Cambridge University Press

The book is especially valuable because the author examines both the social and musical history of the guitar. Studies that focus just on one instrument can be sincere but dull, their pages... — Early Music America More…

This carefully structured and tightly argued book belongs on the priority list of all who study European courts...important and rich — Renaissance Quarterly More…

[a] thoroughly engrossing book, recommended to both musician and historian — Classical Music More…

This valuable book is an outstanding example of interdisciplinary scholarship that incorporates music sources, art and artifacts, and politics and addresses far more than its title suggests.... — Renaissance Quarterly More…

Hallman is successful in creating a vivid account of the complicated political and cultural diversity of mid-nineteenth-century Paris. ... a thoroughly researched and well-written text — Nineteenth-Century Music Review More…

The Free Fantasia and the Musical Picturesque is a major contribution to the study of eighteenth-century music ... packed with intriguing insights, appropriate excerpts of music and elegant... — Eighteenth-Century Music More…