Music as Concept and Practice in the Late Middle Ages

Abstract

Abstract Music as Concept and Practice in the Late Middle Ages' is an entirely new addition to the New Oxford History of Music series rather than a revision of the volume's predecessor published in 1960. It takes account not only of the developments in late-medieval music scholarship during the latter decades of the twentieth century, but also of the experience gained through significant changes in the performance practice of the late-medieval repertory witnessed during this period. All the chapters include areas of discussion whose coverage in the series hitherto has been either wholly lacking or, at best, marginal: Muslim and Jewish musical traditions of the Middle Ages, late-medieval office chant, medieval dance music, musical instruments in society, music in Central and Eastern Europe, music theory of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, music and early Renaissance humanism. The first chapter and the last three present the conceptualization of music in speculative theory, philosophy, compositional and didactic practice, and musical historiography. Four chapters, and part of the first, illustrate important musical repertories and genres as they were developed within diverse societies. The eight authors - all of them with a long-standing interest in their respective subjects - have created through their collaboration a blend of mature scholarship and original investigation. The volume's novelty of approach and content is complemented by a firm anchorage in the specialist literature and documentary source material. Today, no single view of 'the Middle Ages' can be acceptable to the musician or to the historian. The present volume, which addresses itself to both, provides solid information on formerly marginal themes, and advocates further exploration of the 'other' Middle Ages.