Music, authorship, and the book in the first century of print / Kate van Orden.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Van Orden, Kate.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Music printing--History--16th century.

Music printing.

Music publishing--History--16th century.

Music publishing.

Music--16th century--History and criticism.

Music.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (257 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, [2014]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

What does it mean to author a piece of music? What transforms the performance scripts written down by musicians into authored books? In this fascinating cultural history of Western music's adaptation to print, Kate van Orden looks at how musical authorship first developed through the medium of printing. When music printing began in the sixteenth century, publication did not always involve the composer: printers used the names of famous composers to market books that might include little or none of their music. Publishing sacred music could be career-building for a composer, while some types of popular song proved too light to support a reputation in print, no matter how quickly they sold. Van Orden addresses the complexities that arose for music and musicians in the burgeoning cultures of print, concluding that authoring books of polyphony gained only uneven cultural traction across a century in which composers were still first and foremost performers.

Contents:

The world of books

Music books and their authors

Authors of lyric

The book of poetry becomes a book of music

Resisting the press : performance.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780520957114

0520957113

OCLC:

861559023