Chapter One reviews published material that discusses seventeenth- and eighteenth-century repertoire appropriate for secondary school vocal ensembles. The chapter also defines categories of performance practice in literature dedicated to Baroque and Classical score interpretation. Information is gathered from professional journal articles, choral methods textbooks, choral anthologies, and interpretive guides. Music representing a balance between genres, national styles, and texts of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is then identified in order to demonstrate various performance principles in the final chapter. Categories of performance practice common to the chosen Baroque and Classical interpretative guides is also identified.

Chapter Two investigates the way editors change scores for publication and compares different editions of one of the representative pieces in order to demonstrate and evaluate how useful each edition is to the performer. This evaluation is based on consistency with the intentions of the composer as indicated in the original score.

This document presents pertinent ideas for the interpretation of selected secondary-school level choral repertoire from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Primary source material is used as the basis for the interpretive advice.

Chapter Four gives performance advice for the chosen repertoire using the information related by primary sources. Excerpts from the scores are included in the body of the chapter, and markings are made in the music so the reader can see the performance suggestions as part of the notation.

Chapter Three contains an overview of important seventeenth- and eighteenth-century performance practice concepts along with pertinent ideas for introducing those concepts to secondary level performers. Using primary source quotations, the chapter seeks to give basic and direct solutions to common problems of interpreting early music. This chapter is not a comprehensive discussion to performance practice problems, but is an introductory platform for early music interpretive techniques.