Music and instruments of the Elizabethan age : the Eglantine Table / edited by Michael Fleming, Christopher Page.

Format
Book
Language
English
Published/​Created
Woodbridge, Suffolk : The Boydell Press, 2021.
Description
xviii, 291 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, music ; 24 cm

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Available Online

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Mendel Music Library - Stacks ML286.2 .M87 2021 Browse related items Request

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    Summary note
    "The reign of Elizabeth I (1558-1603) has often been regarded as the Golden Age of English music. Many works of high quality, both vocal and instrumental, were composed and performed by native and immigrant musicians, while balladry and minstrelsy flourished in hall, street and alehouse. No single source of the sixteenth century presents this rich musical culture more vividly than the inlaid surface of the Eglantine Table. This astonishing piece of furniture was made in the late 1560s for the family of Elizabeth or 'Bess' of Hardwick, Countess of Shrewsbury (1527-1608). The upper surface bears a wealth of marquetry that depicts, amidst the briar roses and other plants, numerous Elizabethan musical instruments in exquisite detail together with open books or scrolls of music with legible notation. Given that depictions of musical instruments and musical sources are rare in all artistic media of the Elizabethan period, the Eglantine Table is a very important resource for understanding the musical life of the age and its connection to aspects of culture now treated separately in disciplines such as art history, social and political history or the study of material culture. This volume assembles a group of leading scholars in the history of instruments and associated fields to ground future research upon the most expert assessment of the depicted instruments, the music and the decorative imagery that is currently attainable. A final section of the book takes a broad view, placing the Table and the musical components of its decoration in relation to the full range of Elizabethan musical life. MICHAEL FLEMING focused his instrument-making career principally on viols and was awarded a PhD by the Open University in 2001 for his research into English viol-making. Since 2005 he has produced the leading international journal of organology, The Galpin Society Journal, and he was Chair of the Viola da Gamba Society from 1997-2017. His recent publications include Early English Viols: Instruments, Makers and Music (Routledge, 2017), co-authored with John Bryan. CHRISTOPHER PAGE is Emeritus Professor of English in the University of Cambridge, a Fellow of the British Academy and a Member of the Academia Europaea. His most recent publications include the second in his four-volume history of the early guitar, The Guitar in Stuart England: A Social and Musical History, was published by Cambridge University Press in November 2017."--Publisher description.
    Bibliographic references
    Includes bibliographical references and index.
    Contents
    • Introducing the Eglantine Table
    • Part 1, Silent things: The Table : models and artistic context / Anthony Wells-Cole. Botany, the Table and Hardwick New Hall / Claire Preston. The playing cards and gaming boards / Patrick Ball. The writing implements / Jason Scott-Warren
    • Part 2, Music and instruments: The music in ataff notation / John Milsom. The book of lute tablature / Matthew Spring. 'A full and lively pourtraiture' : the Table as evidence for Tudor musical instruments / Michael Fleming and Christopher Page. The bowed instruments and bows / Michael Fleming. The gittern or guitar / Chistopher Page. The cittern / Peter Forrester. The lute / Matthew Spring. The harp / Karen Loomis. The wind instruments / Jeremy Montagu with Graham Wells
    • Part 3, Broader views of the Eglantine Table: The Table and the music of the 1560s / John Milsom. Pipers, Fiddlers and the musical lives of the majority / Christopher Marsh. Tables of the mind / Edward Wilson-Lee
    • Appendix 1. The renovation of the Eglantine Table by Tankerdale Ltd, 1996 / report by John Hartley and Robin Merrifield
    • Apprendix 2. The Table in the context of furnishings in Bess of Hardwick's houses / Christopher Rowell.
    ISBN
    • 9781783274215 (hardback)
    • 1783274212 (hardback)
    LCCN
    2021289731
    OCLC
    1242822540
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