The death of Peter le Huray in Cambridge on 7 October 1992, only months after embarking on what had promised to be an exceptionally productive and fulfilling early retirement, was lamented particularly by thousands of Cambridge music graduates who had experienced at first hand his tutelage and counsel in a distinguished college and university career that spanned a period of some 40 years. The obituaries published in the national press at that time were unanimous in emphasizing Peter le Huray s unshakable commitment to his role as teacher, a commitment that does not always accompany distinguished scholarship.

It was characteristic of Peter le Huray's indefatigable dedication to intellectual enquiry that in the year following his retirement he organized an extended series of seminars at Cambridge devoted to performance practice in English choral music of the late fourteenth to the mid-seventeenth centuries. It was envisaged that the substance of the seminars would later be published in monograph form. In inviting a broad spectrum of scholars to contribute to those seminars, he drew on the expertise both of his Cambridge colleagues and those working elsewhere. Some contributors – such as Roger Bowers and Alison Wray – elected to develop areas in which they had already forged a formidable reputation, while others – such as Roger Bray, John Milsom and the present writer – availed themselves of the opportunity to use the seminars as a sounding-board for exploring new areas of interest.

Although the work of several of the original contributors is included in the present volume, some of those who participated in the Cambridge seminars felt that their sessions were unsuited to print or that their ideas were insufficiently developed for publication.