THIS COLLECTION OF ESSAYS is offered to John Caldwell in celebration of his seventieth birthday, by colleagues, ex-students, and friends. It is an indication of John's polymath tendencies and eclectic interests that the essays of his erstwhile DPhil students have such a wide range, from medieval chant through polyphony, Purcell and performance culture to twentiethcentury historiography. It is a further indication of his wide range that those contributors who are colleagues working in the same field should include scholars writing on chant, the history of the organ, and the pre-history of the carol. Because of John's wide-ranging and long-standing scholarly and musical work, and because of the affection and esteem in which he is held by so many, the potential number of contributors to this book could have created a work of several volumes. The essays included are thus authored by a representative sample of those who wish to honour John, and who share his interest in English music.

The essays are grouped into four sections, reflecting four broad strands of musicology which overlap and interact as theories are developed within the discipline about the history and meaning of musical thought and practice. Primary source material is the fundamental evidence on which we build our understanding. While all of the essays engage with primary materials, close descriptions of the contents of various musical manuscripts, and consideration of their implications, are the focus of the first group of essays (by Sally Harper, Hiley, Hornby and Johnstone). The second strand of this volume concerns musical style. Finding ways to define, describe and see patterns in stylistic features is an integral component of music history and many of the essays touch on aspects of style, while it is the central focus of the contributions of Bent, Maw, Range, Strohm, Williamson and Wright. Music history is not purely an abstract stylistic process, however, and the third strand outlines various performance cultures of English music history, particularly in the chapters by John Harper, McVeigh, Page, Rees and Wollenberg. The final strand is historiographical: Smith and Zon turn to an explicit consideration of the assumptions, prejudices and values that have underlain the writing of particular kinds of English music history, while implicitly reminding us of the contingency of all musicological writing.