The Ceremonial Musicians of Late Medieval Florence follows the development of Florentine musical ensembles, describing their duties and repertories, placing them in their political and social context, and tracing their changes through the years of the Florentine Republic. From the 13th through the 16th centuries, the city of Florence was the most powerful in Europe. It was a center of finance and trade, as well as art and music. The Republic employed musicians to perform for the enormous number of ceremonial events each year. These musicians were the most visible (and audible) symbols of Florence, playing a major role in displaying the majestic image of the city. Their story, repertory, high-profile involvement in the daily life of the city, and close involvement with the Medici add a new dimension to the history of late-medieval Florence.

Medieval music has been made and remade over the past two hundred years. For the nineteenth century it was vocal, without instrumental accompaniment, but with barbarous harmony that no one could have wished to hear. For most of the twentieth century it was instrumentally accompanied, increasingly colourful and increasingly enjoyed. At the height of its popularity it sustained an industry of players and instrument makers, all engaged in recreating an apparently medieval performance practice. During the 1980s it became vocal once more, exchanging colour and contrast for cleanliness and beauty. But what happens to produce such radical changes of perspective? And what can we learn from them about the way we interact with the past? How much is really known about the way medieval music sounded? Or have modern beliefs been formed and sustained less by evidence than the personalities of scholars and performers, their ideologies and their musical tastes?

This is the first book to survey the performing practices in English choral music in the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, including the period of the English Reformation. The essays, all written by specialists in the field, consider in depth such areas as the growth and development of the 'church' choir, related issues of vocal tessitura, performing pitch, the systems of pronunciation appropriate for Latin- and English-texted music, and the day-to-day training of choristers. There is also an investigation of the local circumstances under which many of the important manuscripts of the period were compiled, which reveals an unsuspectedly close interrelationship between domestic music and music for the church. In addition, a study of surviving sources reveals that they give little more than a general guide as to their composers' and copyists' intentions.

The "Musica duorum" of the composer Eustachio Romano, also known as Eustachius de Macionibus, was issued in Rome in 1521. Estachio, who was a nobleman as well as a composer, dedicated this volume to the future Pope Julius III, offering these small chamber works to refresh the prelate's spirits when he tired of weightier studies. These light, playful duos were collected in the first publication ever devoted entirely to music for instrumental ensemble.

This is an excellent reference volume including essays on all aspects of medieval music performance. With forty essays written by experts in the field on everything from repertoire, voices and instruments to basic theory, all aspects of recreation are treated. This guide has already proven indispensable to performers and scholars of medieval music. Chapters on vocal and choral music; various types of ensembles; profiles of specific instruments; instrumentation; performance practice issues; theory; dance; regional profiles of Renaissance music, and guidelines for directors are all treated. It is a comprehensive and authoritative reference by leading performers in the field for a variety of enthusiasts.

This groundbreaking anthology brings together for the first time the works of women poet-composers, or trouveres, in northern France in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Refuting the long-held notion that there are no extant Old French lyrics by women from this period, the editors of the volume present songs attributed to eight named female trouveres along with a varied selection of anonymous compositions in the feminine voice that may have been composed by women. The book includes the Old French texts of seventy-five compositions, extant music for eighteen monophonic songs and nineteen polyphonic motets, English translations, and a substantial introduction.

Florence Cathedral, familiarly called Il Duomo, is an architectural masterpiece and home to celebrated works of art. The interrelationship between the brilliant art and architecture and the Cathedral's musical program is explored in depth in this beautiful book. Perhaps the most beloved example is Luca della Robbia's sculptural program for the organ loft, comprising ten sculptural relief panels that depict children singing, dancing, and making music. Luca's charming sculptures are examined alongside luxurious illuminated manuscripts commissioned for musical performances. Essays by distinguished scholars provide new insights into the original function and meaning of Luca's sculptures; organs and organists during the 15th century; the roles played by women and girls-as well as men and boys-in making music throughout Renaissance Florence; and the Cathedral's illuminated choir books. Published in association with the High Museum of Art, Atlanta Exhibition Schedule: High Museum of Art, Atlanta (10/25/14-01/11/15) Detroit Institute of Arts (02/06/15-05/17/15)

