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Some English Contemporaries of Dunstable

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Brian Trowell
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Extract

Historians of English music have always found it rather tiresome that so much of their source material for the first half of the fifteenth century survives only in foreign manuscripts, and chiefly in the libraries of North Italy. Very little of this music was available, at any rate in practical editions, until two years ago, when Musica Britannica devoted a volume to the works of John Dunstable; and it is only recently that modern techniques of photography have made these sources abroad accessible to the scholar or editor who lacks the time or the resources to travel. As a result, this very important music has been neglected by historians and performers alike. In the most recent general history of English music, for example, the achievements of Dunstable and his contemporaries are given a mere sixteen pages out of four hundred, though at no time before or since has English music been so famous and so influential abroad. Circumstances are to blame; but it is now high time that this music should be given its due, and there are encouraging signs that such a revival will shortly come about.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 81 , 1954 , pp. 77 - 92
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Musical Association, 1954

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References

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