Musical Creativity in Restoration England
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Manchester
Department Name: Arts Languages and Cultures
Abstract
This pioneering monograph is the first full-length, systematic study of musical creativity in the Restoration period. It seeks to move away from previous small-scale composer-centred analyses of compositional techniques not only by virtue of its comprehensiveness, but, more significantly, by situating professional musical activities within the rich social and practical contexts in which they took place. This new methodology allows exploration of the wide range of different factors that influenced creative approaches in the period and identifies distinct modes of creativity adopted within different environments. Its main source materials are the 300 or so surviving primary documents of notated music associated with professional Restoration composers. By engaging with interdisciplinary studies of creativity, particularly those assessing relationships between text and performance in early modern drama, it seeks to illustrate the ways in which musical notation served particular purposes in different practical and creative circumstances; as a result, relationships between practical function, notation, performance, improvisation and musical memory were not constant, but varied according to context. The fundamental contention is that we can develop a fuller understanding of the creative approaches taken by musicians in the period only when we take these social and practical circumstances into account.
The project uncovers the physical and contextual evidence that helps us identify the purposes for which notation was produced for institutions and individuals in the period, challenging the anachronistic vocabulary that has frequently been used to describe Restoration music sources and establishing terms that portray contemporary functions more accurately. From this foundation the primary materials are scrutinised in two interconnected ways. First, the principles underlying musical creativity in the period are investigated -- primarily the evidence for continuing use of imitation as the prevalent method by which musicians learned their craft, and the cultures of co-creation and re-creation. The research reveals that such creative principles led to the identity of the composer in some circumstances being considered insignificant and multiple authorship being more widespread than has previously been acknowledged. Secondly, the distinct creative strategies adopted by Restoration composers writing music for different practical and functional circumstances are analysed for four specific types of music in turn: large-scale musical works for instruments and voices composed for a range of public events; institutional music that was circulated widely and was consistently used and re-used, predominantly within a liturgical setting; music that was produced, transmitted and studied within intimate private circles; and works created for teaching and performing environments in which musical texts were not always the primary form of transmission. The project identifies distinct creative strategies within each context, highlighting different attitudes towards the initial creation and notation of musical works, and variance in approaches to re-creation, the status of co-existing versions of musical texts, the role of memory, and the creative involvement of copyists and other musicians. The results of the research challenge current assumptions that the notation of Restoration music can be approached and understood in a uniform manner, and raise questions more broadly about today's interpretation of early modern musical notation.
The project uncovers the physical and contextual evidence that helps us identify the purposes for which notation was produced for institutions and individuals in the period, challenging the anachronistic vocabulary that has frequently been used to describe Restoration music sources and establishing terms that portray contemporary functions more accurately. From this foundation the primary materials are scrutinised in two interconnected ways. First, the principles underlying musical creativity in the period are investigated -- primarily the evidence for continuing use of imitation as the prevalent method by which musicians learned their craft, and the cultures of co-creation and re-creation. The research reveals that such creative principles led to the identity of the composer in some circumstances being considered insignificant and multiple authorship being more widespread than has previously been acknowledged. Secondly, the distinct creative strategies adopted by Restoration composers writing music for different practical and functional circumstances are analysed for four specific types of music in turn: large-scale musical works for instruments and voices composed for a range of public events; institutional music that was circulated widely and was consistently used and re-used, predominantly within a liturgical setting; music that was produced, transmitted and studied within intimate private circles; and works created for teaching and performing environments in which musical texts were not always the primary form of transmission. The project identifies distinct creative strategies within each context, highlighting different attitudes towards the initial creation and notation of musical works, and variance in approaches to re-creation, the status of co-existing versions of musical texts, the role of memory, and the creative involvement of copyists and other musicians. The results of the research challenge current assumptions that the notation of Restoration music can be approached and understood in a uniform manner, and raise questions more broadly about today's interpretation of early modern musical notation.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| Rebecca Herissone (Principal Investigator) |
