Scott L. Edwards

I would have liked to see Davitt Moroney's reaction when it dawned on him precisely what that dusty box of partbooks in the Bibliothèque Nationale contained.

History reserves an important place for composers who have left a monumental legacy. Bach’s cantata cycles and Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelungs are good examples. Among Renaissance composers, both William Byrd and Heinrich Isaac fit that bill well.

It is hard to imagine a musical repertory of more astonishing refinement than the one cultivated at the 15th-century Burgundian courts of Philip the Good and his successor, Charles the Bold.

How to program something novel for the holidays is a challenge almost every choral conductor faces at year's end.

Liturgical reconstructions usually do not make for successful concerts. So it has been a relief to see this trend in early music performance diminish over the past two decades. The main problems, as performers learned through experience, are length and entertainment value. Polyphonic music was often reserved for the most important feasts of the year, which could last an ungodly number of hours.

Despite its rare appearance in concerts today, it takes little effort to grasp why William Boyce's Solomon enjoyed such extraordinary popularity during the second half of the 18th century.