Identity and Locality in Early European Music, 1028–1740

A collection of chapters invited from some of the leading music researchers that consider the meanings and roles of musical repertoires of the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Baroque periods in their local context, focusing on constructions of social or individual identity and the influence of local conditions on musical practices and transmission.

This collection presents numerous discoveries and fresh insights into music and musical practices that shaped distinctly localized individual and collective identities in pre-modern and early modern Europe. Contributions by leading and emerging European music experts fall into three areas: plainchant traditions in Aquitania and the Iberian peninsula during the first 700 years of the second millennium; late medieval musical aesthetics, traditions and practices in Paris, Padua, Prague and more generally England, Germany and Spain; and local traditions in Renaissance Augsburg and Baroque Naples and Dresden. In addition to in-depth readings of anonymous musical traditions, contributors provide new details concerning the lives and music of well-known composers such as Adémar de Chabannes, Bartolino da Padova, Ciconia, Josquin, Senfl, Alessandro Scarlatti, Heinichen and Zelenka. This book will appeal to a broad range of readers, including chant scholars, medievalists, music historians, and anyone interested in music''s place in pre-modern and early modern European culture.