| Contents |
Introduction: the ringing island -- The power of music -- Occupational musicians: denigration and defence -- Occupational musicians: employment prospects -- Recreational musicians -- Ballads and their audience -- Balladry and the meanings of melody -- 'The skipping art': dance and society -- Parish church music: the rise of 'the singing psalms' -- Parish church music: bells and their ringers -- Conclusion: the musical milieux of Machyn and Pepys. |
| Abstract |
This is the first comprehensive survey of English popular music during the early modern period to be published in over one hundred and fifty years. The book offers a fascinating and broad-ranging account of musicians, the power of music, broadside ballads, dancing, psalm-singing and bell-ringing. Drawing on sources ranging from ballads, plays, musical manuscripts and diaries to wills, inventories, speeches and court records, the author investigates the part played by music in the negotiation of social relations, revealing its capacity both to unify and to divide. The book is lavishly illustrated and is accompanied by a CD featuring forty-eight specially commissioned recordings by the critically acclaimed Dufay Collective. These include the first ever attempts to reconstruct the distinctively early-modern sounds of "rough music" and unaccompanied congregational psalm-singing. |
| Local note | JOYNER MUSIC LIBRARY BOOK ACCOMPANIED BY SOUND RECORDING LOCATED AT CALL NUMBER: MusicLib CD-9187. |
| General note | CD track list, contents notes, lyrics and musical examples on (pages 526-555). Performed by the Dufay Collective with invited guests. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| LCCN | 2010014312 |
| ISBN | 9780521898324 (hardback) |
| ISBN | 0521898323 (hardback) |
