Synopses & Reviews
Scholars and performers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries attempted to revive music that could evoke the Middle Ages. They invented new sounds and new ways of understanding medieval music. This is the fascinating story of the musicians and the societies in which they worked to remake a lost musical world.
Review
"This book is a good read for anyone who is interested in medieval music or has an interest in how history, particularly music history, is written and developed." Music Educators Journal
Review
"Part histoiography and part reception history, this meticulously researched volume reminds readers that no attempt to re-create the music of the past is likely to avoid doing sos through perspectives that are decidedly embedded in the present. Highly recommended." Choice
Review
"The Modern Invention of Medieval Music is n important book. It raises fundamental questions about the relation among music, performance, and historical writing. It belongs on the reading lists of every graduate course in musicological methods, and by extension in the hands of any musicologist interested in how and (more importantly) why we write about music. I cannot praise this book enough for its imagination, daring and élan. It is a book that hits us where we live." Current Musicology, Thomas Irvine
Synopsis
A challenging book which questions how much is really known about the way medieval music sounded.
Synopsis
Medieval music has become hugely popular. But it is largely a modern invention. Scholars and performers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries hoped to bring back to life music that could evoke the Middle Ages. Yet all the time they were inventing new sounds and new ways of understanding how the music worked. The story of the reinvention of medieval music is told here for the first time.--a story of individuals, the societies in which they worked, their tastes and beliefs, all interacting to remake a lost musical world.
About the Author
Daniel Leech-Wilkinson is a writer and broadcaster on medieval music. He is Reader in Historical Musicology at King's College, London and his previous books include studies and editions of the fourteenth-century poet and composer Guillaume de Machaut.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. The invention of the voices-and-instruments hypothesis; 2. The re-invention of the a cappella hypothesis; 3. Hearing medieval harmonies; 4. Evidence, interpretation, power and persuasion; Conclusion; Notes; Bibliography; Index.