This comprehensive collection of essays offers an overview of scholarly and analytical approaches toward the motet in its most varied incarnations from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century. Featuring essays from the top scholars in the field, including Paula Higgins, Craig Monson, Patrick Macey, Anne Walters Robertson, Jessie Ann Owens, Margaret Bent, and Joshua Rifkin, this collection offers, through insightful reading of specific motets and motet repertoires, a broad-ranging analysis of the function and context of the motet in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

Composers at Work is the first comprehensive and systematic study of compositional process in Renaissance music. Owens draws on documentary, manuscript, and theoretical evidence to construct a striking new explanation of how composers actually worked. Through a study of autograph sketches, drafts, and fair copies of composers such as Henricus Isaac, Cipriano de Rore, Francesco Corteccia, and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Owens reveals a process of working in separate parts, line by line, and not in full score, as in our modern editions. This discovery has major implications for the analysis, editorial interpretation, and performance of early music.

Although Saint Cecilia is venerated throughout the Western world as the patron saint of music and Raphael's famous painting The Ecstasy of Saint Cecilia is filled with musical iconography, the ancient origins of Cecilia's association with music have long been shrouded in mystery. This book, a masterful investigation of the Cecilian cult from its beginnings in Christian antiquity down to the Renaissance, explains how Cecilia came to be linked with music and offers a new interpretation of Raphael's painting. Thomas Connolly finds the key to the mystery in a theme he identifies as "mourning-into-joy." This theme, rooted in the Bible and in Aristotle's doctrine of the passions of the soul, became prominent in the visual and literary arts as well as in theology and spirituality and expressed the soul's passages between vice and virtue as a conversion of sadness into joy. According to Connolly, this idea strongly influenced the legend and worship of Saint Cecilia, a model for all who sought spiritual transformation. Connolly argues that the medieval mystical mind saw music as an intimate expression of the experiences of conversion and spiritual growth and that the conjunction of spirit and music became crystallized in the figure of the saint. His explanation not only provides a better understanding of Raphael's work and other Renaissance and Baroque art but also clarifies puzzling literary questions concerning Saint Cecilia, such as Chaucer's treatment of her in "The Second Nun's Tale."

This engaging study introduces Renaissance polyphony to a modern audience. It helps readers of all ages and levels of experience make sense of what they are hearing. How does Renaissance music work? How is a piece typical of its style and type; or, if it is exceptional, what makes it so? The makers of polyphony were keenly aware of the specialized nature of their craft. How is this reflected in the music they wrote, and how were they regarded by their patrons and audiences? Through a combination of detailed, nuanced appreciation of musical style and a lucid overview of current debates, this book offers a glimpse of meanings behind and beyond the notes, be they playful or profound. It will enhance the listening experience of students, performers and music lovers alike.

The chanson Doulce memoire, by Pierre Regnault, "dit Sandrin" (ca. 1490-1561), is a simple melody elegantly wedded to poetry that evokes nostalgia for something everyone has experienced a consuming, passionate love that exists only in bittersweet memory. This chanson was so popular that it was frequently reprinted and arranged in a variety of settings for singers and instrumentalists.

From 36 known arrangements, George Houle has selected 24 versions that require from one to six performers. Lutenists will find intabulations of varying difficulty, and the keyboard pieces range from teh very simple to an elaborate fantasy by Hernando de Cabezon. There are virtuosic arrangements for solo viola da gamba as well as duos and trios for many combinations of voices and instruments.

These settings, coupled with Houle's informative text, illustrate the ways Doulce memoire was performed by Renaissance musicians. Some versions show the players conforming to the ideas of the musical theorists of the day, while others demonstrate how much freedom an individual could exercise. For today's musicians, the anthology provides invaluable information on musica ficta and ornamentation.

Houle's performing edition in modern notation includes both scores and parts, the latter ingeniously laid out so that pages simulataneously required by two performers are never back to back. Thus this appealing music is immediately accessible and in a format that is convenient to use."

Over the past twenty-five years Europe and North America have witnessed an enormous revival of interest in early music. Since the late 1950s numerous professional and amateur ensembles have delighted audiences with the vocal and instrumental music of the twelffth to the sixteenth centuries, while scholars have addressed themselves to the many problems involved in its authentic re-creation. This book unites the two fields; it is both a summary of the most recent scholarly investigations into the subject and a practical guide to the performance of early music based on the experience of the author and others who have performed a sizable portion of the early repertory.

