Medieval Music (The Library of Essays on Music Performance Practice)

Almost a thousand years of music are treated in this volume on the performance practice of the Middle Ages, covering monophony and polyphony, sacred and secular, genre and theory. The essays selected deal with the most crucial of performers' decisions: pitch, rhythm, and performing forces, as well as related matters such as proportions, tunings, and the need for ornamentation. The introduction provides an overview of the major issues and resources, situating medieval music within the context of the early music revival and the debate on authenticity and providing an extended bibliography of relevant scholarship.

Honey Meconi is Professor of Music in the College Music Department and Professor of Musicology in the Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester, NY. She is an expert on Renaissance music as well as on the music of Hildegard of Bingen. Her books include Pierre de la Rue and Musical Life at the Habsburg-Burgundian Court (Oxford University Press, 2003), Early Musical Borrowing (Routledge, 2004) and Fortuna desperata: 36 Settings of an Italian Song (A-R Editions, 2001; reprint edition with revisions, in press).