Companion to Medieval and Renaissance Music (Paperback, Reissue)

The years since the early music revival gathered momentum in the 1960s and 70s have witnessed many new developments in the field of pre-Baroque music: some revelatory recordings and concert performances have opened our ears to a new range of possible sound worlds for music of this period, and scholars have made discoveries that in many ways challenge the accepted views about this until recently neglected end of the repertory. Much pre-1600 music, the more so the further we go back in time, sound not only unfamiliar but also strange to modern ears accustomed to the harmonies and rhythms that later came to dominate the Western musical tradition. How to account for this strangeness and how to weave it into our own musical experience are questions that confront us whenever we attempt to draw nearer to the music: its beauty is readily appreciated, but its meaning is often elusive. David Fallows and Tess Knighton, scholars and critics in the field of medieval and Renaissance music, invited a number of international researchers and performers to contribute short essays on some of the most intriguing aspects of the subject. The aim was not so much a comprehensive reference book, although t