A Performer's Guide to Seventeenth-Century Music

A Performer's Guide to Seventeenth-Century Music
Author: Stewart Carter
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 558
Release: 2012-03-21
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0253005280

Revised and expanded, A Performer's Guide to Seventeenth Century Music is a comprehensive reference guide for students and professional musicians. The book contains useful material on vocal and choral music and style; instrumentation; performance practice; ornamentation, tuning, temperament; meter and tempo; basso continuo; dance; theatrical production; and much more. The volume includes new chapters on the violin, the violoncello and violone, and the trombone—as well as updated and expanded reference materials, internet resources, and other newly available material. This highly accessible handbook will prove a welcome reference for any musician or singer interested in historically informed performance.

Music Theory in Seventeenth-century England

Music Theory in Seventeenth-century England
Author: Rebecca Herissone
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2000
Genre: Music
ISBN: 9780198167006

Thus, over the course of the seventeenth century, there occurred a complete transformation in almost every aspect of theory: by the 1720s, many of the principles being described bore close relation to those still used today. Nowhere was this metamorphosis clearer than in England where, because of a traditional emphasis on practicality, there was much more willingness to accept and encourage new theoretical ideas than on the continent.

David Starkey's Music and Monarchy

David Starkey's Music and Monarchy
Author: David Starkey
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 388
Release: 2013-07-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 1448141095

For the kings and queens of England, a trumpet fanfare or crash of cymbals could be as vital a weapon as a cannon. Showcasing a monarch’s power, prestige and taste, music has been the lifeblood of many a royal dynasty. From sacred choral works to soaring symphonies, Music and Monarchy looks at how England’s character was shaped by its music. To David Starkey and Katie Greening, works like Handel’s Water Music and Tallis’s Mass for Four Voices were more than entertainment – they were pieces signalling political intent, wealth and ambition. Starkey and Greening examine England’s most iconic musical works to demonstrate how political power has been a part of musical composition for centuries. Many of our current musical motifs of nationhood, whether it’s the Last Night of the Proms or football terraces erupting in song, have their origins in the way the crown has shaped the national soundtrack. Published to coincide with a major BBC series, Music and Monarchy is not a book about music. It is a history of England written in music, from our leading royal historian.

Reader's Guide to Music

Reader's Guide to Music
Author: Murray Steib
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 2624
Release: 2013-12-02
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1135942692

The Reader's Guide to Music is designed to provide a useful single-volume guide to the ever-increasing number of English language book-length studies in music. Each entry consists of a bibliography of some 3-20 titles and an essay in which these titles are evaluated, by an expert in the field, in light of the history of writing and scholarship on the given topic. The more than 500 entries include not just writings on major composers in music history but also the genres in which they worked (from early chant to rock and roll) and topics important to the various disciplines of music scholarship (from aesthetics to gay/lesbian musicology).

Musical Creativity in Restoration England

Musical Creativity in Restoration England
Author: Rebecca Herissone
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 461
Release: 2013-10-10
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1107292328

Musical Creativity in Restoration England is the first comprehensive investigation of approaches to creating music in late seventeenth-century England. Understanding creativity during this period is particularly challenging because many of our basic assumptions about composition - such as concepts of originality, inspiration and genius - were not yet fully developed. In adopting a new methodology that takes into account the historical contexts in which sources were produced, Rebecca Herissone challenges current assumptions about compositional processes and offers new interpretations of the relationships between notation, performance, improvisation and musical memory. She uncovers a creative culture that was predominantly communal, and reveals several distinct approaches to composition, determined not by individuals, but by the practical function of the music. Herissone's new and original interpretations pose a fundamental challenge to our preconceptions about what it meant to be a composer in the seventeenth century and raise broader questions about the interpretation of early modern notation.

On the Origin and Progress of the Art of Music by John Taverner

On the Origin and Progress of the Art of Music by John Taverner
Author: Joseph M. Ortiz
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 302
Release: 2018-09-13
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1351799002

John Taverner’s lectures on music constitute the only extant version of a complete university course in music in early modern England. Originally composed in 1611 in both English and Latin, they were delivered at Gresham College in London between 1611 and 1638, and it is likely that Taverner intended at some point to publish the lectures in the form of a music treatise. The lectures, which Taverner collectively titled De Ortu et Progressu Artis Musicæ ("On the Origin and Progress of the Art of Music"), represent a clear attempt to ground musical education in humanist study, particularly in Latin and Greek philology. Taverner’s reliance on classical and humanist writers attests to the durability of music’s association with rhetoric and philology, an approach to music that is too often assigned to early Tudor England. Taverner is also a noteworthy player in the seventeenth-century Protestant debates over music, explicitly defending music against Reformist polemicists who see music as an overly sensuous activity. In this first published edition of Taverner’s musical writings, Joseph M. Ortiz comprehensively introduces, edits, and annotates the text of the lectures, and an appendix contains the existing Latin version of Taverner’s text. By shedding light on a neglected figure in English Renaissance music history, this edition is a significant contribution to the study of musical thought in Renaissance England, humanism, Protestant Reformism, and the history of education.

Historical Dictionary of Choral Music

Historical Dictionary of Choral Music
Author: Melvin P. Unger
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 699
Release: 2023-08-14
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1538124343

A Library Journal Starred Review (March 2024) praises the book as a "remarkable resource that will please both musical professionals and amateurs, along with teachers and their students, and conductors and singers.” Throughout the ages, people have wanted to sing in a communal context. This desire apparently stems from a deeply rooted human instinct. Consequently, choral performance historically has often been related to human rituals and ceremonies, especially rites of a religious nature. Historical Dictionary of Choral Music, Second Edition contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 1,300 cross-referenced entries on composers, conductors, choral ensembles, choral genres, and choral repertoire. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about choral music.

Hexachords in Late-Renaissance Music

Hexachords in Late-Renaissance Music
Author: Lionel Pike
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2019-05-23
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0429762550

First published in 1998, this broad survey includes a large number of musical illustrations and provides an indispensable guide for both students and teachers. Hexachords and solmization syllables formed the foundations of musical language during the sixteenth century. Yet, owing to changes over time in music education and style, there no longer exists widespread general knowledge of hexachords. Without this awareness it is impossible to appreciate fully the music of the most important composers of the Renaissance such as Palestrina, Lasso and Monteverdi. This book is the first attempt to fill such a gap in our understanding of hexachords and how they were employed in late-Renaissance music. Lionel Pike’s research covers the period from Willaert to Dowland (c. 1530-1600) and examines the ways in which the uses of hexachords developed in the hands of different composers. The book concludes with an investigation of English examples of hexachords in vocal and instrumental music.