The Guitar in Stuart England: A Social and Musical History

Description

This is the first history of the guitar during the reign of the Stuarts, a time of great political and social upheaval in England. In this engaging and original volume, Christopher Page gathers a rich array of portraits, literary works and other, previously unpublished, archival materials in order to create a comprehensive picture of the guitar from its early appearances in Jacobean records, through its heyday at the Restoration court in Whitehall, to its decline in the first decades of the eighteenth century. The book explores the passion of Charles II himself for the guitar, and that of Samuel Pepys, who commissioned the largest repertoire of guitar-accompanied song to survive from baroque Europe. Written in Page's characteristically approachable style, this volume will appeal to general readers as well as to music historians and guitar specialists.

Christopher Page is a Fellow of the British Academy, Professor of Medieval Music and Literature at the University of Cambridge, Professor of Music in Gresham College, London, and one of the world's foremost scholars of historical performance and musical instruments. This book follows The Guitar in Tudor England (Cambridge, 2015), winner of the 2017 Nicholas Bessaraboff Prize awarded by the American Musical Instrument Society. Christopher Page holds the Dent Medal of the Royal Musical Association awarded for outstanding services to musicology.

'Reading Christopher Page's monograph is not only a wonderful learning process, but also an emotionally moving experience. His sincere attitude, along with a lively wit, revitalizes the history of the old musical instrument, brings its music and highlights its connections to our century. ... this is the most useful and superb source, not only for people interested in early guitar music, but anybody fascinated with British history.' Taro Takeuchi, The Galpin Society Journal