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A Cultural History of Western Music

Alexander Rehding editor David R M Irving editor

Format:Set / collection

Publisher:Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Published:30th Nov '23

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A Cultural History of Western Music cover

The first comprehensive history of western music from antiquity to today.

Music has been significant in social, religious, and political ritual, and in education, art, and entertainment in all human cultures from antiquity to today. A Cultural History of Western Music presents the first study of music in all its forms – ritual, classical, popular and commercial. The work is divided into 6 volumes, with each volume covering the same topics, so readers can either study a period/volume or follow a topic across history.

The volumes are:

1. A Cultural History of Western Music in Antiquity
2. A Cultural History of Western Music in the Middle Ages
3. A Cultural History of Western Music in the Renaissance
4. A Cultural History of Western Music in the Age of Enlightenment
5. A Cultural History of Western Music in the Industrial Age
6. A Cultural History of Western Music in the Modern Age

Themes (and chapter titles) are: identity, communities and society; changing philosophies and ideas about music; politics and power; musical exchange and knowledge transfer between the West and the non-West; musical education; popular culture and musical entertainment; the places, practices, and experiences of performance; and the development of music technologies and media.

The page extent for the pack is approximately 1712pp. Each volume opens with notes on contributors and an introduction and concludes with notes, bibliography, and an index.

The Cultural Histories Series
A Cultural History of Western Music is part of The Cultural Histories Series. Titles are available both as printed hardcover sets for libraries needing just one subject or preferring a one-off purchase and tangible reference for their shelves, or as part of a fully-searchable digital library available to institutions by annual subscription or perpetual access (see www.bloomsburyculturalhistory.com).

Superlatives fail to describe the achievement made by these six volumes. Truly a landmark work in the history of music, this set deserves a place in the library of any musicologist. * Sun News Austin *

“The Cultural History of WesternMusic series is a valuable new resource that takes a distinctive approach to constructing the music historical narrative… The chapters tend to offer both an accessible introduction to their theme and also the process of investigating and conceptualizing the musical past… The critically reflective nature of the chapters will engage students in thinking about the challenges of investigating and interpreting the musical past, while providing specific case studies to ground such discussions… The chosen thematic threads support the creation of a music history that begins to embrace the challenge of better representing the breadth of who participates in musical activity and how within a chronological broad narrative…. The positioning of Western music in a global context and a focus on musical mobility is also a feature… The result is that Western music is consistently presented as inextricable from other global cultures, influences and exchanges rather than distinct and self-contained… The repetition of defined themes across the whole series should make this series particularly useful for the teaching of survey courses, potentially enabling one to both explore a theme in relation to a specific cultural moment, and also to explore cultural change and continuity.”
Early Music

* Early Music *

ISBN: 9781350075634

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown