ABSTRACT
Exploring how music is used to portray the past in a variety of media, this book probes the relationship between history and fantasy in the imagination of the musical past. The volume brings together essays from multidisciplinary perspectives, addressing the use of music to convey a sense of the past in a wide range of multimedia contexts, including television, documentaries, opera, musical theatre, contemporary and historical film, videogames, and virtual reality. With a focus on early music and medievalism, the contributors theorise the role of music and sound in constructing ideas of the past. In three interrelated sections, the chapters problematise notions of historical authenticity on the stage and screen; theorise the future of musical histories in immersive and virtual media; and explore sound’s role in more fantastical appropriations of history in television and videogames. Together, they pose
provocative questions regarding our perceptions of ‘early’ music and the sensory experience of distant history. Offering new ways to understand the past at the crossroads of musical and visual culture, this collection is relevant to researchers across music, media, and historical and cultural studies.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part I|104 pages
Using and misusing early music
chapter 1|26 pages
‘Official’ (televisual) history, music, and the reinforcement of popular imagination
chapter 2|19 pages
Damon Albarn, Dr Dee, and situation specific medievalism
chapter 5|19 pages
A masked ritual and backwards priests
part II|64 pages
Early music, immersive media, and virtual histories
chapter 6|18 pages
Audiovisual interaction in virtual worlds
part III|74 pages
Early music out of time and space