Summary of the History and Development of Medieval and Modern European Music

The English composer C. Hubert H. Parry published a historic overview of European music for music students in 1893.

Charles Hubert Hastings Parry (Author)

9781108005159, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 24 September 2009

128 pages
21.6 x 14 x 0.8 cm, 0.17 kg

In 1893, the English composer and director of the Royal College of Music C. Hubert H. Parry published Summary of the Development of Medieval and Modern European Music, an overview of European music from the middle ages to the work of Schubert and Brahms. Intended for music students, the book summarises the major composers, their work and the social circumstances that surrounded the creation of their music. This ambitious book is divided into 12 chronological chapters, from the troubadours and plainsong, through Bach and Handel to the rise of the symphony, Mozart, and the emergence of music as an expression of nationalism. In the book's first part, Parry deftly puts music in historical context, discussing England's Wars of the Roses, and the Reformation in relation to the changing styles throughout the sixteenth century; he then explores the music of the Restoration and the rise of opera.

1. The music of the middle ages
2. Music in England from the beginning of Tudor Times till the restoration of the Stuarts
3. The beginnings of opera and oratorio
4. The progress of opera in various countries, from the middle of the seventeenth century till the time of Gluck
5. Oratorio in the time of Bach and Handel
6. The progress of instrumental music up to the time of J. S. Bach
7. The progress of instrumental music in the eighteenth century
8. Opera in Gluck and Mozart's time and immediately after
9. The progress of instrumental music to Beethoven and his immediate successors
10. Modern instrumental music
11. Modern opera
12. Modern vocal music.

Subject Areas: Music [AV]