The rapidly changing political landscape of the Neapolitan Viceregno had a significant impact on the professional path of artists and musicians. Driven by a growing awareness of their central place in artistic culture, the Neapolitan string virtuosi became in many cases cultural agents who played an active role in endorsing and shaping the political and cultural programs of dynastic powers. The career of violinist Angelo Ragazzi is emblematic of the close cultural and artistic networks established between the Neapolitan and Viennese courts and illustrates the musicians’ negotiations with political powers. Ragazzi’s sonatas offer a privileged viewpoint from which to investigate the blending of “old” contrapuntal and “modern” concertante styles. In the first quarter of the eighteenth century, the proliferation in Naples of sonatas for three violins and continuo, characterized by marked contrapuntal language, derives in part from the influence of the Viennese contrapuntal style. The sonatas for three violins published by Giuseppe Antonio Avitrano appears as a unique case of printed instrumental music in Naples, realized thanks to influential aristocratic patronage, in a market that suffered from the absence of a significant middle-class amateur performers.

Musical life in nineteenth-century Wales was characterised by the active dissemination of ideas through the publishing of original Welsh music and musical journals. The latter in particular sought to educate as well as to inform, at a time when formal musical education at college or conservatoire was not available. The growth of musical education in Wales was greatly assisted by the emergence of tonic sol-fa as a popular medium, which in turn supported the growth of congregational and choral singing. The chapter discusses the significance of these developments and the extent to which they fostered a Welsh musical tradition. The first part of the chapter considers the relationship between religion, music and education by examining a range of landmark publications, including Cyfaill mewn Llogell (1797). The second part examines the influence of the tonic sol-fa notation system and its popularity in Wales, considering how educational and religious aims coalesced with technological developments to embed the system in the popular musical culture of Welsh communities. It also considers the reasons why some musicians viewed the system negatively and saw it as limiting the progress of Welsh musical practice. The chapter concludes with a survey of music publishing and sales in Wales in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.

This chapter introduces the two principal forms of polyphony practiced during the Renaissance: written and extemporized. The transition from manuscript to print culture is perhaps the most significant extramusical determinant for musical practice in the Renaissance period. Examples of manuscript and printed sources (including different kinds of written sources) are examined, and their implications for practice considered. Next, different forms of extemporized practices are introduced and described, including the surviving evidence for them; in turn, their implications for polyphony as a practice are considered. Finally, the two forms of practice are compared, and the relationship between the two. It is clear that most teachers of the time regarded them as interdependent, while viewing the relationship differently.