This seminar for college and university teachers explored music books produced in Europe between 1500 and 1700. It engaged with the history of books and readers and with the social and cultural history of performance. Recent scholarship on the history of the book emphasizes the book object as a space for cultural performance at all levels, from the “how-to” manual to a source for philosophical speculation. Like many book objects, music books are by their nature performative, not only as records of performances (real or imagined), but also as guides or prescriptions for behavior, and as indicators of wider cultural patterns and concerns.
Learn more about the seminar directors: Richard Wistreicht, Newcastle University (now with Royal Northern College of Music), and Carla Zecher, Newberry Center for Renaissance Studies
Learn more about Center for Renaissance Studies programs.