Thomas Forrest Kelly

Before the era of recording -- before wax cylinders, vinyl, or digital media -- songwriters, composers, and musicians relied on sheet music and musical notation to disseminate their works. In this marvelously witty and engaging chapter of music history, Kelly, a Harvard musicologist, thoughtfully reviews the long process through which musical notation developed.

This is the definitive study of the regional chant of southern Italy in the early middle ages.

From Gregorian chant to Bach's Brandenburg Concerti, the music of the Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque periods is both beautiful and intriguing, expanding our horizons as it nourishes our souls. In this Very Short Introduction, Thomas Forrest Kelly provides not only a compact overview of the music itself, but also a lively look at the many attempts over the last two centuries to revive it. Kelly shows that the early-music revival has long been grounded in the idea of spontaneity, of excitement, and of recapturing experiences otherwise lost to us--either the rediscovery of little-known repertories or the recovery of lost performing styles, with the conviction that, with the right performance, the music will come to life anew. Blending musical and social history, he shows how the Early Music movement in the 1960s took on political overtones, fueled by a rebellion against received wisdom and enforced conformity. Kelly also discusses ongoing debates about authenticity, the desirability of period instruments, and the relationship of mainstream opera companies and symphony orchestras to music that they often ignore, or play in modern fashion [Publisher description].

In The Role of the Scroll, music professor and historian Thomas Forrest Kelly brings to life the most interesting scrolls in medieval history, placing them in the context of those who made, commissioned, and used them, and reveals their remarkably varied uses.

The beautifully worked Exultet scrolls of southern Italy unite music, liturgical text, and image for use in a ceremonial blessing of the great Easter candle. Much was uncommon about this solemn rite, and from a perspective a millennium or so removed in time, the ritual and its magnificent documents appear unusual to the point of mystery. Why, for example, did it fall to the deacon and not his superior the bishop to conduct the Exultet ceremony? And why on many of the later surviving documents were the pictures turned upside-down in relation to the text? Finally, and most basically, why produce these documents at all? What does it mean to 'lavish such care and talent on manuscripts to be used but once a year? . Addressing these and other questions, The Exultet in Southern Italy provides a meticulous and uniquely comprehensive study of this fascinating early medieval phenomenon. Where previous treatments have tended to focus on the illustrations, this impressively researched volume looks at the Exultet in full, from the painstaking manufacture of the rolls to the melodic structure of the songs to specific features of the rite and its placement in the Easter vigil service. Offering a remarkable wealth of detail, the book pays equal attention to broad cultural and historical considerations, tracing in its subject a rich convergence of Byzantine, Roman, Lombard, and Norman influences while exploring the way changes in the ceremony reflect transformations in church organization and regional governance.

"This book takes us back to the first performances of five famous musical compositions: Monteverdi's Orfeo in 1607, Handel's Messiah in 1742, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in 1824, Berlioz's Symphonic faulaslique in 1830, and Stravinsky's Sacre du printemps in 1913. Thomas Forrest Kelly sets the scene for each of these premieres, describing the cities in which they took place, the concert halls, audiences, conductors, and musicians, the sound of the music when it was first performed (often on instruments now extinct), and the popular and critical responses. He explores how performance styles and conditions have changed over the centuries and what music can reveal about the societies that produce it."--BOOK JACKET.

"In First Nights at the Opera, the renowned music scholar Thomas Kelly narrates the social history of European opera during its golden age by taking us behind the scenes at the premier performances of five influential operas."--BOOK JACKET.

Johann Sebastian Bach and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart stand as representatives of European music of the eighteenth century, composers whose works reflect intellectual, religious, and aesthetic trends of the period. Research on their compositions continues in many ways to shape our broader understanding of eighteenth century musical thought and its contexts. This collection of essays offers a variety of perspectives on the two composers, as well as some of their important contemporaries, Haydn in particular. The book addersses topics such as the historiography of eighteenth-century music, concepts of time and musical form, the idea of the musical work and its relation to publishing practices, compositional process, and performance practice.--From publisher's description.