Michael Noone

Music and musicians in the Escorial liturgy under the Habsburgs, 1563-1700

Philip II of Spain founded the great Spanish monastery and royal palace of El Escorial in 1563, promoting within it a musical foundation whose dual function as royal chapel and monastery in the service of a Counter Reformation monarch was unique; this volume explores the performance and composition of liturgical music there from its beginnings to the death of Charles II in 1700. It traces the ways in which music styles and practices responded to the the changing functions of the institution, challenging notions about Spanish musical patronage, scrutinising musical manuscripts, uncovering the biographical details of hundreds of musicians, and examining musical practices. Michael Noone is Professor of Musicology at the University of Hong Kong.

Music on the Margin--Urban Musical Life in Eighteenth-Century Jaca (Spain) (review)

torically grounded, socially determined woman” (p. 200). Morris concludes by relating the Bayreuth experience to the contemporary Hollywood experience which “promotes complete audience identification and an unabashedly subjective experience” while noting that the recent successful film scores “are not so much post-Wagnerian as consciously and openly Wagnerian” with the result that “the Wagnerian orchestra continues to reach numbers that even Wagner could hardly have imagined” (p. 205). Morris’s thoughtful and well-produced book (including numerous music examples of high quality) contains a wealth of stimulating insights into those sections of operas that are often interpreted in purely diagetic and reflective terms. As an engaging writer (even in the more abstruse sections), he makes for rewarding reading, even for those not so well versed in certain aspects of critical discourse as the author obviously is. On a pragmatic note, this book should surely be required reading for all opera conductors, some of whom I suspect remain unaware of the possible significance of many of the orchestral interludes they so often direct.

Aspectos de la cultura musical en la Corte de Felipe II (review)

and titles of bibliographical items, and other mistakes, all of which should have been corrected in the copyediting process. (The bibliography in particular is replete with mistakes.) The second is the shockingly inadequate index, which fails to include scores of page numbers that should have been included for the items that do appear, and which inexplicably omits innumerable terms and concepts that should have been indexed. A reader interested in women and music, for example, should know that this reviewer found about fifty more references to female musicians than the mere seven provided by the index. Music in Ancient Israel/Palestine depends so heavily on archaeologically retrieved materials that new discoveries will perhaps necessitate a second edition. One hopes that this is the case, so that the technical errors can be corrected and some of the highly speculative social and religious interpretations can be adjusted. Nevertheless, the sweeping overview and musicological astuteness of the present edition are sure to make it a classic contribution to the study of music, one of the most significant aspects of human culture, in a region that has uniquely influenced the JudeoChristian world.

La Música en Nueva Nursia

Abstract If the publication of any monograph concerned with the history of Australian music is a significant event, then one published in a foreign language, Spanish in this instance, is even more so. But when the book concerned is a translation of an unpublished manuscript written in English by a Spanish-born Australian musician we are forced again to confront certain familiar questions about Australian commitment to our own musical history and its documentation.

Catalogo del Archivo de Musica De la Catedral de Granada

Abstract The present volumes are the first in a projected collection which appears under the imposing generic title of La Musica en las Catedrales Andaluzas. Predicated on the unquestionable importance of the enormous number of musical sources held in Spanish cathedrals, the collection is organized by the Andalucian Centre of Musical Documentation and will comprise four series: (I) catalogues, (II) documentation, (III) musical editions and (IV) studies. This visionary project enjoys the support of the autonomous government of Andalucia through its Cultural and Environmental Council which in 1988 signed an agreement with the ecclesiastical authorities of Andalucia allowing the thorough cataloguing of the Cathedral archives of the region. As a result, the entire musical holdings of the Cathedrals of Cordoba, Cadiz, Jaen and Seville have been microfilmed; catalogues of the musical holdings of the cathedrals of Seville, Jaen, Cordoba, Granada and Guadix-Baza are close to completion and transcriptions of docum...

Matthew Locke, dramatic music

Abstract One welcomes the publication of Professor Tilmouths edition of the dramatic music of Matthew Locke not only because of the quality of the music it has assembled, but also because it follows in the wake of the publication of several important studies of English music for the stage, most notably those of Curtis Price and Eric Walter White.