Search results for ""author rebecca herissone""

The Ashgate Research Companion to Henry Purcell provides a comprehensive and authoritative review of current research into Purcell and the environment of Restoration music, with contributions from leading experts in the field. Seen from the perspective of modern, interdisciplinary approaches to scholarship, the companion allows the reader to develop a rounded view of the environment in which Purcell lived, the people with whom he worked, the social conditions that influenced his activities, and the ways in which the modern perception of him has been affected by reception of his music after his death. In this sense the contributions do not privilege the individual over the environment: rather, they use the modern reader's familiarity with Purcell's music as a gateway into the broader Restoration world. Topics include a reassessment of our understanding of Purcell's sources and the transmission of his music; new ways of approaching the study of his creative methods; performance practice; the multi-faceted theatre environment in which his work was focused in the last five years of his life; the importance of the political and social contexts of late seventeenth-century England; and the ways in which the performance history and reception of his music have influenced modern appreciation of the composer. The book will be essential reading for anyone studying the music and culture of the seventeenth century.

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The first genuinely interdisciplinary study of creativity in early modern England In the seventeenth century, the concept of creativity was far removed from most of the fundamental ideas about the creative act - notions of human imagination, inspiration, originality and genius - that developed in the eighteenthand nineteenth centuries. Instead, in this period, students learned their crafts by copying and imitating past masters and did not consciously seek to break away from tradition. Most new material was made on the instructions of apatron and had to conform to external expectations; and basic tenets that we tend to take for granted-such as the primacy and individuality of the author-were apparently considered irrelevant in some contexts. The aim of this interdisciplinary collection of essays is to explore what it meant to create buildings and works of art, music and literature in seventeenth-century England and to investigate the processes by which such creations came into existence. Through a series of specific case studies, the book highlights a wide range of ideas, beliefs and approaches to creativity that existed in seventeenth-century England and places them in the context of the prevailing intellectual, social and cultural trends of the period. In so doing, it draws into focus the profound changes that were emerging in the understanding of human creativity in early modern society - transformations that would eventually lead to the development of a more recognisably modern conception of the notion of creativity. The contributors work in and across the fields of literary studies, history, musicology, history of art and history of architecture, and their work collectively explores many of the most fundamental questions about creativity posed by the early modern English 'creative arts'. REBECCA HERISSONE is Head of Music and Senior Lecturer in Musicology at the University of Manchester. ALAN HOWARD is Lecturer in Music at the University of East Anglia and Reviews Editor for Eighteenth-Century Music. Contributors: Linda Phyllis Austern, Stephanie Carter, John Cunningham, Marina Daiman, Kirsten Gibson, Raphael Hallett, Rebecca Herissone, Anne Hultzsch, Freyja Cox Jensen, Stephen Rose, Andrew R. Walkling, Amanda Eubanks Winkler, James A. Winn.

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