1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910452455403321

Autore

Van Orden Kate

Titolo

Music, authorship, and the book in the first century of print / / Kate van Orden

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berkeley : , : University of California Press, , [2014]

©2014

ISBN

0-520-95711-3

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (257 p.)

Disciplina

070.5/79409031

Soggetti

Music printing - History - 16th century

Music publishing - History - 16th century

Music - 16th century - History and criticism

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

The world of  books -- Music books and their authors -- Authors of lyric -- The book of poetry becomes a book of music -- Resisting the press : performance.

Sommario/riassunto

What does it mean to author a piece of music? What transforms the performance scripts written down by musicians into authored books? In this fascinating cultural history of Western music's adaptation to print, Kate van Orden looks at how musical authorship first developed through the medium of printing. When music printing began in the sixteenth century, publication did not always involve the composer: printers used the names of famous composers to market books that might include little or none of their music. Publishing sacred music could be career-building for a composer, while some types of popular song proved too light to support a reputation in print, no matter how quickly they sold. Van Orden addresses the complexities that arose for music and musicians in the burgeoning cultures of print, concluding that authoring books of polyphony gained only uneven cultural traction across a century in which composers were still first and foremost performers.