Bibliography of Medieval and Renaissance Music
The following books are available in public and/or University libraries
throughout the greater Østgarðr area, as well as (most of them)
at our house.
General Histories
- Richard H. Hoppin
Medieval Music
ISBN 0-393-09090-6, W. W. Norton & Company 1978.
- Tess Knighton & David Fallows, eds.
Companion to Medieval and Renaissance Music
ISBN 0-02-871221-8, Schirmer 1992.
- David Munrow
Instruments of the Middle Ages and Renaissance
ISBN 0-19-321321-4, Oxford University Press 1976.
- Gustave Reese,
Music in the Middle Ages
ISBN 0-393-09530-4, W. W. Norton & Company, New York 1940.
- Gustave Reese,
Music in the Renaissance
ISBN 0-393-09530-4, W. W. Norton & Company, New York 1959.
- David Fenwick Wilson,
Music of the Middle Ages: Style and Structure
ISBN 0-02-872591-X, Schirmer 1990.
Collections of music
- Archibald T. Davison and Willi Apel
Historical Anthology of Music (often referred to as HAM)
vol. I: Oriental, Medieval, and Renaissance Music
ISBN 0-674-39300-7, Harvard University Press 1949.
- Noah Greenberg, ed.
An English Songbook
LCC 60-9171, Doubleday & Company 1961.
A collection of songs in English from the 12th-17th centuries. Greenberg
has a few unconventional interpretations, like "Sumer is Icumen In"
in duple time, but there are a lot of good pieces here.
- Richard H. Hoppin, ed.
Anthology of Medieval Music
ISBN 0-393-02201-1, W. W. Norton & Company 1978.
- Timothy J. McGee
Medieval Instrumental Dances
ISBN 0-253-33353-9, Indiana University Press 1989.
In addition to forty pages discussing performance practice, the author
provides modern-notation editions of "all of the compositions that
are known or suspected to be instrumental dances from before ca.
1430"
- Elizabeth V. Phillips and John-Paul Christopher Jackson
Performing Medieval and Renaissance Music: an Introductory Guide
ISBN 0-02-871790-2, Schirmer 1986.
Although primarily a discussion of performance practice (see below), this
book also includes 35 case studies of specific pieces from Gregorian chant
to the 17th century, including music in modern notation.
Books on performance practice
- Howard Mayer Brown and Stanley Sadie, eds.
Performance Practice: Music before 1600
ISBN 0-393-02807-0, W. W. Norton & Company, New York 1989.
A collection of articles by various illustrious musicologists, discussing
instruments, musica ficta, tempo and proportion, polyphony, etc.
- Timothy J. McGee
Medieval and Renaissance Music: a Performer's Guide
ISBN 0-8020-2531-5, University of Toronto Press 1985.
- Timothy J. McGee, ed, with A. G. Rigg and David N. Klausner
Singing Early Music: the Pronunciation of European Languages in the
Middle Ages and Renaissance
ISBN 0-253-32961-2, Indiana University Press 1996.
- Christopher Page
Voices & Instruments of the Middle Ages:
Instrumental practice and songs in France 1100-1300
ISBN 0-460-04607, J. M. Dent & Sons 1987.
Page discusses various traditions of music in 12th-13th-c. France, with
a focus on discovering under what circumstances, if any, voices and instruments
were used together.
- Elizabeth V. Phillips and John-Paul Christopher Jackson
Performing Medieval and Renaissance Music: an Introductory Guide
ISBN 0-02-871790-2, Schirmer 1986.
Discusses how to organize an early music ensemble. Also contains chapters
on rhythm, musica ficta, text underlay, improvisation and ornamentation,
etc. 35 case studies of specific pieces from Gregorian chant to
the 17th century, including music in modern notation. Appendices include
charts of when various instruments were used, their pitch ranges, and pronunciations
of various European languages by century.
Books on musical notation
- Carl Parrish
The Notation of Early Music
ISBN 0-918728-08-8, Pendragon Press 1959.
- Richard Rastall
The Notation of Western Music
ISBN 0-312-57963-2, St. Martin's Press 1982.
Books on particular geographical/historical periods
High Medieval France, Troubadours and Trouveres
- Elizabeth Aubrey
The Music of the Troubadours
ISBN 0-253-33207-9, Indiana University Press 1996.
