Through an in-depth study of instruments and illustrations from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the author pieces together information on instruments available to early musicians and the religious and secular purposes for which they were used.

With contributions from a range of internationally known early music scholars and performers, Tess Knighton and David Fallows provide a lively new survey of music and culture in Europe from the beginning of the Christian era to 1600. Fifty essays comment on the social, historical, theoretical, and performance contexts of the music and musicians of the period to offer fresh perspectives on musical styles, research sources, and performance practices of the medieval and Renaissance periods.

Organ, Volume 3 of the Encyclopedia of Keyboard Instruments, includes articles on the organ family of instruments, including famous players, composers, instrument builders, the construction of the instruments and related terminology. It is the first complete reference on this important family of keyboard instruments that predated the piano. The contributors include major scholars of music and musical instruments from around the world.

A reference guide to musical instruments.

Spanning a millennium of musical history, this monumental volume brings together nearly forty leading authorities to survey the music of Western Europe in the Middle Ages. All of the major aspects of medieval music are considered, making use of the latest research and thinking to discuss everything from the earliest genres of chant, through the music of the liturgy, to the riches of the vernacular song of the trouvères and troubadours. Alongside this account of the core repertory of monophony, The Cambridge History of Medieval Music tells the story of the birth of polyphonic music, and studies the genres of organum, conductus, motet and polyphonic song. Key composers of the period are introduced, such as Leoninus, Perotinus, Adam de la Halle, Philippe de Vitry and Guillaume de Machaut, and other chapters examine topics ranging from musical theory and performance to institutions, culture and collections.