Ideas and Styles in the Western Musical Tradition


Book Description

Ideas and Styles in the Western Musical Tradition, Fourth Edition, explores the conceptual frameworks that have shaped musical development from antiquity to the present. In a lively narrative that prompts readers to think both critically and creatively, Douglass Seaton uses historical documents from thinkers, artists, and musicians to add rich detail to the compelling story of Western music. This brief and accessible narrative of music history features numerous works of art, literature, and music that immerse students in the historical and intellectual contexts of musical styles. The thoroughly updated and revised fourth edition offers: · New pedagogy including chapter-opening summaries and outlines; marginal cues to identify key ideas in each paragraph; and extended excerpts from key historical texts · Increased and balanced coverage of women's roles in music history, ranging from discussions of key composers and performers like Isabella d'Este and Fanny Hensel to women's important roles as patrons · A custom score anthology drawn from the Oxford History of Western Music offers students full scores and analysis for key works from the text · A more user-friendly design makes it easier for students to quickly locate key information · Updates to the narrative throughout, including the most recent research findings along with updates to the reception of key works




Ideas and Styles in the Western Musical Tradition


Book Description

Ideas and Styles in the Western Musical Tradition, Third Edition, explores the conceptual frameworks that have shaped musical development from antiquity to the present. In a lively narrative that prompts readers to think both critically and creatively, Douglass Seaton uses historical documents from thinkers, artists, and musicians to add rich detail to the compelling story of Western music. This brief and accessible narrative of music history features numerous works of art, literature, and music that immerse the reader in the historical and intellectual contexts of musical styles. In addition, the thoroughly updated and revised third edition: * Includes the most current historiography * Clarifies the interconnections and divisions between musical periods, moving away from -periodization- terms * Offers an updated and comprehensive timeline * Expands the final chapter with additional recent works and more reflection on postmodernism * Features a unique anthology-free design that allows instructors the flexibility to choose their own musical examples (a correlation guide to the major score anthologies is included in the Companion Website) The third edition is also enhanced by a new Companion Website (www.oup.com/us/seaton) with study aids, teaching tips, chapter synopses, review and quiz materials, and listening recommendations. Also included are questions for study and reflection, guidance for research and writing in music history, and hints for pronouncing church Latin, as well as a correlation guide to the major score anthologies.




Oxford History of Western Music


Book Description

The Oxford History of Western Music is a magisterial survey of the traditions of Western music by one of the most prominent and provocative musicologists of our time. This text illuminates, through a representative sampling of masterworks, those themes, styles, and currents that give shape and direction to each musical age. Taking a critical perspective, this text sets the details of music, the chronological sweep of figures, works, and musical ideas, within the larger context of world affairs and cultural history. Written by an authoritative, opinionated, and controversial figure in musicology, The Oxford History of Western Music provides a critical aesthetic position with respect to individual works, a context in which each composition may be evaluated and remembered. Taruskin combines an emphasis on structure and form with a discussion of relevant theoretical concepts in each age, to illustrate how the music itself works, and how contemporaries heard and understood it. It also describes how the c







Hymns and Hymnody: Historical and Theological Introductions, Volume 1


Book Description

Hymns and the music the church sings are tangible means of expressing worship. And while worship is one of, if not the, central functions of the church along with mission, service, education, justice, and compassion, and occupies a prime focus of our churches, a renewed sense of awareness to our theological presuppositions and cultural cues must be maintained to ensure a proper focus in worship. Hymns and Hymnody: Historical and Theological Introductions is a 60-chapter, three-volume introductory textbook describing the most influential hymnists, liturgists, and musical movements of the church. This academically grounded resource evaluates both the historical and theological perspectives of the major hymnists and composers that have impacted the church over the course of twenty centuries. Volume 1 explores the early church and concludes with the Renaissance era hymnists. Volume 2 begins with the Reformation and extends to the eighteenth-century hymnists and liturgists. Volume 3 engages nineteenth century hymnists to the contemporary movements of the twenty-first century. Each chapter contains these five elements: historical background, theological perspectives communicated in their hymns/compositions, contribution to liturgy and worship, notable hymns, and bibliography. The mission of Hymns and Hymnody is (1) to provide biographical data on influential hymn writers for students and interested laypeople, and (2) to provide a theological analysis of what these composers have communicated in the theology of their hymns. We believe it is vital for those involved in leading the worship of the church to recognize that what they communicate is in fact theology. This latter aspect, we contend, is missing—yet important—in accessible formats for the current literature.




