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The Performance of Music in Spain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

J. B. Trend
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Extract

On the last occasion on which the subject of Spanish music was discussed at a meeting of this Association, we were able to listen to the finished product—a product “finished” in every sense of the word, for, as members will recollect, the illustrations, consisting of a number of Spanish madrigals, were beautifully performed by the English Singers. This time, I should like to begin at the other end, as it were—with the remains of early Spanish music as they confront the researcher, and the traveller. For the researcher is not confined to musical MSS. or to the statements of the theorists. Sculpture, ivories, miniatures and contemporary descriptions in prose or verse, often throw more light on the conditions of performance and the character of the music itself, than the actual MS. with the musical notation (supposing it to exist and to be intelligible), and they are certainly more illuminating than the treatises on musical theory.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Musical Association , Volume 55 , 1928 , pp. 51 - 76
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Musical Association, 1928

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References

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