British Music

The English invented the idea of musical "classics". Eighteenth-century England was the first country where old musical works were performed regularly and reverentially, and where a collective notion of such works--"ancient music"--first appeared. This is the first book to explore the formation of musical classics in regard to repertory and social context. It examines the performance of old music in eighteenth-century England, from the interest in music of the Elizabethan period through the performance of works by Henry Purcell, Arcangelo Corelli, and other English and Italian composers, to the development of festivals that featured choral-orchestral works of Purcell and Handel. The book examines closely the political and social reasons for these developments. In addition, it shows how they laid the groundwork for the classical music tradition of the nineteenth century.

This is the first comprehensive history of the Wheatstone English concertina and its music, players, and audiences in Victorian England, when the instrument was immensely popular. Illustrated with music examples throughout, the book features a unique appendix containing five pieces written specially for the instrument by the composers of the day.

This study provides a general introduction to the sources of the plainchant revival in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century England. Part I examines the eighteenth-century Catholic revival, in particular the work of John Frances Wade, a Roman Catholic plainchant scribe and publisher. His work centred on the Roman Catholic foreign embassy chapels in London during the waning years of the recusancy period, and his collaboration with contemporary publishers and musicians is evidenced in numerous contemporary letters, music manuscripts, and printed works. In Part II the starting point for the Roman Catholic revival is Novello's A Collection of Sacred Music and for the Anglican revival, Reinagle's A Collection of Psalm & Hymn Tunes. Pro-Gregorian enthusiasts monitored the progress of the revival well into the nineteenth century, but it was not until the late 1830s that plainchant became a cause célèbre in Anglican and Catholic worship alike. A multiplicity of plainchant publications followed well into the 1870s, with Thomas Helmores ranking first among them. By this time plainchant had become an integral, albeit controversial, part of musical worship in both churches. Bennett Zon brings together a host of previously undiscovered or unknown eighteenth- and nineteenth-century sources, drawing mainly upon printed and manuscript works. Contemporary periodical and occasional literature provide further insight into their musical and social contexts. This is as much a source book for ecclesiastical history of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as it is a chronicling of the plainchant revival, and it will be of interest to ecclesiastical historians, plainchant enthusiasts, church musicians, and bibliographers.

This book discusses music used in Shakespeare productions during the 170-year period from the Restoration to about 1830, a time when Shakespeare's plots and poetry were updated to meet popular taste, as was the musical repertoire created to enhance the plays. Included are settings of Shakespeare's song lyrics, other original texts, and added non-Shakespearean texts, as well as incidental music, masques, operas, and afterpieces based on the plays. An appendix summarizes information about important productions and source materials in a series of charts cross-referenced to the extensive bibliography. Numerous musical examples illustrate the text, and scores of Shakespearean music by Arne, Boyce, Leveridge, Vernon, Weldon, and others are reprinted.

This book introduces every important aspect of the Elizabethan music world. In ten scrupulously researched yet accessible chapters, Lord examines the lives of composers, the evolution of musical instruments, the Elizabethan system of musical notation, and the many textures and traditions of Elizabethan music.

Those privileged enough to attend performances of masques at court in the early seventeenth century invariably commented on the sumptuousness of the music. Yet our view of the masque has been dominated by the texts, and indeed, modern scholarship has tended to treat the masque first and foremost as a literary genre. This book is the first complete study of the multi-faceted view of its subject, piecing together a picture of what the music was actually like from musical scores, documentary evidence, and the dramatic texts.

John Jenkins (1592-1678) was a leading English composer of instrumental music in the mid-seventeenth century. These studies by leading experts focus not only on his life and work but also on the music of such contemporaries as Gibbons, Ferrabosco II, Mico, and Cobbold; period instruments; and consort manuscripts.

This is the first authoritative study of the music and history of progressive rock, a genre praised for its virtuoso instrumental solos and gargantuan stage shows, but also criticized for its privileged, upper-middle class roots. By using an interdisciplinary approach that draws together cultural theory, musicology, and music criticism, Macan illuminates how progressive rock - which includes bands such as King Crimson, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Yes, Genesis, the Moody Blues, and PinkFloyd - served as a vital cultural expression of the counterculture of the late 1960s and 1970s in England.