McGee lays out clearly the foundation and background of each of the performance problems, presenting the most recent research and pointing out areas of incomplete knowledge and controversy, and then introduces practical solutions based on the scholarship.

All the topics necessary for a historical performance of early music are discussed: tempo, rhythmic flow, instrumentation, ornamentation, articulation, improvisation, style, and singing technique, along with some practical hints for selecting a program and shoosing substitute instruments. The final chapters is a reference guide to modern editions of the music and an introduction to the scholarly literature on early music performances.

At the time of publication, this book was the first to address the problem of how to perform medieval and Renaissance music. It is intended for both the amateur performing musician and the serious student.

Almost a thousand years of music are treated in this volume on the performance practice of the Middle Ages, covering monophony and polyphony, sacred and secular, genre and theory. The essays selected deal with the most crucial of performers' decisions: pitch, rhythm, and performing forces, as well as related matters such as proportions, tunings, and the need for ornamentation. The introduction provides an overview of the major issues and resources, situating medieval music within the context of the early music revival and the debate on authenticity and providing an extended bibliography of relevant scholarship.

We know what, say, a Josquin mass looks like"but what did it sound like? This is a much more complex and difficult question than it may seem. Kenneth Kreitner has assembled twenty articles, published between 1946 and 2009, by scholars exploring the performance of music from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The collection includes works by David Fallows, Howard Mayer Brown, Christopher Page, Margaret Bent, and others covering the voices-and-instruments debate of the 1980s, the performance of sixteenth-century sacred and secular music, the role of instrumental ensembles, and problems of pitch standards and musica ficta. Together the papers form not just a comprehensive introduction to the issues of renaissance performance practice, but a compendium of clear thinking and elegant writing about a perpetually intriguing period of music history.

For this revised edition of Hildegard's liturgical song cycle, Barbara Newman has redone her prose translations of the songs, updated the bibliography and discography, and made other minor changes. Also included is an essay by Marianne Richert Pfau which delineates the connection between music and text in the Symphonia. Famous throughout Europe during her lifetime, Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) was a composer and a poet, a writer on theological, scientific, and medical subjects, an abbess, and a visionary prophet. One of the very few female composers of the Middle Ages whose work has survived, Hildegard was neglected for centuries until her liturgical song cycle was rediscovered. Songs from it are now being performed regularly by early music groups, and more than twenty compact discs have been recorded.

St Martin of Tours was a protector saint of numerous French kings. His was one of the most successful saintly cults in medieval Europe, and the city of Tours functioned as a religious metropolis, drawing pilgrims from all over the continent. Until now, little has been known about how St Martin came to inspire such a lively folkloric tradition, numerous works of art, and the establishment of thousands of churches and numerous confraternities. In this book, Yossi Maurey addresses these questions by focusing on the church dedicated to the saint in Tours, which acted as the crucible for Martin's cult. Maurey explores the music and liturgy of the cult - the most effective means of its dissemination - to reveal its enormous diffusion and impact. Building a more concrete picture of how saints' cults operated and shaped medieval realities, this book also provides new insights into the interactions between contemporary religion, art and politics.

These two essays were written by Professor Blume for the monumental encyclopedia of which he was the editor, Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart. In the first study he examines the concept of the term 'Renaissance, ' summing up the views of art historians and others; the Renaissance attitude toward music: the treatment of the Renaissance as a period in music history: the various national styles and the types of composition in that period (this section constitutes about half of the essay); and finally the accomplishments of the Renaissance in music.

This collection of nineteen essays presents a broad spectrum of current research that will interest students of medieval music, history, or culture. Topics include a comparison of early chant transmission in Rome and Jerusalem; the relationship between the earliest chant notation and prosodic accents; conceptualizing rhythm in medieval music and poetry; the persistence of Guidonian organum in the later Middle Ages; a connection between Dante and St. Cecilia; and the development of the trecento madrigal. The essays, written by distinguished scholars, stem from a conference in honor of David G. Hughes, professor of medieval music at Harvard University and noted specialist of chant.

