Overview

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.

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9780300112573

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Reviews

'The range of primary and secondary sources cited is phenomenal, and all of it has obviously been mastered - quite astonishing. The Christian West and its Singers aims to be definitive book on the subject and surely will be.' Joseph Dyer, University of Massachusetts, Boston 'Dr Page attempts, and triumphantly succeeds in his attempt, to write not merely a technical or even liturgical, but also a social and cultural history of Western church music in the first millennium of its existence. All aspects are integrated into a seamless narrative that has no competitor, and that few other scholars can ever be qualified to emulate.' Leofranc Holford-Strevens, Oxford

Author Information

Christopher Page is Professor of Medieval Music and Literature in the University of Cambridge, Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, and founder of the acclaimed ensemble Gothic Voices.

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