The Christian West and Its Singers
WARNING
You are viewing an older version of the Yalebooks website. Please visit out new website with more updated information and a better user experience: https://www.yalebooks.com
The First Thousand Years
Christopher Page
Price: $60.00
A renowned scholar and musician presents a new and innovative exploration of the beginnings of Western musical art. Beginning in the time of the New Testament, when Christians began to develop an art of ritual singing with an African and Asian background, Christopher Page traces the history of music in Europe through the development of Gregorian chant—a music that has profoundly influenced the way Westerners hear—to the invention of the musical staff, regarded as the fundamental technology of Western music. Page places the history of the singers who performed this music against the social, political and economic life of a Western Europe slowly being remade after the collapse of Roman power. His book will be of interest to historians, musicologists, performing musicians, and general readers who are keen to explore the beginnings of Western musical art.
“The range of primary and secondary sources cited is phenomenal, and all of it has obviously been mastered—quite astonishing. The Christian West and Its Singers aims to be definitive book on the subject and surely will be.”—Joseph Dyer, University of Massachusetts, Boston
“Brilliantly reasoned and elegantly written in a style intended to include the nonspecialist, this is an extraordinary book.”
--Library Journal, starred review‘This is a beautiful book that, unlike most musicology, reaches out to all sorts of readers, and is written by a distinguished scholar who can present his arguments in convincing and readable prose.’ — Early Music Review
“Once or twice in a generation a book comes along that crosses disciplinary boundaries to make unexpected connections, open up new imaginative vistas, and refocus what had seemed familiar historical landscapes. Christopher Page’s musician’s-eye view of the evolution of Western Christendom is one of those books.”—Eamon Duffy, The New York Review of Books
‘For my own part, I will be re-reading and recommending it for years to come…Page has written a book of great importance not only for students and scholars of music, late antiquity and the Middle Ages, but also for anyone involved in overseeing or participating in music-making in religious contexts. These readers may find (as I did) surprising resonances with, and thought-provoking differences from, their own experiences, on almost every page.’—William Flynn, Early Music
Publication Date: May 18, 2010
50 b/w + 12 color illus.