The Truth about Stories


Book Description

Winner of the 2003 Trillium Book Award "Stories are wondrous things," award-winning author and scholar Thomas King declares in his 2003 CBC Massey Lectures. "And they are dangerous." Beginning with a traditional Native oral story, King weaves his way through literature and history, religion and politics, popular culture and social protest, gracefully elucidating North America's relationship with its Native peoples. Native culture has deep ties to storytelling, and yet no other North American culture has been the subject of more erroneous stories. The Indian of fact, as King says, bears little resemblance to the literary Indian, the dying Indian, the construct so powerfully and often destructively projected by White North America. With keen perception and wit, King illustrates that stories are the key to, and only hope for, human understanding. He compels us to listen well.




Sourcebook for Research in Music


Book Description

This bibliography of bibliographies lists and describes sources, from basic references to highly specialized materials. Valuable as a classroom text and as a research tool for scholars, librarians, performers, and teachers.




What in the World is Music?


Book Description

What in the World is Music? Second Edition is an undergraduate, interactive e-textbook that explores the shared ways people engage with music and how humans organize and experience sound. It adopts a global approach, featuring more than 300 streaming videos and 50 streaming audio tracks of music from around the world. Drawing from both musicological and ethnomusicological modes of inquiry, the authors explain the nature and meaning of music as a universal human practice, making no distinction between Western and non-Western repertoires while providing students with strong points of connection to the ways it affects their own lives. The What in the World is Music? curriculum is divided into five parts, with a fully integrated multimedia program linked directly to the chapters: The Foundations of Music I proposes a working definition of "music" and considers inquiry-guided approaches to its study: Why do humans have innate musical perception? How does this ability manifest itself in the human voice? A catalog of musical instruments showcases global diversity and human ingenuity. The Foundations of Music II continues the inquiry-guided approach, recognizing the principles by which musical sound is organized while discussing elements such as rhythm, melody, harmony, texture, form, genre, and style. Where did music come from? What is it for? Music and Identity examines how music operates in shaping, negotiating, and expressing human identity and is organized around three broad conceptual frames: the group, hybridity, and conflict. Music and the Sacred addresses how music is used in religious practices throughout the world: chanting sacred texts and singing devotional verses, inspiring religious experience such as ecstasy and trance, and marking and shaping ritual space and time. Music and Social Life analyzes the uses of music in storytelling, theater, and film. It delves into the contributions of sound technologies, while looking at the many ways music enhances nightlife, public ceremonies, and festivals.




History of the Idea of Progress


Book Description

The idea of progress from the Enlightenment to postmodernism is still very much with us. In intellectual discourse, journals, popular magazines, and radio and talk shows, the debate between those who are "progressivists" and those who are "declinists" is as spirited as it was in the late seventeenth century. In History of the Idea of Progress, Robert Nisbet traces the idea of progress from its origins in Greek, Roman, and medieval civilizations to modern times. It is a masterful frame of reference for understanding the present world. Nisbet asserts there are two fundamental building blocks necessary to Western doctrines of human advancement: the idea of growth, and the idea of necessity. He sees Christianity as a key element in both secular and spiritual evolution, for it conveys all the ingredients of the modern idea of progress: the advancement of the human race in time, a single time frame for all the peoples and epochs of the past and present, the conception of time as linear, and the envisagement of the future as having a Utopian end. In his new introduction, Nisbet shows why the idea of progress remains of critical importance to studies of social evolution and natural history. He provides a contemporary basis for many disciplines, including sociology, economics, philosophy, religion, politics, and science. History of the Idea of Progress continues to be a major resource for scholars in all these areas.




The Western Intellectual Tradition


Book Description

Traces the development of thought through historical movements and periods from 1500 to 1830.