A survey of English music from the medieval period to the early twentieth century, examining the development of different genres, styles, and composers in their cultural and historical context. The book also explores the reception of English music in other countries, and the influence of foreign music on English composers. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

First published in 2006. The social history of music first makes an appearance—even if only sporadically—in treatises which during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries gave some account of the manners and morals of specific periods, and of these socio-historical writings one of the most comprehensive is Voltaire's Siele de Louis XIV (1751). In this volume the author, without going over too much familiar ground, presents a view of English musical history from the Middle Ages.

Andrew Gant's compelling account traces English church music from Anglo-Saxon origins to the present. It is a history of the music and of the people who made, sang and listened to it. It shows the role church music has played in ordinary lives and how it reflects those lives back to us. The author considers why church music remains so popular and frequently tops the classical charts and why the BBC's Choral Evensong remains the longest-running radio series ever. He shows how England's church music follows the contours of its history and is the soundtrack of its changing politics and culture, from the mysteries of the Mass to the elegant decorum of the Restoration anthem, from stern Puritanism to Victorian bombast, and thence to the fractured worlds of the twentieth century as heard in the music of Vaughan Williams and Britten. This is a book for everyone interested in the history of English music, culture and society.

The turn of the 20th century was a time of great change in Britain. The empire saw its global influence waning and its traditional social structures challenged. There was a growing weariness of industrialism and a desire to rediscover tradition and the roots of English heritage. A new interest in English folk song and dance inspired art music, which many believed was seeing a renaissance after a period of stagnation since the 18th century. This book focuses on the lives of seven composers--Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst, Ernest Moeran, George Butterworth, Philip Heseltine (Peter Warlock), Gerald Finzi and Percy Grainger--whose work was influenced by folk songs and early music. Each chapter provides an historical background and tells the fascinating story of a musical life.

Although medieval English music has been relatively neglected in comparison with repertoire from France and Italy, there are few classical musicians today who have not listened to the thirteenth-century song ‘Sumer is icumen in’, or read of the achievements and fame of fifteenth-century composer John Dunstaple. Similarly, the identification of a distinctively English musical style (sometimes understood as the contenance angloise) has been made on numerous occasions by writers exploring the extent to which English ideas influenced polyphonic composition abroad. Angel song: Medieval English music in history examines the ways in which the standard narratives of English musical history have been crafted, from the Middle Ages to the present. Colton challenges the way in which the concept of a canon of English music has been built around a handful of pieces, composers and practices, each of which offers opportunities for a reappraisal of English musical and devotional cultures between 1250 and 1460.

"A Short History of English Music" by Ernest Ford. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.