AHRC Research Project: Musical Creativity in Restoration England
In December 2005, the Arts and Humanities Research Council made an award of £198,284, within the Research Grants (Standard) Scheme, for a project entitled 'Musical Creativity in Restoration England', which is hosted by the University of Manchester, under the direction of Dr Rebecca Herissone, Lecturer in Musicology within the School of Arts, Histories and Cultures. The project, which runs from September 2006 to May 2010, comprises the first systematic investigation of professional musical creativity in Restoration England. The project has three main strands:
Major study
The research team are undertaking extensive and detailed analytical study of the primary sources of English music (manuscripts and prints) from the period ca. 1660 to 1715, within the social and cultural contexts in which they were produced, and are considering three main research questions:
- How can surviving primary sources help us to understand concepts of musical creativity in the period?
- How should the purposes for which music was created - relating to issues such as patronage, commercial markets and religious conviction - inform our knowledge of musical composition and the creative process in the Restoration?
- How do the circumstances in which music was recorded and transmitted, and the use of different formats and media, influence musical creativity in the period? The project aims to establish a framework within which musical creativity in the Restoration period can be understood in modern times, to develop terms that describe the creative processes appropriately, and to interpret the creative relationships between composition, notation, performance and improvisation in Restoration music produced within professional contexts.
PhD project
The AHRC's funding includes a three-year PhD studentship to support a project entitled 'Music publishing and compositional activity in England, 1650-1700'. The thesis focuses on the flourishing music-publishing industry in the period from 1650 - seen particularly (but not exclusively) through the work of the Playford family - and its relationship to and influence on the activities of professional musicians. The study investigates: to what extent commercial markets may have determined compositional activities, the genres of music produced and the instruments used; how publication (including posthumous publication) related to the image and status of the composer; and the interaction between public music-making (particularly in the theatre), compositional activity and music publishing.
International symposium
In September 2008, Manchester will host a two-day international symposium, 'Concepts of Creativity in Seventeenth-Century England', which will allow exploration of some of the interdisciplinary elements of the project. The principal aim will be to situate musical composition within the broader framework of what we would understand as creative activity in seventeenth-century England, with contributions from cultural historians, art and theatre historians, and scholars of English literature. It is intended that the symposium will result in a published collection of essays. For more information, follow this link to the symposium website.
Research Team
Project Director: Rebecca Herissone
Rebecca is Lecturer in Musicology at the University of Manchester, and is responsible for the overall management of the project.
Research Associate: Alan Howard
Alan Howard studied music at Selwyn College, Cambridge to Master's level, moving to King's College, London in order to pursue doctoral studies. His thesis, 'Purcell and the Poetics of Artifice: Compositional Strategies in the Fantasias and Sonatas', explored the potential of contrapuntal techniques to provide analytical insight into Purcell's creative process. As research associate on the project, Alan is primarily involved in the identification and interpretation of primary source materials.
PhD Studentship Holder: Stephanie Tritton
Stephanie gained a first class BMus degree at the University of Hull, and was awarded the Special Prize in Music for her contribution to the department. Her final year dissertation was a critical edition of a Charpentier Tenebrae lesson. She then continued at Hull under the supervision of Dr Graham Sadler, being awarded a distinction for an MMus for a critical edition of various works by the seventeenth-century French composer Étienne Moulinié. Most recently, she has been awarded a PGCE by the University of Bristol.