Customer Reviews

Anthology of Medieval Music (The Norton Introduction to Music History)

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First of all, I must say that I have not the Hoppin's Medieval Music History book this anthology is supposed to complement. I'm reviewing as someone who just wanted to have an anthology of Medieval Music to do some analysis with and found it difficult (or expensive) to find medieval music on score for that purpose.

Some things I didn't like about this book:

1) It only displays modern notation. Every piece of music is transcribed with modern notation with the conventions normally assumed when notating special cases (notes without stems when transcribing free rythm music, for example). Excerpt 1 is the only example notated with another notation other than modern, and it is made with the Solesmes notation for plainchant (that is, a XIXth century notation, althought a more 'authentic' one). I understand that an anthology which wouldn't use modern notation at all should be too hard for a student who is interested in medieval music for the first time. But I think it's not a good idea at all to hide medieval notations at every respect in a book like this. A goog understanding of medieval music should distinguish between the part of music that the manuscripts really preserve and the part that is added by modern musicologists or interpreters.

2) The editions of music used in the book are very second-hand and old-fashioned. Rythmic editions of Codex Calixtinus' 'Nostra phalanx' by Carl Parrish, or Notre-Dame Organa in flourished style in PMMM reflect a now completely superseded view of that music as compositional (and not aurally transmitted) acts. XIVth century excerpts give no information about the original mensuratio and are given directly in modern time signature.

3) The book only provides the excerpts and the English translations of the texts. No analysis at all. I suppose the analysis are all in the history book.

Don't buy this anthology except you like Hoppin's Medieval Music History and want to have the scores of the music there reviewed.

Sorry for my horrible English.

Rafael Fernández

This anthology is to go along with Richard Hoppin's textbook, Medieval Music. The anthology contains 71 excerpts, all of which are referred to and explained in Hoppin's text.

This anthology is not meant to stand alone-it would not be very effective for this purpose.

Aside from the first excerpt, all the music is written in modern notation. Hoppin explains some of the shortcoming of modern notation and makes it clear in the text why and how some of the examples don't really "fit" into our modern concept of musical notation. That being said, the purpose of this anthology is for education, and it would be too challenging even for a graduate student to try to analyze such works using "old" notation.

The anthology also gives English translations of the texts. Although Hoppin wants the texts to come to life, I don't like how the translations aren't written next to the text. In reading the text, I have to sort of guess where each section is being sung. Since there is almost no word painting in medieval music, however, this isn't too much of a problem.

One aspect about Norton's 20th Century Anthology was that there were concise analytical comments about each excerpt. I found that to be extremely helpful, and wish this had the same.

There really isn't too much more to say. If you are reading Hoppin's book, get this anthology if you can-you'll be grateful. If you're reading some other book on medieval music, then this book is worth knowing about. Otherwise, I don't think this is the book for you.

This the first book whit lots of vocal and instrumental vocal scores from the medieval period, this a "must " for any medieval performer or investigator, but its better if you have the firs volume that gives you all the background of the musical conception and the history or references from the music.