Music in the English Courtly Masque, 1604-1640.

The subject of this book would seem at first sight to be of greater interest to the student of society and politics than to the musicologist. Masques of this period do not survive with the comprehensive scores associated with some continental ballets and similar entertainments, let alone with the connected musical structures of contemporary Italian opera. It is greatly to Professor Walls's credit that he sustains one's interest in the musical aspects of a genre that was in its own day regarded primarily as a spectacle, secondarily as a literary form, and only after that as an occasion on which music of a kind was an essential concomitant. The materials are scattered in various …