The Praise Of Musicke 1586

This volume provides the first printed critical edition of The Praise of Musicke (1586), keeping the original text intact and accompanied by an analytical commentary. Against the Puritan attacks on liturgical music, The Praise of Musicke, the first apologetic treatise on music in English, epitomizes the Renaissance defence of music in civil and religious life. While existing studies of The Praise of Musicke are limited to the question of authorship, the present volume scrutinizes its musical discourse, which recapitulates major issues in the ancient philosophy and theology of music, considering the contemporary practice of sacred and secular music. Through an interdisciplinary analysis of The Praise of Musicke, combining historical musicology with philosophical theology, this study situates the treatise and its author within the wider historical, intellectual and religious context of musical polemics and apologetics of the English Reformation, thereby appraising its significance in the history of musical theory and literature. The book throws fresh light on this substantial but neglected treatise that presents, with critical insights, the most learned discussion of music from classical antiquity to the Renaissance and Reformation era. In doing so it offers a new interpretation of the treatise, which marks a milestone in the history of musical apologetics.

'Church Music and Protestantism in Post-Reformation England' breaks new ground in the religious history of Elizabethan England, through a closely focused study of the relationship between the practice of religious music and the complex process of Protestant identity formation. Hearing was of vital importance in the early modern period, and music was one of the most prominent, powerful and emotive elements of religious worship. But in large part, traditional historical narratives of the English Reformation have been distinctly tone deaf. Recent scholarship has begun to take increasing notice of some elements of Reformed musical practice, such as the congregational singing of psalms in meter. This book marks a significant advance in that area, combining an understanding of theory as expressed in contemporary religious and musical discourse, with a detailed study of the practice of church music in key sites of religious worship. Divided into three sections - 'Discourses', 'Sites', and 'Identities' - the book begins with an exploration of the classical and religious discourses which underpinned sixteenth-century understandings of music, and its use in religious worship. It then moves on to an investigation of the actual practice of church music in parish and cathedral churches, before shifting its attention to the people of Elizabethan England, and the ways in which music both served and shaped the difficult process of Protestantisation. Through an exploration of these issues, and by reintegrating music back into the Elizabethan church, we gain an expanded and enriched understanding of the complex evolution of religious identities, and of what it actually meant to be Protestant in post-Reformation England.

Exploring the nexus of music and religious education involves fundamental questions regarding music itself, its nature, its interpretation, and its importance in relation to both education and the religious practices into which it is integrated. This cross-disciplinary volume of essays offers the first comprehensive set of studies to examine the role of music in educational and religious reform and the underlying notions of music in early modern Europe. It elucidates the context and manner in which music served as a means of religious teaching and learning during that time, thereby identifying the religio-cultural and intellectual foundations of early modern European musical phenomena and their significance for exploring the interplay of music and religious education today.

Both from the Ears and Mind offers a bold new understanding of the intellectual and cultural position of music in Tudor and Stuart England. Linda Phyllis Austern brings to life the kinds of educated writings and debates that surrounded musical performance, and the remarkable ways in which English people understood music to inform other endeavors, from astrology and self-care to divinity and poetics. Music was considered both art and science, and discussions of music and musical terminology provided points of contact between otherwise discrete fields of human learning. This book demonstrates how knowledge of music permitted individuals to both reveal and conceal membership in specific social, intellectual, and ideological communities. Attending to materials that go beyond music’s conventional limits, these chapters probe the role of music in commonplace books, health-maintenance and marriage manuals, rhetorical and theological treatises, and mathematical dictionaries. Ultimately, Austern illustrates how music was an indispensable frame of reference that became central to the fabric of life during a time of tremendous intellectual, social, and technological change.