The Guitar in Tudor England
A Social and Musical History
$41.99 USD
Part of Musical Performance and Reception
- Author: Christopher Page, Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge
- Date Published: March 2017
- availability: This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.
- format: Adobe eBook Reader
- isbn: 9781316371954
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Few now remember that the guitar was popular in England during the age of Queen Elizabeth and Shakespeare, and yet it was played everywhere from the royal court to the common tavern. This groundbreaking book, the first entirely devoted to the renaissance guitar in England, deploys new literary and archival material, together with depictions in contemporary art, to explore the social and musical world of the four-course guitar among courtiers, government servants and gentlemen. Christopher Page reconstructs the trade in imported guitars coming to the wharves of London, and pieces together the printed tutor for the instrument (probably of 1569) which ranks as the only method book for the guitar to survive from the sixteenth century. Two chapters discuss the remains of music for the instrument in tablature, both the instrumental repertoire and the traditions of accompanied song, which must often be assembled from scattered fragments of information.
Read more- The first-ever history of the most popular instrument in the world as it was in the England of Elizabeth I and Shakespeare
- Written by a performing musician who has played the renaissance guitar for many years
- Offers social as well as musical perspectives, and will appeal to non-specialists as well as to a wide range of scholars in music, literature and history
Awards
- Winner, 2017 Nicolas Bessaraboff Prize, American Musical Instrument Society
Reviews & endorsements
'The book is especially valuable because the author examines both the social and musical history of the guitar. Studies that focus just on one instrument can be sincere but dull, their pages filled with tables, measurements, stringing lists, and pretty pictures. Important information, to be sure, but missing a crucial point: these instruments were held in human hands and used for very human purposes. Here, Mr Page's book shines brightly … Readers who want to learn all things about the guitar in Tudor England could do no better than to read this superb book.' Mark Kroll, Early Music America
See more reviews'Christopher Page's study of the Tudor gittern presents the reviewer with a challenge, since it is impeccably conceived, comprehensively researched and exquisitely written; so what can one add beyond words of praise?' John Milsom, Early Music
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×Product details
- Date Published: March 2017
- format: Adobe eBook Reader
- isbn: 9781316371954
- contains: 26 b/w illus.
- availability: This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. Imagery
2. Who owned a gittern?
3. The gittern trade
4. 'An instruction to the Gitterne'
5. Sounding strings
6. The gittern and Tudor song
7. Thomas Whythorne: the autobiography of a Tudor guitarist
Conclusion
Appendices: Appendix A. The terms 'gittern' and 'cittern'
Appendix B. References to gitterns from 1542–1605
Appendix C. The probate inventory of Dennys Bucke (1584)
Appendix D. Octave strings on the fourth and third course
Appendix E. The fiddle tunings of Jerome of Moravia, swept strings and the guitar
Appendix F. The mandore and the wire-strung gittern
Appendix G. The ethos of the guitar in sixteenth-century France
Appendix H. Raphe Bowle.
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