Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This interdisciplinary collection examines musical culture in urban centres in Renaissance Europe and the New World. Although musicologists have indeed already investigated such topics, lack of familiarity with (urban) historical methodologies has often resulted in failure to explore fully the ways in which the urban environment had an impact on musical activity of all kinds; neither is this question adequately addressed by urban historians. This book thus aims to integrate musicological and urban-historical approaches. To urban historians it shows the range of work undertaken by music historians; to musicologists it presents some different approaches, questions and perspectives which suggest new lines of enquiry for future investigations. Not only does this book contribute to musicology, but it also adds considerably to urban history scholarship.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• 1 Introduction: urban history, musicology and cities and towns in Renaissance Europe
• 2 Music and urban culture in Austria - comparing profiles
• 3 Magnificence as civic image: music and ceremonial space in Early Modern
• 4 Secular music in the Burgh of Haddington, 1530-1640
• 5 Civic subsidy and musicians in Southern France during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries: a comparison of Montpellier, Toulouse and Avignon
• 6 Masses, Morris and metrical psalms: music in the English parish, c. 1400-1600
• 7 The role of religious guilds in the cultivation of ritual polyphony in England: the case of Louth, 1450-1550
• 8 Academic colleges in the Oxford community, 1400-1550
• 9 Music and court in Charles V's Valladolid, 1517-1539
• 10 Change and continuity in the Reformation period: church music in North German Towns, 1500-1600
• 11 Cathedral music, city and state: music in Reformation and political change at Christ Church cathedral
• 12 Singers and scribes in the secular churches of Brussels
• 13 Music and moonlighting: the cathedral choirmen of Early Modern England, 1558-1649
• 14 Urban musical life in the European colonies: examples from Spanish America, 1530-1650
• Index

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

This collection of 14 articles addresses a broad range of urban musical environments, from major cities (Venice, Brussels, Dublin, etc.) to smaller towns and villages (e.g., Haddington and Louth). Although the title accurately describes an emphasis on the Renaissance, some contributors address issues arising as early as the 14th century and others continue their studies into the initial decades of the Baroque. The title suggests a degree of comprehensiveness, but readers looking for an exhaustive analysis of a particular locale will likely be disappointed. Essays that investigate a broader scope, such as Beat Kumin's chapter on English parishes, tend to be fairly limited in depth. Articles addressing specific locales or individual institutions, such as Soterrana Aguirre Rincon's discussion of Valladolid, focus on a limited number of topics. In addition, each of the 14 scholars presents a different angle. As Fisby (Univ. of London) states in the introductory essay, the main goal of the book is to encourage an integration of urban-historical approaches with musicological (and ethnomusicological) methodologies, in the hopes of developing new and revealing examinations of towns and cities. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. D. Heuchemer Kenyon College