Minstrels Playing: Music in Early English Religious Drama II - Hardcover

A wealth of detail even more astonishing than Heaven Singing... These two volumes will be an essential tool for all scholars and paerformers. They represent the very best work done in the field. MEDIEVAL REVIEW * The scope of the book is wide... It should be read at an early stage by anyone intending to perform [the plays]... non-musicians will benefit from the author's alertness to the possibilities in the surviving evidence. EARLY MUSIC REVIEW * A highly authoritative analysis of the entire field... We have two splendid books: an essential guide to the practice of music within and around the English medieval vernacular religious play, and a stimulus both to the historical imagination in its own right and to the practical business of bringing these vivid texts to life in performance. MUSIC AND LETTERS (John Caldwell) * An invaluable tool for the student, teacher and producer of medieval drama and music. EARLY MUSIC TODAY He has an unrivalled knowledge of minstrelsy in the middle ages, and this pair of books will be of inestimable value. EARLY MUSIC This is a comprehensively useful book on the use of music in individual plays from the drama of the later Middle Ages. SPECULUM

Richard Rastall's two books on music in early English religious drama complement each other. 'Heaven Singing' provides an overview of the evidence for music in the plays, and defines the place, nature and cultural contexts of music in the drama; 'Minstrels Playing'is a discussion of the evidence for every play in that repertory and is therefore concerned with the place and nature of musical performance in each play individually.