Singing Jeremiah Music and Meaning in Holy Week [Hardcover]

A defining moment in Catholic life in early modern Europe, Holy Week brought together the faithful to commemorate the passion, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In this study of ritual and music, Robert L. Kendrick investigates the impact of the music used during the Paschal Triduum on European cultures during the mid-16th century, when devotional trends surrounding liturgical music were established; through the 17th century, which saw the diffusion of the repertory at the height of the Catholic Reformation; and finally into the early 18th century, when a change in aesthetics led to an eventual decline of its importance. By considering such issues as stylistic traditions, trends in scriptural exegesis, performance space, and customs of meditation and expression, Kendrick enables us to imagine the music in the places where it was performed.

Kendrick's command of the complex layers of meaning attached to the ritual and musical performance of Tenebrae cannot fail to impress. Singing Jeremiah is a significant contribution to understanding the richness of early modern Catholicism.Written in careful musical detail and with an admirable comprehension of the environment in which the music developed, Kenricks book will be a reliable source for both musicians and liturgical scholars for many years to come.Robert Kendrick has provided the interested reader with a huge amount of information, with great cultural-historical, and not least music-historical perspectives. It is an important book, which takes seriously the idea that liturgical music was alsoand remainstheological, cultural, and ritual practice.This a stunning piece of scholarship centered around a specific ritual in Western society and Christianity, and the music associated with it. Highly recommended.

Acknowledgements
Terminology, Abbreviations, Texts
1. Symbolic Meanings, Sonic Penance
2. Textual Understandings, Musical Expressions
3. Devotion, Models, Circulation, 1550-1600
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