Anthony Pryer

A substantial but concise history (twenty pages) of the systems of Western musical notation, c.900-c.1980, presented in chronological order with many music examples and a short bibliography. It originally appeared as an article in the 2-volume, New Oxford Companion to Music, edited by Denis Arnold, published in 1983.

Alan Curtis, Ellen Rosand and others have suggested that this famous duet from the end of Monteverdi's Poppea may not be his composition. However, this paper assembles evidence and arguments that suggest he may have been the composer after all.


Pryer, Anthony J.. 1996. Authentic Performance, Authentic Experience and "Pur ti miro" from Poppea. In: Raffaello Monterosso, ed. Performing Practice in Monteverdi's Music: the Historic-Philological Background. Cremona: Fondazione Claudio Monteverdi, pp. 191-213. ISBN 88-86288-25-5 [Book Section]

Pryer, Anthony J.. November 2012. Claudio Monteverdi: Sacrae Cantiunculae; Madrigali Spirituali; Canzonette a 3 Voci. Cremona (Italy): Fondazione Claudio Monteverdi. ISBN 9788886288361.

This edition brings together the three earliest printed collections of music in Claudio Monteverdi’s output – the Sacrae Cantiunculae (1582), the Madrigali Spirituali (1583) and the Canzonette a tre voci (1584). The Sacrae Cantiunculae have never been presented before with a full liturgical commentary, the Madrigali Spirituali have hitherto only appeared in facsimile and without a commentary, and the Canzonette have never been edited so as to display all of the stanzas of the texts underlayed to the music, and with a flexible system of barring that takes proper account of the accentuation of the Italian words. Additionally, these new transcriptions correct numerous notational and textual errors in two earlier editions (1909, 1939), and a substantial ‘Introduction’ provides important new information on the creative context and performance of these items. These collections were clearly designed to demonstrate the precocious ability of the young Monteverdi (he was just fifteen years old in 1582), covering as they do three important, contrasting musical genres – the motet, the spiritual madrigal, and the canzonetta. Moreover, they all date from Monteverdi’s years in Cremona, and the printers, publishers and patrons involved reveal interesting details about exactly how he gained entry to the professional world of music.

The activities we subsume under the single term 'improvisation' comprise a complex and varied field of musical behaviour, not all elements of which are quite as spontaneous or 'in the moment' as they might appear. This paper argues that the oral/written divide is less central for improvisation than the prepared/unprepared one. It also examines the constraining role of 'common practice' styles within  improvisation and how 'spontaneity' frequently is not a compositional 'cause' but an arch style of performance presentation. Finally it examines in relation to Caccini and Monteverdi the dialectic between oral and written cultures when improvisational practices began to be recorded in print c.1600,

This is an exploration of the reception history of Monteverdi. It examines how we have thrown a grid of our own cultural concepts and meanings (on national identity, originality, creative freedom, popular styles, 'revolutionary' music in the 'modernist vein, performance practices, etc.) across his own works and attitudes. Along the way it identifies new interpretations of his Innsbruck portrait,  the concept of 'popular' music in relation to his works, the origins of 'Possente spirto' from Orfeo, and the Spanish influence on his compositional material.

Using historical, analytic, and documentary methodologies this article establishes dates in 1607 for the composition of two madrigals by Monteverdi - “Ohime el bel viso”, and “Zefiro torna e’l bel tempo rimena”, both eventually published in 1614. It also demonstrates the exact process by which “Zefiro torna’” clearly began as a homage to a setting of the same text by Marenzio (including quotations from Marenzio’s music), but became creatively sidetracked into a reminiscence of the central moment in Monteverdi’s opera L’Orfeo. Thus ,even in the absence of compositional sketches, it has proved possible to uncover the “compositional archaeology” of these two works and the creative processes that led to their final form. It also establishes a methodology for distinguishing accidental similarity from deliberate allusion in compositional connections during the late Renaissance.

The content and purpose of Mozart's 1770 Milan concert on 12 March have been disputed. This  new examination makes the case for the performance of versions of the concert arias Kv 71, 77, and 83 (all based on Metastasio's libretto Demofoönte), presented together as - to use Mozart's phrase - an 'opera in aria'. The probable involvement of the singers Giuseppe Aprile, Antonia Bernasconi and Guglielmo Ettore is established, as is the location of the concert (Count Firmian's Palazzo Melzi). Strong evidence is also offered for re-dating Mozart's concert aria Fra cento affani (Kv 88).

In his treatise Vom Musikalisch-Schönen ("On the Musically Beautiful", 1854), Eduard Hanslick famously marginalised the role of performance and therefore, by default, the significance of performance interpretation. This chapter explores the context and consequences of that neglect.

Pryer, Anthony J.. March 2013. Hanslick, Legal Processes and Scientific Methodologies: How Not to Construct an Ontology of Music. In: Nicole Grimes; Siobhán Donovan and Wolfgang Marx, eds. Rethinking Hanslick: Music, Formalism and Expression. Rochester New York: University of Rochester Press, pp. 52-69. ISBN 9781580464321 [Book Section]

Downloadable item is the final draft version.

Hanslick's treatise On the Beautiful in Music (1854) is often taken to be a paradigm of 'scientific' and 'formalist' explanations of music. This article demonstrates that many of his key ideas came from Hanslick's legal training with its 'laws' based on 'rulings' rather than universal principles. That training also caused him to organise his treatise as if conducting a courtroom defence, with its emphasis on negative rebuttal and a verdict of 'not guilty as charged'. Finally, arising from his observations on musical performance, a new theory of the ontology of music is adumbrated.

The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Historical Performance in Music (Cambridge, 2018), edited by Colin Lawson and Robin Stowell. Articles on: Aesthetics of Performance (pp. 9-14); Avison (40-1); Adolf Marx (394-5); Periodicals (482-4); Taste/s (600-2).

Pryer, Anthony J.. 2014. The Ontology of Music and the Challenge of Performance: Identity versus Variety, and the Persistence of the ‘Text’. In: Taina Riikonen and Arjaana Virtanen, eds. The Embodiment of Authority: Perspectives on Performances, Interdisziplinäre Studien zur Musik. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, pp. 87-102. ISBN 978-3-631-65085.

Downloadable item is the final draft version.

Pryer, Anthony J.. 2014. ‘Real’ Nature, ‘Aesthetic’ Nature and the Making of Artworks: Some Challenges of Cross-Cultural Collaboration (in Japanese Translation). In: Kazuto Yamamoto and Naomi Matsumoto, eds. Shizengaku: a Search for the Coming Aesthetic. Kyoto: Nakanishiya, pp. 6-26. ISBN ISBN 978-4-7795-0791-5 [Book Section]

The relation between emotion and music is not a simple triggering mechanism. Music takes place through time and therefore the 'expression experience' is cumulative, and is a transacton between intensity, form and indicative gesture.  After all, if music makes us sad in the first bar what is the rest for?

Conference Paper: British Society of Aesthetics, St Edmund’s Hall, Oxford, September 1999.

The social and educational benefits of cultural exchange within the realm of art are often asserted. However, what of the meaning and value of the actual artworks arising from those exchanges? This paper analyses the barriers to shared understanding that arose in relation to an extended exchange between Japanese and British artists and philosophers on the connection between Nature and Art, 2011-13. First, cultural interfacing is explored in relation to four types– combinatorial, hierarchic, hermeneutic, and thematic – and the case is made that communalities of practice alone cannot guarantee true cultural integration or understanding. Next, six Japanese and Western concepts of ‘Nature’ – as an ontological entity, a class of objects, a domain, a force, a system and an Ideal - are distinguished in relation to the history and beliefs of those cultures. The argument then moves to the interface between Art and Nature: Nature can be the subject of Art, but can it literally be its content? Finally, the relationship between culture and theory is itself explored in relation to two artworks, and their supposed meanings and links. The Appendices include a detailed summary of the distinctions between Japanese and Western aesthetic systems.

Hanslick's treatise On the Beautiful in Music (1854) is often taken to be a paradigm of 'scientific' and 'formalist' explanations of music. This article demonstrates that many of his key ideas came from Hanslick's legal training with its 'laws' based on 'rulings' rather than universal principles. That training also caused him to organise his treatise as if conducting a courtroom defence, with its emphasis on negative rebuttal and a verdict of 'not guilty as charged'. Finally, arising from his observations on musical performance, a new theory of the ontology of music is adumbrated.