Dr Anthony Pryer
Anthony Pryer was educated at Goldsmiths’ College and King’s College, London, where his Master’s dissertation was awarded the Hilda Margaret Watts Prize, and his doctoral work was on the English cantus firmus mass in the fifteenth century. He is co-ordinator of the MMus in Historical Musicology and teaches aesthetics at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. He is also the Undergraduate Programme Convenor. Research interests in relation to historical musicology include: medieval music; Monteverdi; Mozart; and theoretical aspects of historiography. Additionally he publishes on the philosophy of music, and served as an elected member of the executive committee of the British Society of Aesthetics from 2001-7. He has a notable profile as a critic (The Times Literary Supplement, Radio Three, The BBC Music Magazine, etc.), and was a jury member on the BBC Classical Music Awards panel, 2006-7. In 2005 he was appointed a trustee of the Accademia Monteverdiana.
Currently he has seven PhD students (subjects: Contemporary Performance and the Limits of Interpretation; Beethoven’s Cadenzas; Mozart’s reception in 19th century London; The recorder in Dutch Vanitas Painting; Jascha Heifetz: Style, Uniqueness and Interpretation; Narrativity and the Piano Ballade; The Piano Etude: Purposes and Parameters). His recently graduated PhD students submitted theses on: The Origins and Development of the Operatic Mad Scene (2005); and Compositional Procedures in the English Cantus Firmus Mass (2006).
Areas of supervision
Eun-E Goh - Performance: 'The Limits of Interpretation' Andri Hadjiandreou - Performance Elena Mitella - Performance: 'Chopin' Kathryn Mosley - Musicology: 'A Critical Edition of Cadenzas for the Piano Concertos of Beethoven by Various Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Composers' Debra Pring - Musicology: 'Representation of the Recorder and its Music' Dario Sarlo - PerformanceSelected publications
Book chapters and articles
[forthcoming] ‘Re-Reading Hanslick: Musical Performance and “The Music
Itself” ’, 25-page article. [currently available on Goldsmiths’ Research
website].
‘Approaching Monteverdi: His Cultures and Ours’, in: John Whenham and Richard Wistreich, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Monteverdi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), Chapter 1, pp. 1-19. [This chapter has been selected by CUP for use on their website as an advertising extract from the book].
‘Mozart’s Operatic Audition: The Milan Concert, 12 March 1770; A Reappraisal and Revision’, Eighteenth-Century Music 1/2 (September 2004), 265-288. [These findings, including the redating of K.88 and K.71, ‘established by Anthony Pryer in a closely argued article’, are cited and accepted in Stanley Sadie, Mozart: The Early Years, 1756-81 (Oxford, 2006), 189-190, 566.]
‘Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and the Globalization of Musical Taste’, in: Musicology and Globalization: Proceedings of the International Congress in Shizuoka, 2002 (Tokyo: Academia Musica Ltd, 2004), 180-4. [A longer version of this article, including a chronology of the reception of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, is available on the Goldsmiths Research website]
Thirty new or revised articles in: Alison Latham, ed., The New Oxford Companion to Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). New: Braille Notation, Chironomy, Coloration, Corona, Degree, Durum, Diastematic Neumes, Franconian Notation, Graphic Notation, Half-Coloration, Ligatures, Mensural Music, Mensural Notation, Middle C Modus, Mollis, Prolatio, Shape Note, Tempus. Revised: Accidental, Clef, Dot, Intabulation, Intavolatura, Liquescent Nuemes, Mensurstrich, Musica Ficta, Notation, Tablature, Time Signature [The article on ‘Notation’ has been selected by OUP for use on their website as an advertising extract from the book].
“Machaut and the Moderns: A Distant Mirror”, BBC Music Magazine (July, 2000), 26-28. Article to accompany Radio 3 programme, Je, Guillaume, celebrating the seven-hundredth anniversary of Machaut’s birth.
