The Renaissance Reform Of Medieval Music Theory

A detailed study of the sight-singing method introduced by the 11th-century monk Guido of Arezzo, in its intellectual context.

This volume of essays draws together recent work on historical music theory of the Renaissance. The collection spans the major themes addressed by Renaissance writers on music and highlights the differing approaches to this body of work by modern scholars, including: historical and theoretical perspectives; consideration of the broader cultural context for writing about music in the Renaissance; and the dissemination of such work. Selected from a variety of sources ranging from journals, monographs and specialist edited volumes, to critical editions, translations and facsimiles, these previously published articles reflect a broad chronological and geographical span, and consider Renaissance sources that range from the overtly pedagogical to the highly speculative. Taken together, this collection enables consideration of key essays side by side aided by the editor‘s introductory essay which highlights ongoing debates and offers a general framework for interpreting past and future directions in the study of historical music theory from the Renaissance.

This entirely new volume of NOHM takes account of developments in late-medieval music scholarship, along with significant changes in the performance practice of the late-medieval repertory, witnessed during the latter half of the 20th century.

A Performer's Guide to Medieval Music is an essential compilation of essays on all aspects of medieval music performance, with 40 essays by experts on everything from repertoire, voices, and instruments to basic theory. This concise, readable guide has proven indispensable to performers and scholars of medieval music.

This volume unites a collection of articles which illustrate brilliantly the complexity of European cultural history in the Renaissance. On the one hand, scholars of this period were inspired by classical narratives on the sublime effects of music and, on the other hand, were affected by the profound religious upheavals which destroyed the unity of Western Christianity and, in so doing, opened up new avenues in the world of music. These articles offer as broad a vision as possible of the ways of thinking about music which developed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

Explores such aspects of medieval music theory as the influence of Pythagorean mathematics and musical thought, rhythm and meter, alphabetic notation, Hermann's major sixth, descant, counterpoint, harmony, Zarlino's renumbering of the modes, the troping hypothesis, the repertory of proses at Saint Martial de Limoges in the 10th century, and the early Frankish sequence as a new musical form. The 18 essays are reproduced from previous journal publication between 1958 and 1975. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR