The Performance Of 16th Century Music

Most modern performers, trained on the performance practices of the Classical and Romantic periods, come to the music of the Renaissance with well-honed but anachronistic ideas. Fundamental differences between 16th-century repertoire and that of later epochs thus tend to be overlooked-yet it is just these differences which can make a performance truly stunning. The Performance of 16th-Century Music will enable the performer to better understand this music and advance their technical and expressive abilities. Early music specialist Anne Smith outlines several major areas of technical knowledge and skill needed to perform the music of this period. She takes readers through the significance of part-book notation; solmization; rhythmic flexibility; and elements of structure in relation to rhetoric of the time; while familiarizing them with contemporary criteria and standards of excellence for performance. Through The Performance of 16th-Century Music, today's musicians will gain fundamental insight into how 16th-century polyphony functions, and the tools necessary to perform this repertoire to its fullest, most glorious potential.

Modern musical training tends to focus primarily on performance practices of the Classical and Romantic periods, and most performers come to the music of the Renaissance with well-honed but anachronistic ideas and concepts. As a result, elemental differences between 16th-century repertoire and that of later epochs tend to be overlooked-yet it is just these differences which can make a performance truly stunning. The Performance of 16th-Century Music offers a remedy for the performer, presenting the information and guidance that will enable them to better understand the music and advance their technical and expressive abilities. Drawing from nearly 40 years of performing, teaching, and studying this repertoire and its theoretical sources, renowned early music specialist Anne Smith outlines several major areas of technical knowledge and skill needed to perform the music of this period. She takes the reader through part-books and choirbooks; solmization; rhythmic inequality; and elements of structure in relation to rhetoric of the time; while familiarizing them with contemporary criteria and standards of excellence for performance. Through The Performance of 16th-Century Music, today's musicians will gain fundamental insight into how 16th-century polyphony functions, and the tools necessary to perform this repertoire to its fullest and glorious potential.

The emergence of music printing and publishing in the early 16th century radically changed how music was circulated, and how the musical source (printed or manuscript) was perceived, and used in performance. This series of close studies of the structure and content of 16th-century and early 17th-century editions (and some manuscripts) of music draws conclusions in a number of areas - printing techniques for music; the habits of different type-setters and scribes, and their view of performing practice; publishers' approaches to the musical market and its abilities and interests; apparent changes of plan in preparing editions; questions of authorship; evidence in editions and manuscripts for interpreting different levels of notation; ways in which scribes could influence performers' decisions, and others by which composers could exploit unusual sonorities.

Renaissance music, like its sister arts, was most often experienced collectively. While it was possible to read Renaissance polyphony silently from a music manuscript or print, improvise alone, or perform as a soloist, the very practical nature of Renaissance music defied individualism. The reading and improvisation of polyphony was most frequently achieved through close co-operation, and this mutual endeavour extended beyond the musicians to include the society to which it is addressed. In sixteenth-century Milan, music, an art traditionally associated with the court and cathedral, came to be appropriated by the old nobility and the new aristocracy alike as a means of demonstrating social primacy and newly acquired wealth. As class mobility assumed greater significance in Milan and the size of the city expanded beyond its Medieval borders, music-making became ever more closely associated with public life. With its novel structures and diverse urban spaces, sixteenth-century Milan offered an unlimited variety of public performance arenas. The city's political and ecclesiastical authorities staged grand processions, church services, entertainments, and entries aimed at the propagation of both church and state. Yet the private citizen utilized such displays as well, creating his own miniature spectacle in a visual and an aural imitation of the ecclesiastical and political panoply of the age. Using archival documents, music prints, manuscripts and contemporary writing, Getz examines the musical culture of sixteenth-century Milan via its life within the city's most influential social institutions to show how fifteenth-century courtly traditions were adapted to the public arena. The book considers the relationship of the primary cappella musicale, including those of the Duomo, the court of Milan, Santa Maria della Scala, and Santa Maria presso San Celso, to the sixteenth-century institutions that housed them. In addition, the book investigates the musician's role as an actor and a functionary in the political, religious, and social spectacles produced by the Milanese church, state, and aristocracy within the city's diverse urban spaces. Furthermore, it establishes a context for the numerous motets, madrigals, and lute intabulations composed and printed in sixteenth-century Milan by examining their function within the urban milieu in which they were first performed. Finally, it musically documents Milan's transformation from a ducal state dominated by provincial traditions into a mercantile centre of international acclaim. Such an important study in Italian Renaissance music will therefore appeal to anyone interested in the culture of Renaissance Italy.

Revised and expanded, A Performer's Guide to Seventeenth Century Music is a comprehensive reference guide for students and professional musicians. The book contains useful material on vocal and choral music and style; instrumentation; performance practice; ornamentation, tuning, temperament; meter and tempo; basso continuo; dance; theatrical production; and much more. The volume includes new chapters on the violin, the violoncello and violone, and the trombone—as well as updated and expanded reference materials, internet resources, and other newly available material. This highly accessible handbook will prove a welcome reference for any musician or singer interested in historically informed performance.

". . . valuable . . . impressive . . ." —The Times Literary Supplement "For anyone interested in Milán's music, this is an excellent source of information." —Renaissance Quarterly Luis Milán (1536-1561) was a lutenist, singer, composer, and poet. His collection of lute tablatures, El Maestro, is the first book of instrumental music known to have been printed in Spain. Luis Gásser discusses Milán's attention to modality, his use of meter, and the ornamentation in his songs and fantasías.

Vocal/choral issues. The solo voice in the Renaissance / Ellen Hargis ; On singing and the vocal ensemble I / Alexander Blachly ; On singing and the vocal ensemble II / Alejandro Planchart ; Practical matters of vocal performance / Anthony Rooley -- Wind, string, and percussion instruments. Recorder ; Renaissance flute / Herbert Myers ; Capped double reeds : crumhorn--Kortholt--Schreierpfeif / Jeffery Kite-Powell ; Shawm and curtal / Ross Duffin ; Racket : rackett, Rankett (Ger.), cervelas (Fr.), cervello (It.) / Jeffery Kite-Powell ; Bagpipe / Adam Knight Gilbert ; Cornett / Douglas Kirk ; Sackbut / Stewart Carter -- Bowed instruments / Wendy Gillespie -- The violin / David Douglass -- Plucked instruments / Paul O'Dette -- The harp / Herbert Myers -- Early percussion / Benjamin Harms -- Keyboard instruments / Jack Ashworth -- Practical considerations/instrumentation. Proto-continuo / Jack Ashworth and Paul O'Dette ; Mixed ensembles / James Tyler ; Large ensembles / Jeffery Kite-Powell ; Rehearsal tips for directors / Adam Knight Gilbert ; Performance editions / Frederick Gable -- Performance practice. Tuning and temperament / Ross Duffin ; Pitch and transposition / Herbert Myers ; Ornamentation in sixteenth-century music / Bruce Dickey ; Pronunciation guides / Ross Duffin -- Aspects of theory. Eight brief rules for composing a si placet altus, ca. 1470-1510 / Adam Knight Gilbert ; Renaissance theory / Sarah Mead -- Introduction to Renaissance dance. Early Renaissance dance, 1450-1520 / Yvonne Kendall -- For the early music director. Starting from scratch / Jeffery Kite-Powell.

Rethinks and retells the history of music in sixteenth-century Ferrara, putting women, of the court and convent, at the narrative centre.