Ancients and moderns -- Theatrical Baroque -- The art and craft of instrumental music in the early seventeenth century -- Music in civic and religious ritual -- Opera in Venice and beyond -- Power and pleasure at the court of Louis XIV -- Music in seventeenth-century England -- Music and education -- Academies, salons, and music societies -- Rome in the age of the Arcadian Academy -- Parisians and their music in the eighteenth century -- Music in city, court, and church in the Holy Roman Empire -- The London of Handel and Hogarth -- Postlude and prelude.