‘Trouble in Arcadia: Music Aesthetics and the Bounds of Culture’, Journal of the Royal Musical Association 124/i (Spring, 1999), 134-52
‘Hildegard of Bingen, 1098-1179’, in: Fiona Maddocks (ed), BBC Proms 98 Guide (London, 1998), 67-8.
‘Monteverdi, two sonnets and a letter’, Early Music xxv/3 (August, 1997), 357-71. [cited and discussed by Suzanne Cusick as ‘an inspired combination of historical and analytic study’ in John Whenham and Richard Wistreich, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Monteverdi (Cambridge, 2007), 253.]
‘Dufay’s secular music: context and content’, 5,000 word article to accompany the complete recording by The Medieval Ensemble of London directed by Peter and Timothy Davies, L’Oiseau Lyre CD 452 557-2, April 1997
‘Settling Old Scores: The Authentic Performance Argument’, in: Erik Levy and Calum MacDonald, (eds.), BBC Music Magazine Top 1000 CDs Guide (London, BBC Books; 1996), 19-22.
‘Nattiez’s Music and Discourse: Situating the Philosophy’, Music Analysis 15/i (March, 1996), 101- 116.
’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; 1996), pp. 191-213. [Cited and discussed by Ellen Rosand in her Monteverdi’s Last Operas (Univ. of California Press, 2007), 37-8, 67; asserting that it ‘punctures’ previous arguments]
‘Re-thinking History’, The Musical Times cxxxv (November, 1994), 682-690
Review articles and reviews
Sheila Hodges, Lorenzo da Ponte: the Life and Times of Mozart’s Librettist
(Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002), in The Times Literary
Supplement, 5197 (November 8, 2002), p34
Collean Reardon, Holy Concord Within Sacred Walls: Nuns and Music in Siena, 1575-1700 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), in The Times Literary Supplement, 5184 (August 9, 2002), p26.
Reinhard Strohm and Bonnie Blackburn, eds., Music as Concept and Practice in the Late Middle Ages, The New Oxford History of Music, Vol.III, part 1, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), in the BBC Music Magazine (March, 2002), p.112.
Fiona Kisby, ed., Music and Musicians in Renaissance Cities and Towns (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), in The Times Literary Supplement 5124 (June 15, 2001), p. 37
Ian Spink, Henry Lawes: Cavalier Songwriter (Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2001), in The Times Literary Supplement 5114 (April 6, 2001), p. 33.
Victor Crowther, The Oratorio in Bologna, 1650-1730 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), The Times Literary Supplement, 5095, (November 24th, 2000), p. 37
Robert Spaethling, editor and translator, Mozart’s Letters, Mozart’s Life (London: Faber and Faber, 2000), in The Times Literary Supplement (22 September,2000), p.32.
Review of Der Stein der Weisen, singspiel by Mozart, Henneberg, Schack, Gerl and Schikaneder, performed at St Jude on the Hill, Hampstead, The Times Literary Supplement, 5071, 9 June 2000, 20.
Julie E. Cumming, The Motet in the Age of Du Fay (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), The Times Literary Supplement, no.5054, February 11th 2000, p. 33.
Review-article of: John Whenham, Monteverdi Vespers 1610 (Cambridge University Press, 1998) and Claudio Monteverdi: Songs and Madrigals, trans. Denis Stevens, (Long Barn Books, 1999). BBC Music Magazine (January, 2000), 93
Dolores Pesce, ed., Hearing the Motet: Essays on the Motet of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), The Times Literary Supplement, 5046 (December 17, 1999), 29.
Jessie Ann Owens, Composers at Work: the Craft of Musical Composition 1450-1600 (Oxford University Press, 1998), The Times Literary Supplement, 5039 (October 29, 1999), 33.
Jerrold Levinson, Music in the Moment (Ithaca, NY; Cornell University Press, 1999), The Times Literary Supplement, 5035 (October 1, 1999), 20.
