Some Other Note
The Lost Songs of English Renaissance Comedy
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Oxford University Press Inc
Published:29th Mar '18
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
English comedy from the fifteenth to the early seventeenth century abounds in song lyrics, but most of the original tunes were thought to have been lost--until now. By deducing that playwrights borrowed melodies from songs they already knew, Ross W. Duffin has used the existing English repertory of songs, both popular and composed, to reconstruct hundreds of songs from more than a hundred plays and other stage entertainments. Thanks to Duffin's incredible breakthrough, these plays have been rendered performable with period music for the first time in five hundred years. Some Other Note not only brings these songs back from the dead, but tells a thrilling tale of the investigations that unraveled these centuries-old mysteries.
An essential resource for theater practitioners, musicologists, and literary scholars, Duffin's remarkable book has revitalized the resonances of early modern music and its integral role in these comedies. * Jennifer Linhart Wood, Shakespeare Quarterly *
The book is indispensable for anyone interested in early modern drama, literature, and music, and especially for anyone interested in a clearer picture of the sound world of Renaissance theater. * Samantha Bassler, NYU / Rutgers University - Newark, Renaissance Quarterly *
[Duffin's] inspired detective work encompasses the identification of probable cues for music within plays, including covert allusions in stage dialogue to the names or popular refrains of well-known songs. ... Most helpfully, he sets the lyrics to the music he identifies as the most plausible original setting, and accompanies these with a discussion of how the song may have been sung. * David Mcinnis, Early Theatre *
the author brings musical life to a large repertoire of tuneless plays ... Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals. * CHOICE *
ISBN: 9780190856601
Dimensions: 211mm x 259mm x 46mm
Weight: 1796g
762 pages