English comedy from the fifteenth to the early seventeenth century abounds in song lyrics, but most of the original tunes were thought to have been lost¿until now. By deducing that playwrights borrowed melodies from songs they already knew, Ross W. Duffin has used the existing English repertory of songs, both popular and composed, to reconstruct hundreds of songs from more than a hundred plays and other stage entertainments, rendering them performable with periodmusic for the first time in five hundred years.
A native of Canada, Ross W. Duffin is Fynette H. Kulas Professor of Music and Distinguished University Professor at Case Western Reserve University, where he specializes in historical performance practice. Among his books are Shakespeare's Songbook (W. W. Norton, 2004), and How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony (and Why You Should Care) (Norton, 2007). Duffin has been described as "virtually synonymous with music and Shakespeare," and his book was lauded as "a musicological tour de force, totally without pedantry, a book which will forever change Shakespeare productions."
Show moreEnglish comedy from the fifteenth to the early seventeenth century abounds in song lyrics, but most of the original tunes were thought to have been lost¿until now. By deducing that playwrights borrowed melodies from songs they already knew, Ross W. Duffin has used the existing English repertory of songs, both popular and composed, to reconstruct hundreds of songs from more than a hundred plays and other stage entertainments, rendering them performable with periodmusic for the first time in five hundred years.
A native of Canada, Ross W. Duffin is Fynette H. Kulas Professor of Music and Distinguished University Professor at Case Western Reserve University, where he specializes in historical performance practice. Among his books are Shakespeare's Songbook (W. W. Norton, 2004), and How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony (and Why You Should Care) (Norton, 2007). Duffin has been described as "virtually synonymous with music and Shakespeare," and his book was lauded as "a musicological tour de force, totally without pedantry, a book which will forever change Shakespeare productions."
Show moreGlossary
Foreword, by Tiffany Stern
Prologue - Editorial Note
Acknowledgments
Part 1. Background of the 15th and 16th Centuries
1. Mystery/Morality Plays
2. Court Enterludes
3. St Paul's Enterludes
4. Chapels Royal Enterludes
5. University and Inns of Court Enterludes
6. Continental Influences
Part 2. London Comedy to 1625
7. Ben Jonson (1572-1637)
8. George Chapman (1559-1634)
9. John Marston (1576-1634)
10. Thomas Dekker (1572-1632)
11. John Fletcher (1579-1625)
12. Thomas Middleton (1580-1627)
13. Francis Beaumont (1584-1616)
14. Philip Massinger (1583-1640)
15. Other Playwrights
16. Anonymous Plays ca.1600
17. Jigs
Appendix
Ross W. Duffin is Fynette H. Kulas Professor of Music and
Distinguished University Professor at Case Western Reserve
University, where he specializes in historical performance
practice. Among his books are Shakespeare's Songbook, and How Equal
Temperament Ruined Harmony (and Why You Should Care). Duffin has
been described as "virtually synonymous with music and
Shakespeare," and his book was lauded as "a musicological tour
de
force, totally without pedantry, a book which will forever change
Shakespeare productions."
"[Duffin's] inspired detective work encompasses the identification
of probable cues for music within plays, including covert allusions
in stage dialogue to the names or popular refrains of well-known
songs. ... Most helpfully, he sets the lyrics to the music he
identifies as the most plausible original setting, and accompanies
these with a discussion of how the song may have been sung." --
David Mcinnis , Early Theatre
"the author brings musical life to a large repertoire of tuneless
plays ... Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates
through faculty and professionals." -- CHOICE
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