The archconfraternity of SS. TrinitA was one of the less well-known institutions for musical patronage in sixteenth-century Rome. Yet in focusing on its activities in the period 1550-1650, this book sheds light on networks of urban patronage that were equally important in commissioning the sacred music of the period as the Cappella Pontificia and the Cappella Giulia at St Peter's. Not only did SS. TrinitA provide Palestrina with his only known major involvement in sacred music outside the Cappella Giulia after 1571 it also employed at some time or another every major composer active in the city. Noel O'Regan discusses the importance of SS. TrinitA in the sphere of Roman sacred music during this period and the ways in which this music was affected by social and religious factors in the play for power and prestige in post-tridentine Rome.

From an exciting new voice in Irish fiction, a powerful novel set on an Irish clifftop - a story about duty, despair and the chance encounters upon which fate turns. Micheál Burns lives alone in his family's bungalow at the end of Kerry Head in Ireland. It is a picturesque place, but the cliffs have a darker side to them: for generations they have been a suicide black spot. Micheál's mother saw the saving of these lost souls - these visitors - as her spiritual duty, and now, in the wreckage of his life, Micheál finds himself continuing her work. When his sisters tell him that they want to sell the land, he must choose between his siblings and the visitors, a future or a past.

An authoritative survey of music and its context in the Renaissance. The sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries - the so-called Golden Age of Polyphony - represent a time of great change and development in European music, with the flourishing of Orlando di Lasso, Palestrina, Byrd, Victoria, Monteverdi and Schutz among others. The chapters of this book, contributed by established scholars on subjects within their fields of expertise, deal with polyphonic music - sacred and secular, vocal and instrumental - during this period. The volume offers chronological surveys of national musical cultures (in Italy, France, the Netherlands, Germany, England, and Spain); genre studies (Mass, motet, madrigal, chanson, instrumental music, opera); and is completed with essays on intellectual and cultural developments and concepts relevant to music (music theory, printing, the Protestant Reformation and the corresponding Catholic movement, humanism, concepts of "Renaissance" and "Baroque"). It thus provides a complete overview of the music and its context. Contributors: GARY TOMLINSON, JAMES HAAR, TIM CARTER, GIULIO ONGARO, NOEL O'REGAN, ALLAN ATLAS, ANTHONY CUMMINGS, RICHARD FREEDMAN, JEANICE BROOKS,DAVID TUNLEY, KATE VAN ORDEN, KRISTINE FORNEY, IAIN FENLON, KAROL BERGER, PETER BERGQUIST, DAVID CROOK, ROBIN LEAVER, CRAIG MONSON, TODD BORGERDING, LOUISE K. STEIN, GIUSEPPE GERBINO, ROGER BRAY, JONATHAN WAINWRIGHT, VICTOR COELHO, KEITH POLK