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.

From the medieval chansonniers to contemporary rap renditions, this book traces the changing interpretation of troubadour and trouvere music, a repertoire of songs which have successfully maintained public interest for eight centuries. A study of their reception, therefore, serves to illustrate the development of the modern concept of "medieval music." Important stages in their evolution include sixteenth-century antiquarianism; the Enlightenment synthesis of scholarly and popular traditions; and the infusion of archaeology and philology in the nineteenth century, leading to more recent...

Presenting a fresh approach to French organ music, David Ponsford analyses the repertory from the reign of Louis XIV by genre. The colourful French organ was so consistent in design that the very titles of pieces that were constituent parts of organ masses, Magnificats and suites prescribed the registrations: plein jeu, fugue, duo, recit, trio, fond d'orgue and grand jeu. Particular examples from published livres d'orgue and important manuscript collections are analysed chronologically, so that influences from Italian as well as French sacred and secular music can be traced. This analysis...

The guitar is the most played instrument in the West. This is the first account of its rise in Stuart England.

Addressing established scholars and advanced students of Purcell, this book proposes the first analytical approach to Purcell's music to be based on examination of his compositional methods alongside historically contemporary theory. It will be of interest to analysts and music theorists of seventeenth-century music, and of early music.