Music in the Renaissance

Renaissance music in its cultural, social, and intellectual contexts.

Richard Freedman's Music in the Renaissance shows how music and other forms of expression were adapted to changing tastes and ideals in Renaissance courts and churches. Giving due weight to sacred, secular, and instrumental genres, Freedman invites readers to consider who made music, who sponsored and listened to it, who preserved and owned it, and what social and aesthetic purposes it served. While focusing on broad themes such as music and the literary imagination and the art of improvisation, he also describes Europeans' musical encounters with other cultures and places.

Western Music in Context: A Norton History comprises six volumes of moderate length, each written in an engaging style by a recognized expert. Authoritative and current, the series examines music in the broadest sense―as sounds notated, performed, and heard―focusing not only on composers and works, but also on broader social and intellectual currents.

Richard Freedman is John C. Whitehead Professor of Humanities at Haverford College. His writings include a book, The Chansons of Orlando di Lasso and Their Protestant Listeners: Music, Piety, and Print in Sixteenth-Century France, and articles in numerous publications, including The Musical Quarterly, Music and Letters, and The New Grove Dictionary of Music. He is the recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Mellon Foundation.

Walter Frisch is H. Harold Gumm/Harry and Albert von Tilzer Professor of Music at Columbia University. He is the author of numerous books and articles, including Brahms: The Four Symphonies, The Early Works of Arnold Schoenberg 1903–1908, and German Modernism: Music and the Arts. He is the recipient of two ASCAP-Deems Taylor Awards and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and the Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library.