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Product Description: Where should there be music in an anonymous English religious play of the 15th or 16th century? What sort of music should it be and by what forces should it be performed? What clues are to be found in the pace of music in the wider intellectual and artistic life of the Middle Ages? In answering such questions, Rastall makes an important contribution towards understanding not only how music was used at the time of the play's production, but also how it should be used in a modern production (taking in on the way medieval cosmology, construction of the plays, and boy actors, among many other subjects)...read more

Examines the principles of musical notation and discusses the development of staff notation from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century