PETER HOLMAN is Emeritus Professor of Historical Musicology at Leeds University. When not occupied with writing and research, he organises performances of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century music, mostly directing them from the keyboard. He is director of The Parley of Instruments, Leeds Baroque, the Suffolk Villages Festival and the annual Baroque Summer School run by Cambridge Early Music.

• To Beat or Not to Beat: The Continental Context1. 'Heard but not Seen': Leading Anglican Cathedral Music from the Organ2. 'With a Scroll of Parchment or Paper, in Hand': Large-Scale Choral Music3. 'Accompanied all along on the Organ by his Own Inimitable Hand': Handel and the Direction of his Oratorios4. 'The Conductor at the Organ': The Oratorio Tradition after Handel5. 'That Ridiculous Custom': From Devolved Direction to CentralizedTime-Beating in Seventeenth-Century Theatre Music6. 'Il maestro al cembalo': Directing Opera and Theatre Music from the Harpsichord7. 'A New Discipline and a New Style of Playing': Directing Opera and Theatre Music from the Violin8. 'That Powerful Sovereign, the Conductor': From the Piano to the RostrumSuperconductors or Semiconductors? Lessons for Today

This beautifully produced volume is a remarkable achievement - clearly the outcome of exhaustive, wide-ranging research. a stimulating and thought provoking read.