the most amazing accomplishments of contemporary music publication. — Wolfgang Suppan, Internationale Gesellschaft zur Erforschung und Forderung der Blasmusik, Mitteilungsblatt, Nr. 15, Marz, 1985.
This History and Literature of the Wind Band and Wind Ensemble will remain for a long time the principal source for the ultimate study of the literature of wind instruments. — Giovanni Ligasacchi, “Quattro Secoli di Storia La Letteratura degli Stromenti a Fiato,” Brescia Musica (Italy), Anno V, n. 21, Febbraio, 1990.
The Renaissance Wind Band and Wind Ensemble is the second volume in Dr. David Whitwell’s ground breaking thirteen volume History and Literature of the Wind Band and Wind Ensemble series. Whitwell’s meticulous scholarship reveals the continuous history of the wind ensemble, from its earliest roots to the nineteenth century — an unbroken tradition of wind music that music scholars have never been fully able to appreciate until now. This volume includes:
- court wind music that left important bodies of literature, especially in France and England
- larger civic wind bands, with extant literature, representing a climax in the devlopment of early civic wind bands
- evidence of wind bands participating in the Catholic Mass and the Protestant Service
- the music of Gabrieli and his contemporaries, a body of music important for its impact on the development of the Baroque wind band.
Updated with the inclusion of relevant iconography, this second edition belongs in music libraries and conservatoires around the world.
All earlier efforts stand in the shade of this undertaking … Whitwell’s great undertaking presents not only an abundance of new material, which belongs to the literature of anyone interested in wind music but also creates a new dimension for discussion by musicologists. One can not thank Whitwell enough. — Wolfgang Suppan, Oesterreichische Blasmusik, Nr. 5, 1983.