A comedy of Aristophanes was in large measure a musical performance, and his lyric verse covers a wide range of styles - from popular song to parody of tragedy. The music is lost, and our only way of recovering something of the experience of an Athenian audience is by studying the rhythms of the poetry. This book provides a full text, with scansions, of the lyric of the surviving plays, and an introduction to the different rhythms used by Aristophanes, their origins, and literary associations. Dr Parker pays particular attention to showing the role played by lyric metre in the structure of the plays and to distinguishing the different levels of musical style, thus illustrating the integral part metre plays in Aristophanes' dramatic art and satire. She also discusses fully the metrical aspects of textual problems in Aristophanes' lyric, and a section of the introduction traces the evolution of the study of Aristophanes' metres and the influence this has on the text.

Text and Act, a collection of essays and reviews published over the last dozen years, offers a brilliant evaluation of the early music movement, transforming the debate about `early music' and `authenticity'. Taking a wide-ranging cultural view of the phenomenon, Taruskin shows that the movement, far from reviving ancient traditions, in fact represents the only truly modern style of performance on offer today, and is therefore far more valuable and authentic than the historical verisimilitude it ostensibly aims at could ever be.

No change has had a more profound influence on the development of music-making over the last two decades than the growth of the historical performance movement. The notion that we can - and indeed should - perform music in the manner its composers intended has led to a search for original methods and styles of performance. At first this was the pursuit of a small coterie, but in recent years the explosion of popular interest in what has been called the 'authenticity' movement has led to a sea-change in our listening habits. Performances on period instruments are now supplanting those on modern instruments in some central areas of the classical repertory, and by many this is perceived as a threat. For the first time, this book explores the thinking behind the search for so-called authenticity in musical performance, and questions some of the received opinions about its worth and purpose. The contributors include critics Nicholas Kenyon of Early Music and Will Crutchfield of the New York Times, alongside Howard Mayer Brown, Philip Brett, Robert P. Morgan, Richard Taruskin, and Gary Tomlinson, all of them experts in their field. The variety of views expressed is sure to provoke wide discussion and to stimulate new thought among both scholars and performers about the future of the historical performance movement.

In the fourteenth century composers and theorists invented mensuration and proportion signs that allowed them increased flexibility and precision in notating a wide range of rhythmic and metric relationships. The origin and interpretation of these signs is one of the least understood and most complex issues in music history. This study represents the first attempt to see the origin of musical mensuration and proportion signs in the context of other measuring systems of the fourteenth century. Berger analyzes the exact meaning of every mensuration and proportion sign in music and theory from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, and offers revisions of many currently-held views concerning the significance and development of early time signatures.

Beating Time & Measuring Music in the Early Modern Era chronicles the shifting relationships between ideas about time in music and science from the sixteenth through the early nineteenth centuries. Centered on theories of musical meter, the book investigates the interdependence between theories of meter and conceptualizations of time from the age of Zarlino to the invention of the metronome. These formulations have evolved throughout the history of Western music, reflecting fundamental reevaluations not only of music but also of time itself. Drawing on paradigms from the history of science and technology and the history of philosophy, author Roger Mathew Grant illustrates ways in which theories of meter and time, informed by one another, have manifested themselves in the field of music. During the long eighteenth century, treatises on subjects such as aesthetics, music theory, mathematics, and natural philosophy began to reflect an understanding of time as an absolute quantity, independent of events. This gradual but conclusive change had a profound impact on the network of ideas connecting time, meter, character, and tempo. Investigating the impacts of this change, Grant explores the timekeeping techniques - musical and otherwise - that implemented this conceptual shift, both technologically and materially. Bringing together diverse strands of thought in a broader intellectual history of temporality, Grant's study fills an unexpected yet conspicuous gap in the history of music theory, and is essential reading for music theorists and composers as well as historical musicologists and practitioners of historically informed performance.

Although music was an essential part of Freek and Roman culture, modern introductions to the subject have often tended to be too general for the serious reader or too technical for all but the specilist. Aimed at a wider audience, this book offers a survey of Greek and Roman music from earliest times through the Roman imperial period. Drawing upon the full range of ancient source materials, from Plato and Aristotle to the latest papyrus finds, Comotti examines such topics as musical form and style, instruments, poet-composers, and the role of music in ancient society. First published in Italy in 1979, Music in Greek and Roman Culture now appears in a revised and expanded Englsh translation in paperback.

This is the only up-to-date and comprehensive book on plainchant, the oldest substantial body of music that has come down to us. A fully illustrated and self-contained survey of all aspects of plainchant, it includes the liturgy, musical forms and styles, types of chant book, notation, theory, and a historical survey tracing the spread of plainchant throughout medieval Europe down to our times.

