1st Edition
Music in Medieval Europe Studies in Honour of Bryan Gillingham
This book presents the most recent findings of twenty of the foremost European and North American researchers into the music of the Middle Ages. The chronological scope of their topics is wide, from the ninth to the fifteenth century. Wide too is the range of the subject matter: included are essays on ecclesiastical chant, early and late (and on the earliest and latest of its supernumerary tropes, monophonic and polyphonic); on the innovative and seminal polyphony of Notre-Dame de Paris, and the Latin poetry associated with the great cathedral; on the liturgy of Paris, Rome and Milan; on musical theory; on the emotional reception of music near the end of the medieval period and the emergence of modern sensibilities; even on methods of encoding the melodies that survive from the Middle Ages, encoding that makes it practical to apply computer-assisted analysis to their vast number. The findings presented in this book will be of interest to those engaged by music and the liturgy, active researchers and students. All the papers are carefully and extensively documented by references to medieval sources.
Biography
Terence Bailey is Professor Emeritus at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. Alma Santosuosso is Professor at Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada.
A treasury of current research in the history of medieval music! Twenty studies by established scholars, each reporting with an individual approach and method, each with a passionate interest in the subject. Taken together, the studies present a full range of recent scholarly achievement in the field, revealing the richly varied tapestry of medieval music that has come to light during the twentieth century. Topics range from thought-provoking meditations on perennial fundamental questions to intense engagement with the detail of materials both familiar and unfamiliar, including liturgical practices and musical traditions in specific times and places, life histories and fortunes of specific manuscripts, developments in musical style and practice, theory of monophonic and polyphonic music. At every turn these materials are treated with an eagerness to experience music as it was made in the Middle Ages. Richard L. Crocker ’Essays on liturgical chant, polyphony, music theory, and computer-assisted analysis of melodic phrases are just some of the fascinating inclusions in this book, which is a seminal addition to the literature on medieval music. Highly recommended.’ Choice ’There are 20 contributions here, many by distinguished scholars - a tribute to Gillingham's distinction as scholar and publisher.’ Early Music Review ’The volume under review feels almost like a birthday present for every reader, not just for the dedicatee; it is the sort of book over whose contents page one lingers for awhile before sampling a sentence or two of particularly attractive-looking essays, and finally settling down to devouring the volume from cover to cover... It is an essential addition to any university library, and to the private library of any musicologist specializing in the early medieval period. The range of topics is wide, encompassing many of the primary concerns of scholars in the field. I have rarely encountered a collection whose essays are of such consist