| Description | This pioneering monograph is the first full-length, systematic study of musical creativity in the Restoration period. It seeks to move away from previous small-scale composer-centred analyses of compositional techniques not only by virtue of its comprehensiveness, but, more significantly, by situating professional musical activities within the rich social and practical contexts in which they took place. This new methodology allows exploration of the wide range of different factors that influenced creative approaches in the period and identifies distinct modes of creativity adopted within different environments. Its main source materials are the 400 or so surviving primary documents of notated music associated with professional Restoration composers. By engaging with interdisciplinary studies of creativity, particularly those assessing relationships between text and performance in early modern drama, it seeks to illustrate the ways in which musical notation served particular purposes in different practical and creative circumstances; as a result, relationships between practical function, notation, performance, improvisation and musical memory were not constant, but varied according to context. The fundamental contention is that we can develop a fuller understanding of the creative approaches taken by musicians in the period only when we take these social and practical circumstances into account. The book uncovers the physical and contextual evidence that helps us identify the purposes for which notation was produced for institutions and individuals in the period, challenging the anachronistic vocabulary that has frequently been used to describe Restoration music sources and establishing terms that portray contemporary functions more accurately. From this foundation the primary materials are scrutinized in two interconnected ways. First, the principles underlying musical creativity in the period are investigated - primarily the evidence for continuing use of imitation as the prevalent method by which musicians learned their craft, and the cultures of co-creation and re-creation. The research reveals that such creative principles led to the identity of the composer in some circumstances being considered insignificant and multiple authorship being more widespread than has previously been acknowledged. Secondly, the distinct creative strategies adopted by Restoration composers writing music for different practical and functional circumstances are analysed for four specific types of music in turn: large-scale musical works for instruments and voices composed for a range of public events; institutional music that was circulated widely and was constantly used and re-used, predominantly within a liturgical setting; music that was produced, transmitted and studied within intimate private circles; and works created for teaching and performing environments in which musical texts were not always the primary form of transmission. The project identifies distinct creative strategies within each context, highlighting different attitudes towards the initial creation and notation of musical works, and variance in approaches to re-creation, the status of co-existing versions of musical texts, the role of memory, and the creative involvement of copyists and other musicians. The results of the research challenge current assumptions that the notation of Restoration music can be approached and understood in a uniform manner, and raise questions more broadly about today's interpretation of early modern musical notation. |
| Exploitation Route | The monograph's primary importance is likely to derive from its entirely new approach to understanding musical creativity; in this respect it has broad implications for musicological scholarship. Review comments suggest it has the potential to form as significant a revisionist perspective on musical composition as did Owens's 'Composers at Work' of 1997, particularly in its strong portrayal of the importance of communal creative cultures in the period, which de- emphasizes the role of the individual composer that has been assumed in earlier studies, and in the evidence it presents of techniques differentiated according to the purposes for which music was being created. Secondly, the book is pioneering in its attempt to place musical composition within the creative cultures of its period. Whereas in previous research compositional processes have been studied in isolation, here techniques used by musicians are shown to belong within well-established pedagogical and intellectual systems that were not specific to music. Clearly this presents a significant challenge to current assumptions and preconceptions about what composers were seeking to achieve in the period, particularly in studies that persist in applying later creative priorities, such as originality, to early modern music. It also provides a context for understanding aspects of compositional activity that, as the publisher's Reviewer 2 commented, 'have been in many cases identified, but never so well explained as a standard practice'. Both CUP readers commented on the likely impact of the monograph's theoretical underpinning, and Reviewer 1 noted specifically that it 'reveals some fascinating links between music and other arts', which are likely to be influential to future work on creativity carried out both by musicologists and by other historians of culture within early modern studies. Finally, the monograph develops fully a new nomenclature for describing manuscripts according to the purposes for which they were created. The publication of the pilot study for the project has already encouraged movement away from the use of anachronistic terms such as 'rough draft' and 'fair copy' that have been applied uncritically to sources from this period in the past; this article has been regularly cited since its appearance in 2006, was described as 'important' by reviewers for both CUP and the AHRC, and forms the framework for the chapter on sources in the new 'Ashgate Research Companion to Henry Purcell', written by Robert Thompson. The monograph develops these preliminary ideas fully, and thus describes Restoration manuscript culture more fully than existing scholarship, according to CUP's Reviewer 2. As well as creating a new cultural model for understanding English sources, it will provide a framework for reconsidering manuscript sources in other contexts. |
| Sectors | Culture Heritage Museums and Collections |
| URL | http://www.alc.manchester.ac.uk/subjects/music/research/projects/musicalcreativity/ |
| Description | As far as I am aware, this project has limited capacity for impact in terms of cultural policy and societal change -- it was not designed for this purpose and pre-dates the RCUK agenda on impact. It is beginning to have significant impact within the academic community. For example, a review by Peter Holman of the main research output, the monograph 'Musical Creativity in Restoration England', published in Early Music in August 2014 (p. 464), referred to it as 'one of the most important books on |
| First Year Of Impact | 2014 |
| Sector | Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Impact Types | Cultural |