‘Groomed for Notoriety’. Review-article of: Margaret Bent and Andrew Wathey, eds., Fauvel Studies (Oxford, 1998), and Timothy McGee, The Sound of Medieval Song (Oxford, 1998), The Times Literary Supplement, 4985 (October 16, 1998), 18.
Kenneth Levy, Gregorian Chant and the Carolingians (Princeton, 1998), The Times Literary Supplement, 4978 (August 28, 1998), 32.
Nicholas Cook, Music: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 1998), in: BBC Music Magazine (September, 1998), 107.
‘Curators and Creators’. Review-article of: Bernard Sherman, Inside Early Music (New York and Oxford, 1997), and Paul Henry Lang, Musicology and Performance (New Haven, 1997) The Times Literary Supplement 4964 (January 16, 1998), 18
Also: regular CD, DVD and book reviews in the BBC Music Magazine, and broadcasts on BBC Radio 3, Radio 4 and elsewhere.
Conference papers and guest lectures
‘Musical versus Critical Interpretation’, Bristol University, colloquia
series, April 2008.
‘Old Fiddles, New Tricks: The Violin Concerto from Mozart to Mendelssohn’, Barbican Centre, London. 28 July 2007
‘Performance Interpretation: Elucidation, Elaboration and the Bizarre’ Nottingham University, colloquia series, December 2006.
‘Freedom To/Freedom From: Ideological Aspects of Improvisation and Performance’, Middlesex University Conference on Musical Performance (keynote speaker), December 2005
‘Authentic Music v Authentic Muse: How we hear Handel (and others)’ Handel House Museum, London. April 2005
‘The Musical Appreciation Movement: Issues and Confusions’ British Library Saul Seminar, November 2004
‘The Experience of Musical Emotion Through Time’, British Society of Aesthetics Conference, Oxford, September 2004
‘The Future of Musical Performance’ November 2003. Goldsmiths College [for an international conference on this theme for which the author was also the convenor].
‘Bookends of the Baroque: Monteverdi and Handel’, Handel House Museum, London. November 2003
‘Vivaldi's Four Seasons: Reception History, Reception Theory and the Globalization of Cultural Taste’ Japanese Musicological Society Conference, Shizuoka, Japan, November 2002
‘ ‘The Absolute Truth About Relativism: Vivaldi, Global Music and Aesthetic Taste”, Cambridge University, Faculty of Music, Colloquia Series, 16 October 2002
'Defining Creativity: Novelty versus Value', one-day Creativity Conference, George Wood Theatre, Goldsmiths' College, 26 April 2001
'Ancient Voices, Modern Ideas: The Invention of Opera in the Seventeenth Century', the Studies in Art Society, Cavendish Square, London, 6 February 2001.
‘Ancient and Modern Subjectivities? Settings of Petrarch’s “Or che’l ciel” by Schubert (D630) and Monteverdi (SV147)’. Society for Music Analysis Conference, Goldsmiths’ College, 18 November 2000. [The Society for Music Analysis Newsletter (2000) praised ‘Pryer's lucid discussion of the different historical and geographical distances of the composers from the real - or imaginary - origins of the text … [and his] … performative conception of subjectivity was a useful way of concretising some of the elusive secrets of musical subjectivity’.]
“Demofoönte: Mozart’s ‘Opera in Aria’ “ Mozart 2000 Conference, Goldsmiths’ College, 26 February 2000
‘New Musicology v Old Musicology: the Case of Monteverdi’s “Possente Spirto” ‘, Southampton University, 23 November 1999, as part of a Seminar Series on Current Musicology
‘Roger Scruton and the Aesthetics of Music’, Durham University, 3 November 1999, as part of colloquium series Current Philosophies of Music
‘Emotion through time: towards a dialectical theory of the musical expression-experience’. The British Society of Aesthetics Conference, St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford, 4th September 1999
‘Writing the Unwritable: Monteverdi and the Deferral of Meaning in “Possente Spirto” ‘. The British Musicological Societies’ Conference, University of Surrey, 16 July 1999.