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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3
Average rating: 5.0 of 5
Sheep guts, neumes, and poetic imagination 5 out of 5 stars.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful.
This collection of essays attempts to give a fairly complete overview of things we need to know to do a credible job of recreating medieval music, including poetic and dramatic forms, modes, tunings, the ever-elusive question of notation, and specifics about the instruments. This last is particularly helpful when one is moving sideways out of one's own area of expertise (eg, singers wanting to know more about how to direct the instrumentalists in suitable accompaniment textures, lutenists seeking to create a repertoire out of 14th and 15th c vocal forms, sensible people curious about the hurdy gurdy's fall from grace, etc.). Within any given essay are plenty of challenges to commonly received knowledge, with abundant references and citations. Illustrations, though sparing, manage to make departures from the ones usually given. In all, this book is bound to serve as a standard reference for years to come.For a taste now, if nothing else, anyone involved in recreating medieval music simply must read Benjamin Bagby's essay "Imagining the Early Medieval Harp." He presents a quest, and captures many hints to point to a truly passionate and organic reconstruction of authentic performance practice. Why do we go to such efforts to assemble these hints and scraps of the past? Why would we even think of limiting ourselves to musical instruments barely exceeding an octave? Imagine, with Mr Bagby, the legend of Tristan with his 8-10 stringed harp, described in a 13th c account as "playing such sweet tones and striking the harp so perfecly... that many who stood or sat nearby forgot their own names." This is a possible ideal even today: Read on!
Even more is given in the late Barbara Thornton's interview "The Voice," wherein very specific techniques are shared for cultivating a medieval imagination. Like a language itself, this imagination is also a receptivity to many emotional nuances and inflections that are simply not communicated by any other kind of music.
As Ms Thornton reflected, it was just as hard for a medieval person to gain mastery of medieval tradition as it is for us today. "The building blocks in medieval tradition are known and available." You'll find a treasury of them here.
Editorial Review:
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.
