Charmingly written, with plenty of interesting historical tidbits—recommended for anyone interested in early music.
A comprehensive account of one of the key inventions in music history: a method for writing down a composition so someone could learn it without hearing it performed.
Kelly (Music/Harvard Univ.; Music Then and Now, 2012, etc.) assumes neither familiarity with medieval music nor the ability to read music. Instead, he focuses on the conceptual breakthroughs that led a few medieval musicians and scribes to devise a way to make it easier to teach novices the extensive body of music that filled the church year. The very idea required something of an intellectual leap; after all, music cannot be seen, and when a song is over, it lives only in memory. Still, over several centuries, a system of marks, or neumes, was developed to record Gregorian chant. At first, the system was rather inexact; the neumes recorded the general shape of the melody but not the exact pitches. The key invention came in the early 11th century, when an Italian monk named Guido drew a set of parallel lines—the ancestor of the staff—to define the pitch that each neume represented. Guido also named each note of the scale, making it easier to teach music. The pope enthusiastically endorsed his system, and it caught on throughout Western Europe. But Guido made no attempt to notate rhythms, leaving subsequent scholars to guess at a key component of how chant was sung. A couple of centuries later, masters Leoninus and Perotinus hit on the idea of changing the shape of the notes to show how long to hold them. Their system, codified in the next century, became (with additional adjustments as styles changed) the core of our modern musical notation. With over 100 illustrations from original manuscripts, Kelly makes the story clear enough for nonmusicians to follow, and the book includes a CD to let readers hear how many of the examples actually sound.
Charmingly written, with plenty of interesting historical tidbits—recommended for anyone interested in early music.Pub Date: Nov. 3, 2014
ISBN: 978-0393064964
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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