Throughout his distinguished career, Philip Brett wrote about the music of the Tudor period. He carried out pathbreaking work on the life and music of William Byrd (c.1540-1623), both as an editor and a historian. He also studied other composers working during the period, including John Taverner, Thomas Tallis, Orlando Gibbons, and Thomas Weelkes. Collecting these influential essays together for the first time, this volume is a tribute to Brett's agile mind and to his incomparable skill at synthesizing history and musical analysis. Byrd was a prominent court composer, but also a Catholic. Besides important instrumental music and English songs, he wrote a great deal of sacred music, some for his Protestant patrons, and some for his fellow Catholics who celebrated mass in secret. Ranging from the report of Brett's findings on the Paston manuscripts, an unpublished round-table paper that he delivered a few months before his untimely death, to his monograph-length study of Byrd's magnum opus, Gradualia, the essays collected here consider both sacred and secular music, and vocal and instrumental traditions, providing an intimate glimpse into what was unique about Byrd and his music. Elegantly written, with the particular brilliance for which Brett was known, this book opens a fascinating window onto one of the most fruitful periods of English musical history.

Martin Luther's relationship to music has been largely downplayed, yet music played a vital role in Luther's life -- and he in turn had a deep and lasting effect on Christian hymnody. In Luther's Liturgical Music Robin Leaver comprehensively explores these connections. Replete with tables, figures, and musical examples, this volume is the most extensive study on Luther and music ever published. Leaver's work makes a formidable contribution to Reformation studies, but worship leaders, musicians, and others will also find it an invaluable, very readable resource.

Between 1485 and 1492 Cardinal Ascanio Sforza was the recipient of a music treatise composed for him by "Florentius Musicus" (Florentius de Faxolis), who had served him in Naples and Rome. Now in Milan, the richly illuminated small parchment codex bears witness to the musical interests of the cardinal, himself an avid singer taught by Duke Ercole d'Este. Florentius, whose treatise, found in no other source, is edited here for the first time, evidently took the cardinal's predilections into account, for the Book on Music is unusual for its emphasis on "the praises, power, utility, necessity, and effect of music": he devotes far more space to citations from classical and medieval authors than is the norm, and his elevated style shows that he aspires to appear as a humanist and not merely a technician. Likewise, the production quality of the manuscript indicates the acceptance of music's place within the high culture of the Quattrocento. The author's unusual insights into the musical thinking of his day are discussed in the ample commentary. The editors, a Renaissance musicologist (Bonnie Blackburn) and a classical scholar (Leofranc Holford-Strevens), have combined their disciplines to pay close attention both to Florentius' text and to his teachings.

Early Music History is devoted to the study of music from the early Middle Ages to the end of the seventeenth century. Articles in Volume 21 include: 'Aaron's interpretation of Isidore and an illustrated copy of the Toscanello'; 'Musica mundana, Aristotelian natural philosophy and ptolemaic astronomy'; 'The Triodia Sacra as a key source for late-Renaissance music in southern Germany;' 'The debate over song in the Accademia Fiorentina.'

The foremost composer under the reign of Elizabeth I and James I, William Byrd (c. 1540 - 1623) produced countless masses, motets, polyphonic songs, and works for keyboard and instrumental consort, all of which rank among the most unique and inspired works of the late Renaissance. His output was widely admired both at the time and now, and the influence he exerted on his contemporaries and on future generations of English composers was profound. Byrd was especially well-known for his motets, a musical form which he - a practicing Catholic in Anglican England and composer for the English Chapel Royal - especially favored, in spite of the threats of religious persecution he routinely faced.
This biography takes a new look at Byrd's music - instrumental and vocal, sacred and secular - and the various documents of his long life. Exploring the musical world in which Byrd grew up, author Kerry McCarthy traces his influence on the English musicians of the early Baroque, many of whom were his students, and takes on the uncomfortable paradoxes of the composer's life as a devout and influential Catholic who spent much of his career in the service of the English Protestant establishment. McCarthy also pays special attention to Byrd's literary background and activities as an older contemporary of Shakespeare who enjoyed close ties to the Elizabethan and Jacobean literary world. A detailed, fresh, and readable account of a composer who was revered by his colleagues as "our Phoenix" and "a Father of Music," Byrd is essential reading for scholars, students, and performers of early music, as well as general readers interested in the musical world of Renaissance England.