Singing Early Music: the Pronunciation of European Languages in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance.

Ed. Timothy J. McGee with A.G. Rigg and David N. Klausner (Bloomington & Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996), 39.50 [pounds sterling] (Available in UK from Open University Press)

With the exception of Harold Copeman's book Singing in Latin (Oxford, 1990) and my own rather more general commentaries,(1) the singer or conductor who chooses to adopt a reconstructed pronunciation for early vocal repertory has had, up to now, little direct help in print. There are some general hints for English Latin in W. S. Allen, Vox latina (Cambridge, 2/1978) and F. Brittain, Latin in church (London, 2/1955), but beyond that, it has been a matter of ploughing through specialized books on historical linguistics, such as M. K. Pope, From Latin to modern French (Manchester, rev. edn 1952) for French, and E. J. Dobson, English pronunciation, 1500-Z700 (Oxford, 2/1968) for English.

In that sense, this book fits superbly into a definite niche in the market. It addresses the needs of the performer directly, giving historical pronunciation for a range of languages, sample texts, and just enough explanation of how we know--probably the question I am asked most.

The book uses the International Phonetic Alphabet throughout and the introduction begins with a brief …