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Books > Arts & Architecture > Music > Other types of music > Vocal music
Music played an exceptionally important role in the late Middle
Ages - articulating people's social, psychological and
eschatological needs. The process began with the training of
choirboys whose skill was key to institutional identity. That skill
was closely cultivated and directly sought by kings and emperors,
who intervened directly in recruitment of choirboys and older
singers in order to build and articulate their self-image and
perceived status. Using the documentation of an exceptionally well
preserved archive, this book focuses on music's functioning in an
important church in late Medieval Northern France. It explores a
period when musicians from this region set the agenda across
Europe, developing what is still some of the most sophisticated
music in the Western musical tradition. The book allows a close
focus not on the great achievements of those who cultivated this
music, but on the personal motivations that shaped their life and
work.
The Choral-Orchestral Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams: Autographs,
Context, Discourse combines contextual knowledge, a musical
commentary, an inventory of the holograph manuscripts, and a
critical assessment of the opus to create substantial and
meticulous examinations of Ralph Vaughan Williams'
choral-orchestral works. The contents include an equitable choice
of pieces from the various stages in the life of the composer and
an analysis of pieces from the various stages of Williams' life.
The earliest are taken from the pre-World War I years, when Vaughan
Williams was constructing his identity as an academic and
musician-Vexilla Regis (1894), Mass (1899), and A Sea Symphony
(1910). The middle group are chosen from the interwar period-Sancta
Civitas (1925), Benedicite (1929), Magnificat (1932), Five Tudor
Portraits (1935), Dona nobis pacem (1936)-written after Vaughan
Williams had found his mature voice. The last cluster-Thanksgiving
for Victory (1944), Fantasia (Quasi Variazione) on the 'Old 104'
Psalm Tune (1949), Sons of Light (1950), Hodie (1954), The Bridal
Day/Epithalamion (1938/1957)-typify the works finished or revisited
during the final years of the composer's life, near the end of the
Second World War and immediately before or after his second
marriage (1953).
This is the first ever book-length study of the a cappella masses
which appeared in France in choirbook layout during the baroque
era. Though the musical settings of the Ordinarium missae and of
the Missa pro defunctis have been the subject of countless studies,
the stylistic evolution of the polyphonic masses composed in France
during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries has been neglected
owing to the labor involved in creating scores from the surviving
individual parts. Jean-Paul C. Montagnier has examined closely the
printed, engraved and stenciled choirbooks containing this
repertoire, and his book focuses mainly on the music as it stands
in them. After tracing the choirbooks' publishing history, the
author places these mass settings in their social, liturgical and
musical context. He shows that their style did not all adhere
strictly to the stile antico, but could also employ the most
up-to-date musical language of the period.
The Campaign Choirs Network is a loose affiliation of like-minded
choirs across the UK sharing a belief in a better world for all and
dedicated to taking action by singing about it; the Campaign Choirs
Writing Collective is a part of that network. The book intends to
inspire the reader to engage with this world: to find out more, to
join a choir in their community, to enlist their local street choir
to support campaigns for social change and, more generally, to
mobilize artistic creativity in progressive social movements. It is
an introduction to street choirs and their history, exploring
origins in and connections with other social movements, for example
the Workers Education Association, the Clarion movement, Big Flame
and the Social Forum movement. The book identifies the political
nodes where choir histories intersect, notably Greenham Common, the
Miners' Strike, anti-apartheid and Palestinian struggles. The title
of the book is taken from a song by the respected American musician
and activist Holly Near, and is popular in the repertoire of many
street choirs. Exploring the role of street choirs in political
culture, Singing For Our Lives introduces this neglected world to a
wider public, including activists and academics. Signing for Our
Lives also elaborates the personal stories and experiences of
people who participate in street choirs, and the unique social
practices created within them. The book tells the important, if
often overlooked, story of how making music can contribute to
non-violent, just and sustainable social transitions.
www.singing4ourlives.net/about.html
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