The use of integrated time-signature changes in eighteenth-century music has received little attention, probably because it is not considered a significant part of an eighteenth-century composer's toolkit. If mixed metre is discussed at all, it is linked with the late eighteenth-century conceptual shifts in metric theory brought about by Johann Philipp Kirnberger's circle. There exists, however, a substantial repertory of mixed-metre pieces from the first two thirds of the eighteenth century, with many examples to be found in the works of Georg Philipp Telemann. This repertory destabilizes any direct connection between mixed metre and the so-called Akzenttheorie, reminding us that the relationship between theory and practice at this time was far from straightforward. Beyond setting out how early eighteenth-century mixed metre operated within and against contemporary understandings of musical time, this article explores aspects of the origins, function and performance of these remarkable pieces.

Among its various ancient and extra-European examples, the celebrated Plate N of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Dictionnaire de musique includes a melody of Chinese provenance. Scholars have proposed three possible sources for the melody: Jean-Joseph-Marie Amiot, Jean-Baptiste Du Halde and the Abbé Prévost. By synthesizing the known sources and introducing additional archival evidence I establish that Rousseau took the melody from Du Halde, not Prévost – and definitely not Amiot. Along the way, I provide an account of Amiot's extant manuscripts and their circulation in Enlightenment Paris. These details begin to suggest the broader panorama of the French Enlightenment's encounter with China and the networks of trade, diplomacy and proselytization that facilitated it.

The analysis of a forgotten source sheds light on the early history of the cello in seventeenth-century Naples. The manuscript MS 2-D-13, held in the library of the Montecassino Abbey, dates from around 1699 and contains two unknown cello sonatas by Giovanni Bononcini, together with passacaglias, sonatas for two ‘violas’ and elaborations over antiphons by Gaetano Francone and Rocco Greco, two prominent string performers and teachers in Naples. A study of this remarkable source helps to clarify the nomenclature of the bass violins in use in the city and offers new evidence on the practice of continuo realization at the cello, as well as on the connections with partimento practice. This collection is thus of critical importance for a discussion of the technical achievements and developments of the cello repertory in Naples before the emergence of the celebrated generation of Neapolitan cello virtuosi in the early years of the eighteenth century.

Recent studies propose that J. S. Bach established ‘parallel proportions’ in his music – ratios of the lengths of movements or of pieces in a collection intended to reflect the perfection of divine creation. Before we assign meaning to the number of bars in a work, we need to understand the mathematical and musical basis of the claim.

First we need to decide what a ‘bar’ is and what constitutes a ‘movement’. We have explicit evidence from Bach on these points for Bach's 1733 Dresden Missa, and his own tallies do not agree with those in the theory. There are many ways to count, and the numbers of movements or bars are analytical results dependent on choices by the analyst, not objective data.

Next, chance turns out to play an enormous role in ‘parallel proportions’. Under certain constraints almost any set of random numbers that adds up to an even total can be partitioned to show a proportion, with likelihoods better than ninety-five per cent in sets that resemble the Missa. These relationships are properties of numbers, not musical works. We thus need to ask whether any apparent proportion is the result of Bach's design or is simply a statistically inevitable result, and the answer is clearly the latter. For pieces or sets with fewer movements the odds are less overwhelming, but the subjective nature of counting and the possibility of silently choosing from among many possibilities make even these results questionable.

Theories about the number of bars in Bach's music and possible meanings are interpretative, not factual, and thus resistant to absolute disproof. But a mathematical result of the kind claimed for ‘parallel proportions’ is essentially assured even for random sets of numbers, and that makes it all but impossible to label such relationships as intentional and meaningful.

During the second half of the eighteenth century the Spanish guitar reached a level of popularity in France not equalled elsewhere. Among the various composers who contributed to the vogue for the instrument in this country, sources of the period refer to a certain Mr Vidal, a guitarist of Spanish origins who was regarded as one of the most important masters of the guitar in Europe. Despite multiple references to his musical activities no extensive study has yet been made, which leaves this figure only partially studied. In order to address this lacuna, this article reconstructs the life of this guitarist, placing his music in the environment in which he lived in order to obtain a clearer picture of the situation of the guitar and the role of Vidal as a composer, guitarist, publisher and teacher.

The ‘Amenda anecdote’ from 1856 associates the second movement of Beethoven's String Quartet Op. 18 No. 1 (Adagio affettuoso ed appassionato) with the vault scene of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Sketchbook jottings by Beethoven from 1799, in French, confirm that such a link really existed. The question of what incited him to represent in his music elements of Shakepeare has not been settled to any satisfaction. It seems unlikely that Beethoven read a French version of the play. Nor can a public theatrical or operatic staging have been the stimulus, for the original vault scene was not allowed to be performed by the authorities. This study approaches the Shakespeare connection from the perspective of a cultural practice that has received limited attention in the literature, that of Viennese Haustheater. A performance of the vault scene in this context, it is argued, informed Beethoven's quartet movement. The most crucial piece of evidence are the memoirs of Caroline Pichler, which mention a tableau given at her parents’ house at the end of eighteenth century. One of the claims of the study is that Beethoven's Shakespeare connection was a one-time digression from normal practice, and that it is thus hazardous to draw this particular event into a wider hermeneutic debate.

The last two decades have seen the opening of several new paths in eighteenth-century musicology, and Robert O. Gjerdingen has opened one of these: schema theory. Schemata are ‘stock musical phrases employed in conventional sequences’ that function as harmonic, melodic and rhythmic frameworks for musical passages. Evidence of such schematic thinking has emerged through related studies on partimento and solfeggio. Solfeggio practice of the time manifests a schematic way of thinking about music, being mostly based on simple hexachordal patterns which, as studies progressed, could be embellished in different ways. Vasili Byros has addressed the ‘archaeology’ of hearing through reception history, and offered strong evidence that eighteenth-century ears did hear schemata. Interweaving corpus studies on music of the long eighteenth century (1720–1840), contemporary music criticism and reception history, as well as didactic documents from that era, Byros sheds new light on the ways in which schemata were perceived at the time. A recent contribution by Gilad Rabinovitch uses a live improvisation in the style of Mozart by Robert Levin to demonstrate the importance of conventional schemata for historical improvisation.