The Lyons Contrapunctus 1528 Part 1

This study explores the composition and performance of liturgical music in El Escorial, from its founding by Philip II in 1563 to the death of Charles II in 1700. Philip II promoted within his monastery-palace a musical foundation whose dual function as royal chapel and as monastery in the service of a Counter-Reformation monarch was unique. The study traces the ways in which music styles and practices responded to the changing functions of the institution. Perceived notions about Spanish royal musical patronage are challenged, musical manuscripts are scrutinized, biographical details of hundreds of musicians are uncovered, and musical practices are examined. Additionally, two important choral pieces are printed here for the first time.

In recent years, scholars and musicians have become increasingly interested in the revival of musical improvisation as it was known in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. This historically informed practice is now supplanting the late Romantic view of improvised music as a rhapsodic endeavour—a musical blossoming out of the capricious genius of the player—that dominated throughout the twentieth century. In the Renaissance and Baroque eras, composing in the mind (alla mente) had an important didactic function. For several categories of musicians, the teaching of counterpoint happened almost entirely through practice on their own instruments. This volume offers the first systematic exploration of the close relationship among improvisation, music theory, and practical musicianship from late Renaissance into the Baroque era. It is not a historical survey per se, but rather aims to re-establish the importance of such a combination as a pedagogical tool for a better understanding of the musical idioms of these periods. The authors are concerned with the transferral of historical practices to the modern classroom, discussing new ways of revitalising the study and appreciation of early music. The relevance and utility of such an improvisation-based approach also changes our understanding of the balance between theoretical and practical sources in the primary literature, as well as the concept of music theory itself. Alongside a word-centred theoretical tradition, in which rules are described in verbiage and enriched by musical examples, we are rediscovering the importance of a music-centred tradition, especially in Spain and Italy, where the music stands alone and the learner must distil the rules by learning and playing the music. Throughout its various sections, the volume explores the path of improvisation from theory to practice and back again.

A description, reconstruction and discussion of the repertory of an exceptional musical source, the French manuscript made at Lyons c. 1520-1525 as the private collection of a music copyist. The book contains 280 compositions, sacred and secular, from the period 1450-1524 with Loyset, Compère, Alexander Agricola, Antoine de Févin, Claudin de Sermisy and Clément Janequin as the prominent composers. Besides discussing the many-faceted repertory, the book studies the circulation of music in the early sixteenth century and the relationships between popular songs and courtly chansons and between provincial music and the music of the musical centres. -- The manuscript has been in the Royal Library of Copenhagen since 1921. This is the first comprehensive study of it.

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.

This is a complete revision of the second edition, designed as a guide and resource in the study of music from the earliest times through the Renaissance period. The authors have completely revised and updated the bibliographies; in general they are limited to English language sources. In order to facilitate study of this period and to use materials efficiently, references to facsimiles, monumental editions, complete composers' works and specialized anthologies are given. The authors present this systematic organization in this volume in the hope that students, teachers, and performers may find in it a ready tool for developing a comprehensive understanding of the music of this period.