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Reviews 139 Fenlon, Iain, ed., Studies in medieval and early modern music (Early music history, 10), Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991; cloth; pp. x, 313; R.R.P. AUS$120. It has long been a truism of musical analysis that analysts should look only at the music itself, rather than seeking extra-musical associations and meanings. In recent years, however, there has been a renewed interest in the impact on music of literary and other movements. For example, in Musicology (London, 1985), Joseph Kerman made a strong plea for musicologists to move from the positivistic approach to a more critical one. One response to this call can be seen in Marie Louise Gollner's article 'Musical and poetic rhythm in the 13th-century motet' (Anuario Musical, 45 (1990), pp. 5-16), in which she examines literary treatises of the period to shed light on the development of the clausula-motet family of musical forms. The latest issue of Early music history makes it clear that other musical scholars have taken note of Kerman's criticisms of the discipline. The articles included here have a consistent aim: to look beyond the surface of the works being studied, and to find layers of meaning and significance which may not be immediately apparent. Kevin Brownlee's article, 'Machaut's motet 15 and the Roman de la rose: the literary context of Amours qui a le pouoir/Faus Samblant m'a deceii/Vidi Dominum', looks at the relationship between the two texts of the upper voices of the fourteenth-century motet in the context of the dialogue between Amours and Faux Semblant in the Roman de la Rose. This essay is supported by Margaret Bent's 'Deception, exegesis and sounding number in Machaut's motet 15', in which she examines the number symbolism implicit in Machaut's composition. In her article 'Parisian nobles, a Scottish princess, and the woman's voice in late medieval song', Paula Higgins makes a striking case for the cause of women as major sponsors of, and participants in, the development of courtly secular music in the late Middle Ages. The remaining articles cover a wide range of topics, from the earliest sources of sequences by the poet-musician Notker at St Gallen, to the staging of Renaissance madrigal comedies, and an examination of the structure of Rinuccini's libretto for the early Euridice operas. There is also a penetrating review of Craig Wright's important book Music and ceremony at Notre Dame ofParis, 500-1350 by Andrew Wathey. 140 Reviews The chaUenges issued to musciologists in recent years are clearly being met by the kind of work represented in this issue of Early music history. The seeds sown by these articles can be expected to bear fruit in future work by these and other scholars. Richard Peter Maddox Department of Music University of N e w England Fraser, Hilary, The Victorians and Renaissance Italy, Oxford and Cambridge Mass., 1992; cloth; pp. xii, 308; 25 plates; R.R.P. AUSS69.95 [distributed in Australia by Allen & Unwin]. This hugely stimulating volume of interdisciplinary richness is concerned to take the reader through the complex tale of how the Victorians, notably historians and artists of various media, endeavoured to 'reinvent' the Italian Renaissance. Beginning with the seminal notions of the earlier cultural dawn/Renaissance by Jules Michelet in 1855 and Jacob Burckhardt in I860, Dr. Fraser argues most persuasively that the named continental writers, to w h o m the work of making the particular grand images is customarily ascribed, were to some extent preceded in Britain by many writers, artists, critics, and historians who had already begun the task influenced by 'specifically British cultural values and conditions'. Of enormous importance here was the massive growth of interest in Italian Renaissance history and art, due in particular to the increase in gallery exhibitions from mid-century and to the positive contribution from 1849 of the publications of the London-based Arundel Society or 'Society for promoting the knowledge of Art'. As she also make abundantly clear, 'as the century progressed, artists, critics, poets, novelists and historians all had a hand in contrasting the concept of the Renaissance which was bequeathed to our own...

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