The Praise of Musicke, 1586

Routledge’s series Music Theory in Britain, 1500–1700: Critical Editions is a welcome contribution to recent revision in the scholarly approach to early modern English writing on music. In the past fifty years, English musical treatises have been often regarded as inferior to their Continental counterparts for a variety of reasons. Though more recent approaches to history better appreciate the value of an anonymously authored treatise such as The Praise of Musicke (1586), fresh critical editions of English sources are sorely overdue. England’s theoretical contributions to musica practica have had some relatively recent attention from Rebecca Herissone and Jesse Ann Owens. Yet in the area of musica speculativa, scholarship on English writing has been comparatively dwarfed. It speaks volumes that Hyun-Ah Kim’s edition is the first printed critical edition of this treatise that, in the editor’s words, ‘marks a milestone in the history of musical apologetics’ (p. i). Published in Oxford by Joseph Barnes, The Praise of Musicke (1586) comprises twelve chapters which present the biblical, classical, and patristic evidence in favour of the use of music in church, defending lawful liturgical music against Puritanical critics. As Kim states, ‘[t]he main intention of the author is to deliver persuasive arguments for the significance of music from both utilitarian and theoretical perspectives based on the best scholarly authorities’ (p. 9). Kim’s edition, like the others in this series, presents the text in its original form, retaining spelling, capitalization, font changes, and punctuation. The detailed endnotes accompanying the edition provide short descriptions of classical and patristic figures, translations of Greek and Latin passages, and thorough clarification of archaic terminology—including some words I imagine students who have read any Shakespeare would probably be able to figure out (Clad: clothed, Perchaunce: by chance, Swathing: enveloping, wrapping). Kim’s edition aims to situate The Praise of Musicke within its wider intellectual, political, and religious climate, highlighting its contribution to our understanding of the musical apologetics and polemics of late sixteenth-century England.

Art · Art history · Linguistics · Literature · Musical · Praise · Punctuation · Scholarship · Spelling · Value (mathematics) · Variety (cybernetics) · Chinese history and philosophy · Classics · Computer Science · History · Law · Musicology and Musical Analysis · Philosophy