Research Catalog

Title

A history of singing / John Potter and Neil Sorrell.

Author

Potter, John (Tenor)

Publication

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors

Sorrell, Neil.

Description

vii, 349 p.; 23 cm.

Summary

Why do we sing and what first drove early humans to sing? How might they have sung and how might those styles have survived to the present day? This history addresses these questions and many more, examining singing as a historical and cross-cultural phenomenon. It explores the evolution of singing in a global context - from Neanderthal Man to Auto-tune via the infinite varieties of world music from Orient to Occident, classical music from medieval music to the avant-garde and popular music from vaudeville to rock and beyond. Considering singing as a universal human activity, the book provides an in-depth perspective on singing from many cultures and periods: western and non-western, prehistoric to present. Written in a lively and entertaining style, the history contains a comprehensive reference section for those who wish to explore the topic further and will appeal to an international readership of singers, students and scholars [Publisher description].

Subject

• Singing > History
• Choral singing > History
• Vocal music > History and criticism
• Gesang

Genre/Form

History

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 321-338) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Imagined voices. Origins, myths and muses -- Historical voices. The genesis of the Western tradition ; The emerging soloist and the primacy of text ; The age of the virtuoso ; The nineteenth-century revolution -- Recorded voices. A great tradition : singing through history-history through singing ; Classical singing in the twentieth century : recording and retrenchment ; Post-classical : beyond the mainstream ; The emancipation of the popular voice ; Sung and unsung : singers and songs of the non-English-speaking world.

ISBN

• 9780521817059
• 0521817056

LCCN

^^2012562545

OCLC

755071796

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library