The Christian West and Its Singers: The First Thousand Years

by Christopher Page

A renowned scholar and musician presents a new and innovative exploration of the beginnings of Western musical art. Beginning in the time of the New Testament, when Christians began to develop an art of ritual singing with an African and Asian background, Christopher Page traces the history of music in Europe through the development of Gregorian chant—a music that has profoundly influenced the way Westerners hear—to the invention of the musical staff, regarded as the fundamental technology of Western music. Page places the history of the singers who performed this music against the social, political and economic life of a Western Europe slowly being remade after the collapse of Roman power. His book will be of interest to historians, musicologists, performing musicians, and general readers who are keen to explore the beginnings of Western musical art.

Genres: History, Music, Nonfiction

692 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[The Book : An Online Review at The New Republic]

PERHAPS YOU REMEMBER a compact disc which was released in 1982 and entitled A Feather on the Breath of God – Hymns and Sequences by Abbess Hildegard of Bingen? It was performed by an English group called Gothic Voices, starring Emma Kirkby, and is still said to be one of the best-selling discs of pre-classical music ever made. It certainly inspired a craze for the life and works of Hildegard (1098-1179), which is still with us.Read more...