Life in ancient Greece was musical life. Soloists competed onstage for popular accolades, becoming centrepieces for cultural conversation and even leading Plato to recommend that certain forms of music be banned from his ideal society. And the music didn't stop when the audience left the theatre: melody and rhythm were woven into the whole fabric of daily existence for the Greeks. Vocal and instrumental songs were part of religious rituals, dramatic performances, dinner parties, and even military campaigns. Like Detroit in the 1960s or Vienna in the 18th century, Athens in the 400s BC was the hotspot where celebrated artists collaborated and diverse strands of musical tradition converged. The conversations and innovations that unfolded there would lay the groundwork for musical theory and practice in Greece and Rome for centuries to come. In this perfectly pitched introduction, Spencer Klavan explores Greek music's origins, forms, and place in society. In recent years, state-of-the-art research and digital technology have enabled us to decipher and understand Greek music with unprecedented precision. Yet many readers today cannot access the resources that would enable them to grapple with this richly rewarding subject. Arcane technical details and obscure jargon veil the subject - it is rarely known, for instance, that authentic melodies still survive from antiquity, helping us to imagine the vivid soundscapes of the Classical and Hellenistic eras. Music in Ancient Greece distills the latest discoveries into vivid prose so readers can come to grips with the basics as never before. With the tools in this book, beginners and specialists alike will learn to hear the ancient world afresh and come away with a new, musical perspective on their favourite classical texts.

"In this study in 'musical archeology, ' James McKinnon reveals one of the most important layers in the early development of Gregorian chant. With equal attention to musical and ritual practicalities, McKinnon applies an unusual combination of scholary skill and sensitivity to reconstruct how words and melodies might have been assigned to the whole church year, beginning with Advent. If liturgy is 'people doing things for which they have forgotten the reasons, ' McKinnon shows us some of the reasons for the creation of the Gregorgian Proper chants of the mass."--Richard Crocker, author of "An Introduction to Gregorian Chant

"[It] is so richly imagined and so well supported with facts and argument that the reader is compelled by its plausibility even while remembering that (s)he is peering behind what has often been depicted as an impenetrable curtain. McKinnon uses his exceptional knowledge of the sources of late antiquity, common sense, imagination and persistent belief that the story ought to make sense to piece together the history of Christian chant from 200 to 800 as one might piece together the shards of a hopelessly smashed ancient artifact. The results are simply stunning."--Edward Nowacki, University of Cincinnati

"Simply one of the half-dozen most important works of chant scholarship in the entire twentieth century. The scholarship in the book is not just superior. It borders on the inspired."--Alejandro Planchart, editor of the "Beneventanum Troporum Corpus"

In this groundbreaking work, Claude Calame argues that the songs sung by choruses of young girls in ancient Greek poetry are more than literary texts; rather, they functioned as initiatory rituals in Greek cult practices. Using semiotic and anthropologic theory, Calame reconstructs the religious and social institutions surrounding the songs, demonstrating their function in an aesthetic education that permitted the young girls to achieve the stature of womanhood and to be integrated into the adult civic community. This first English edition includes an updated bibliography.

Written in 1303-05, when Dante was in political exile from his native Florence, "De vulgari eloquentia" addresses the problem of how to raise the Italian language to the status of Latin in the esteem of the literate public. It is the fullest and most important document concerning vernacular writing in the Middle Ages2;indeed, the earliest work of literary criticism dealing with a vernacular language. Marianne Shapiro offers the most detailed discussion in English of "De vulgari eloquentia," whose form and spirit reflect Dante's political unrest and alienation. Hers is the first work in any language to analyze and explain the meaning of the grammatical and rhetorical terminology that Dante used in his treatise. And because her translation2;included here2;is based on a thorough exegesis of that terminology, it will be recognized as definitive.
Shapiro7;s translation will be of special interest to medievalists and to serious readers of "The Divine Comedy," In a later section, she considers the less precursors of Dante as a writer of the 0;Romance idiom1; and their influence on him. Then she concentrates on the least studied aspects of the treatise in order to reveal its profound affiliations with late medieval grammatical investigations2;it is possible to see in Dante 0;a grammarian beneath the poet.1; Her conclusion summarizes the apparent textual contradictions and the significance. Thus, this book provides a thorough historical, philosophical, and rhetorical context for "De vulgari eloquentia" and a new English translation that is enriched by that scholarship.

Interest in the authentic performance of early music has grown dramatically in recent years, and scholarly investigation has particularly benefited the study of keyboard music of the classical period. In this landmark publication, the most comprehensive study written on Haydn's keyboard sonatas, Laszlo Somfai offers an unorthodox approach to the interpretation of this repertory. Somfai focuses on the true "acoustic form" that Haydn intended in these works. He begins with a thorough study of Haydn's instruments - the harpsichord, the Viennese fortepiano, and the English piano - and their development. After recommending instruments appropriate for modern use, he discusses performance practice and style, explains the peculiarities of Haydn's manuscripts in the context of eighteenth-century notation, and provides specific suggestions for playing ornaments, improvising, slurring, and dynamics. The second part of the study investigates Haydn's sonata genres within their historical context and discusses the problems of establishing a chronology of their composition. Finally, Somfai analyzes the organization and style of each musical form. The book also includes an index listing the sonatas by date of first publication, and an extensive bibliography.