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.

This is a collection of twenty-nine of the most influential articles and papers about medieval musical instruments and their repertory. The authors discuss the construction of the instruments, their playing technique, the occasions for which they performed and their repertory. Taken as a whole, they paint a very broad, as well as detailed, picture of instrumental performance during the medieval period.

The Sound of Medieval Song is a study of how sacred and secular music was actually sung during the Middle Ages. The source of the information is the actual notation in the early manuscripts as well as statements found in approximately 50 theoretical treatises written between the years 600-1500. The writings describe various singing practices and both desirable and undesirable vocal techniques, providing a fairly accurate picture of how singers approached the music of the period. Detailed descriptions of the types and uses of improvised ornament indicate that in performance the music was highly ornate, and included trill, gliss, reverberation, pulsation, pitch inflection, non-diatonic tones, and cadenza-like passages of various lengths. The treatises also provide evidence of stylistic differences in various geographical locations. McGee draws conclusions about the kind of vocal production and techniques necessary in order to reproduce the music as it was performed during the Middle Ages, aligning the practices much more closely with those of the Middle East than has ever been previously acknowledged.

In Europe the tradition of secular dance has continued unbroken until the present. In the late Middle Ages it was an important and frequent event for the nobility a gracious way to entertain guests, for the peasantry a welcome relaxation from the toils of the day. Now back in print, this collection presents compositions that are known or suspected to be instrumental dances from before ca. 1420. The forty-seven pieces vary in length and style and come from French, Italian, English, and Czech sources. Timothy McGee relates medieval dances to the descriptions found in literary, theoretical, and archival sources and to the depictions in the iconography of the Middle Ages. In a section on instrumental performance practices, he provides information about ornamenting the dances and improvising in a historically appropriate style. This comprehensive edition brings together in one volume a repertory that has been scattered over many years and countries."

Praise for the cloth edition:
"Commendable in itsscholarship... should prove of interest to linguists, medievalists, and Renaissanceacademicians, as well as to fastidious performers of early music." --Choice

"Singing Early Music is a pioneering work ofsurpassing quality that cannot be too highly recommended." -- Journal ofSinging

"Addresses the needs of the performer directly, giving historical pronunciations for a range of languages [and] sample texts.... TheCD that comes with the book will prove invaluable.... David Klausner's recording isadmirably consistent and convincing across the wide range of languages." --Early Music

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.

Barbara Pentland and her music have long been the centre of controversy. As a woman in what many saw as a man's field, her role as composer provoked negative reactions into the 1950s, and her music receives a wide range of responses to this day. Yet even her severest critics acknowledge the highly personal and impassioned quality of her compositions. This book looks at Pentland's life and career as she moves from her native Winnipeg to study in Montreal, Paris, and New York and at Tanglewood with Aaron Copland, intermittently returning to her home town and gradually becoming known as a performer and composer. The authors discuss various works including Studies in Line (19410, which was composed in a highly linear idiom and epitomized her early works; Sonata for Violin and Piano (1946), which was based on French-Canadian folk tunes and reflected Copland's abstractness and use of rhythm; and the highly tonal Symphony No. 2 (1950). Her visit to Europe in 1955 was the catalyst for a profound shift in her work from the techniques she had adapted from Copland and Hindemith to an elaboration of her own highly distinctive serialist technique. Since 1958, Pentland's output has been prodigious: fifty works all typified by a marvellously economical use of materials. Some of the most controversial are treatments of the words of modern writers and are inspired by Pentland's passionate concern about contemporary events. This volume includes a large number of musical examples from her work and photographs of the composer and her colleagues and interpreters.

Written by Timothy McGee, professor of music at the University of Toronto, the narrative ranges across the many genres of music that have flourished in Canada: art music, folk and popular music, church music, and jazz. Since the book is non-technical in its approach so that it may be easily understood by those not specifically trained in music, the author has thoughtfully provided separate analytical sections for the more advanced reader.

Abounding in music examples and replete with illustrations which vividly reflect each era of Canadian history, the volume also includes an anthology of thirteen complete works (or movements) by prominent Canadian composers, past and present. Each chapter begins with a brief summary of the social and political background of the period under discussion, so that its music may be understood within the context of Canadian history. The double heritage French and English which has both enriched and troubled Canadian cultural life, is traced from its origins to the present day. A final chapter departs from this chronological format to focus on the music of the Indian and Inuit people and comment on its sociocultural significance. Finally, an appendix including the sources of all the music discussed, a bibliography, discography, and filmography rounds out this ground-breaking volume."