Greek and Latin Music Theory: Principles and Challenges

IT IS A rare occurrence to find a genre bender among the offerings of the academic press. Not a monograph, nor a textbook, nor exactly a collection of essays, Edward Nowacki's Greek and Latin Music Theory: Principles and Challenges originates in lecture notes amassed over twenty years of teaching the history of ancient and medieval music theory at the University of Cincinnati. The book-cum-archive contains materials ranging from general overviews, new translations, “how-tos” for music-theoretical procedures, line-by-line commentaries on treatises, to essays with new research—all addressing topics from ancient Greek and medieval Latin music-theoretical traditions, starting with Plato and ending with Zarlino. A reader expecting the comprehensiveness of a modern textbook, the through arguments of a monograph, or the rigorous bibliographical and disciplinary framing conventions for a set of new scholarly essays could easily find him- or herself confused as to how to read or make use of the book....