Topics are musical signs that rely on associations with different genres, styles, and types of music making. The concept of topics was introduced by Leonard Ratner in the 1980s to account for cross-references between eighteenth-century styles and genres. While music theorists and critics were busy classifying styles and genres, defining their affects and proper contexts for their usage, composers started crossing the boundaries between them and using stylistic conventions as means of communication with the audience. Such topical mixtures received negative evaluations from North-German critics but became the hallmark of South-German music, which engulfed the Viennese classicism. Topic theory allows music scholars to gain access to meaning and expression of this music. The Oxford Handbook of Topic Theory consolidates this field of research by clarifying its basic concepts and exploring its historical foundations. The volume grounds the concept of topics in eighteenth-century music theory, aesthetics, and criticism. Documenting historical reality of individual topics on the basis of eighteenth-century sources, it relates topical analysis to other methods of music analysis conducted from the perspectives of composers, performers, and listeners. With a focus on eighteenth-century musical repertoire, The Oxford Handbook of Topic Theory lays the foundation under further investigation of topics in music of the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Danuta Mirka Section I. Origins and Distinctions Chapter 1. Topics and Opera Buffa Mary Hunter Chapter 2. Symphonies and the Public Display of Topics Elaine Sisman Chapter 3. Topics in Chamber Music Dean Sutcliffe Section II. Contexts, Histories, Sources Chapter 4. Music and Dance in the Ancien Régime Lawrence Zbikowski Chapter 5. Ballroom Dances of the Late Eighteenth Century Eric McKee Chapter 6. Hunt, Military, and Pastoral Topics Andrew Haringer Chapter 7. Turkish and Hungarian-Gypsy Styles Catherine Mayes Chapter 8. The Singing Style Sarah Day-O'Connell Chapter 9. Fantasia and Sensibility Matthew Head Chapter 10. Ombra and Tempesta Clive McClelland Chapter 11. Learned Style and Learned Styles Keith Chapin Chapter 12. The Brilliant Style Roman Ivanovitch Section III. Analysing Topics Chapter 13. Topics and Meter Danuta Mirka Chapter 14. Topics and Harmonic Schemata: A Case from Beethoven Vasili Byros Chapter 15. Topics and Formal Functions: The Case of the Lament William Caplin Chapter 16. Topics and Tonal Processes Joel Galand Chapter 17. Topics and Form in Mozart's String Quintet in E flat major, K. 614/i Kofi Agawu Chapter 18. Topical Figurae: The Double Articulation of Topics Stephen Rumph Chapter 19. The Troping of Topics in Mozart's Instrumental Works Robert Hatten Section IV. Performing Topics Chapter 20. Performing Topics in Mozart's Chamber Music with Piano John Irving Chapter 21. Recognizing Musical Topics vs. Executing Rhetorical Figures Tom Beghin Chapter 22. Eloquent Performance: The Pronuntiatio of Topics Sheila Guymer Section V. Listening to Topics Chapter 23. Amateur Topical Competencies Melanie Lowe Chapter 24. Expectation, Musical Topics, and the Problem of Affective Differentiation Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis Chapter 25. Listening to Topics in the Nineteenth Century Julian Horton