- Christopher Page
Discarding Images: Reflections on Music and Culture in Medieval France
ISBN 0-19-816346-0, Oxford University Press 1993.
This book challenges many received generalizations about "the Middle
Ages", treating music as only one of many possible areas of culture
in which the challenge could be made.
- Christopher Page
The Owl and the Nightingale: Musical Life and Ideas in France 1100-1300
ISBN 0-520-06944-7, University of California Press 1989.
- L.T. Topsfield
Troubadours and Love
ISBN 0-521-09897-1, Cambridge University Press 1975.
High Medieval England
- John Southworth
The English Medieval Minstrel
ISBN 0-85115-536-7, Boydell Press 1989.
This book discusses "minstrels" in a broad sense that includes
fools, jugglers, tumblers, poets, storytellers, singers and instrumentalists.
Its coverage starts in the Anglo-Saxon period, concentrates on the 13th
and 14th centuries, and ends around 1500.
- Nigel Wilkins
Music in the Age of Chaucer
ISBN 0-85991-052-0, Rowman and Littlefield 1979.
Late Medieval Germany
- Keith Polk
German Instrumental Music of the Late Middle Ages: Players, patrons
and performance practice
ISBN 0-521-38521-0, Cambridge University Press 1992.
Books on particular instruments or voices
Recorder (blockflöte, flauto dolce, flut a bec, ...)
- Eve O'Kelly
The Recorder Today
ISBN 0-521-36681-X, Cambridge University Press 1990.
- John Mansfield Thomson, ed.
The Cambridge Companion to the Recorder
ISBN 0-521-35269-X, Cambridge University Press 1995.
- Ken Wollitz
The Recorder Book
ISBN 0-394-47973-4, Knopf 1984
A good general book about the recorder, including tips on selecting and
caring for a wooden recorder, exercises for breath and posture (useful
even for experienced players!), ensemble technique, etc.
Viol (viola da gamba, ...)
- Alison Crum with Sonia Jackson
Play the Viol: the Complete Guide to Playing the Treble, Tenor, and
Bass Viol
ISBN 0-19-816311-8, Oxford University Press 1989.
- Ian Woodfield
The Early History of the Viol
ISBN 0-521-35743-8, Cambridge University Press 1984.
Loud (haut-consort) early wind instruments
- Henry George Fischer
The Renaissance Sackbut and its Use Today
ISBN 0-87099-412-3, Metropolitan Museum of Art 1984.
- David Hogan Smith
Reed Design for Early Woodwinds
ISBN 0-253-20727-4, Indiana University Press 1992.
Smith combines expertise at instrument-making, performance, and acoustics
in a detailed, practical, technical yet readable discussion of double reeds.
He explains why shawms, krummhorns, and oboes have three very differently-shaped
reeds, discusses the role of embouchure and how to use it to get the most
out of a reed, and provides a list of mail-order sources for reed supplies.
Voice
- Peter Giles
The Counter Tenor
ISBN 0-584-10474-X, Frederick Muller Ltd. 1982.
- Timothy J. McGee, ed, with A. G. Rigg and David N. Klausner
Singing Early Music: the Pronunciation of European Languages in the
Middle Ages and Renaissance
ISBN 0-253-32961-2, Indiana University Press 1996.
Modern editions and reprints of medieval and Renaissance music books
- Giovanni Luca Conforto; Denis Stevens, ed.
The Joy of Ornamentation
orig. Treatise on Ornamentation (Rome, 1593)
ISBN 0-912483-49-0, Pro/Am Music Resources 1989.
- Jean Le Munerat; Don Harran, ed.
In Defense of Music: the Case for Music as arghued by a singer and scholar
of the late fifteenth century
ISBN 0-8032-2347-1, University of Nebraska Press 1989.
- Diego Ortiz
Tratado de glosas sobre clausulas y otros generos de puntos en la musica
de violones
(Rome, 1553)
Bärenreiter-Verlag 1936.
- Christopher Page, ed.
Summa Musice: a thirteenth-century manual for singers
ISBN 0-521-40420-7, Cambridge University Press 1991.
Last modified: Wed May 20 1998
Stephen Bloch / webmaster@ostgardr.org