Although unjustly neglected by modern writers, William Bathe‘s contributions to music pedagogy in late sixteenth-century England were profound. Bathe‘s A Briefe Introduction to the Skill of Song (1596) not only includes the first explication of a four-syllable, non-hexachordal solmization method published by an English writer (a system similar to that which would become the standard in England during the seventeenth century) but also outlines a combinatorial method for composing canons that is remarkably forward-looking in both conception and design. In addition to providing the first modern edition of Bathe‘s treatise, the volume examines the complicated compilation and publication histories of the book, the historical and theoretical foundations of Bathe‘s contributions, and the relationship between the 1596 book and Bathe‘s 1584 treatise A Briefe Introduction to the True Arte of Musicke (the extant text of which is included as an appendix).

A facsimile of Bathe's work, the first musical text book to appear in the English language, describes musical methods old and new and will be of great interest to musicologists and players of early music. When, in 1584, William Bathe, then just a young student at Oxford, published a tract on the teaching of music, his work became the first musical text book to appear in the English language. No copy of this work now exists, but some years later Bathe produced a new version, now called A brief Introduction to the skill of song. In it Bathe sought to present a new, much simpler way to learn music, in open opposition to the traditional approaches of theday, the "manifold and crabbed, confused, tedious rules", as he puts it. This book, a facsimile of Bathe's work, describes musical methods old and new and will be of great interest to musicologists and players of early music. Introduction by Bernarr Rainbow and published in the series ClassicTexts in Music Education.

A Briefe and Short Introduction (1631) is one of about a dozen late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century English music instruction books that go beyond the basics for beginners, and it is the last of the writings dealing with the art of singing and el

Thomas Ravenscroft is best-known as a composer of rounds owing to his three published collections: Pammelia and Deuteromelia (both 1609), and Melismata (1611), in addition to his harmonizations of the Whole Booke of Psalmes (1621) and his original sacred works. A theorist as well as a composer and editor, Ravenscroft wrote two treatises on music theory: the well-known A Briefe Discourse (1614), and 'A Treatise of Practicall Musicke' (c.1607), which remains in manuscript. This is the first book to bring together both theoretical works by this important Jacobean musician and to provide critical studies and transcriptions of these treatises. A Briefe Discourse furthermore introduces an anthology of music by Ravenscroft, John Bennet, and Ravenscroft's mentor, Edward Pearce, illustrating some of the precepts in the treatise. The critical discussion provided by Duffin will help explain Ravenscroft's complicated consideration of mensuration, in particular.

This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than 1,100 titles from Penn Press's distinguished backlist from 1899-1999 that had fallen out of print. Spanning an entire century, the Anniversary Collection offers peer-reviewed scholarship in a wide range of subject areas.

Who were the first owners of the music published in England in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries? Who went to ‘the dwelling house of ... T. East, by Paules wharfe’ and bought a copy of Byrd’s Psalmes, sonets, & songs when it appeared in 1588? Who purchased a copy of Dowland’s First booke of songes in 1597? What other books formed part of their music library? In this survey of surviving books of music published before 1640, David Greer has gleaned information about the books’ early and subsequent owners by studying the traces they left in the books themselves: handwritten inscriptions, including names and other marks of ownership - even the scribbles and drawings a child of the family might put into a book left lying about. The result is a treasure trove of information about musical culture in early modern England. From inscriptions and marks of ownership Greer has been able to re-assemble early sets of partbooks, as well as collections of books once bound together. The search has also turned up new music. At a time when paper was expensive, new pieces were copied into blank spaces in printed books. In these jottings we find a ‘hidden repertory’ of music, some of it otherwise undiscovered music by known composers. In other cases, we see owners altering the words of songs, to suit new and personal purposes: a love-song in praise of Daphne becomes a heartfelt song to ‘my Jesus’; and ‘Faire Leonilla’ becomes Ophelia (perhaps the first mention of this character in Hamlet outside the play itself). On a more practical level, the users of the music sometimes made corrections to printing errors, and there are indications that some of these were last-minute corrections made in the printing-house (a useful guide for the modern editor). The temptation to ‘scribble in books’ was as irresistible to some Elizabethans as it is to some of us today. In doing so they left us clues to their identity, how they kept their music, how they used it, and the multifarious ways in which it played a part in their lives.