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Liturgy and Contemplation in Byrd's Gradualia

[Paperback]

by Kerry McCarthy

    • Author

      Kerry McCarthy

    • Book Format

      Paperback

    • Publisher

      Routledge

    • Published

      January 2016

      Read full description

      Today's Price

      £57.89

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      Liturgy and Contemplation in Byrd's Gradualia

      Today's Price £57.89



      Product Description

      William Byrd's Gradualia is one of the most unusual and elaborate musical works of the English Renaissance. This large collection of liturgical music, 109 pieces in all, was written for clandestine use by English Catholics at a time when they were forbidden to practice their religion in public. When Byrd began to compose the Gradualia, he turned from the penitential and polemical extravagances of his earlier Latin motets to the narrow, carefully ordered world of the Counter-Reformation liturgy. It was in this new context, cut off from his familiar practice of choosing colorful texts and setting them at length, that he first wrote about the "hidden and mysterious power" of sacred words to evoke a creative response. Liturgy and Contemplation in Byrd's Gradualia responds to Byrd's own testimony by exploring how he read the texts of the Mass and the events of the church calendar. Kerry McCarthy examines early modern English Catholic attitudes toward liturgical practice, meditation, and what the composer himself called "thinking over divine things."
      She draws on a wide range of contemporary sources - devotional treatises, commentaries on the Mass, poetry, memoirs, letters, and Byrd's dedicatory prefaces - and revisits the Gradualia in light of this evidence. The book offers a case study of how one artist reimagined the creative process in the final decades of his life.

      Specification

      • Author

        Kerry McCarthy

      • Book Format

        Paperback

      • Publisher

        Routledge

      • Published

        January 2016

      • Weight

        341g

      • Page Count

        252

      • Dimensions

        153 x 229 x 14 mm

      • ISBN

        9781138965249

      • ISBN-10

        1138965243

      • Eden Code

        4440734

      More Information

      • Author/Creator: Kerry McCarthy

      • ISBN: 9781138965249

      • Publisher: Routledge

      • Release Date: January 2016

      • Weight: 341g

      • Dimensions: 153 x 229 x 14 mm

      • Eden Code: 4440734


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