| Description: |
This chapter explores how early music may be viewed through the lenses of ethnomusicology (as academic discipline), ethnography (as methodology), and world music (as meta-genre). The author begins by outlining points of contact between ethnomusicology and early music, before reflecting on how present-day music cultures continue to provide a productive springboard for thinking about performance aesthetics and lost performance practices. The chapter then introduces revival theory and its explication of processes of restoring, revitalizing, and transforming musics from other times and places: the author contends that contemporary revival theory offers useful tools for re-examining the history, discourses, and debates of the early music movement. Critical issues at the interface between revival theory, historically informed performance, and musical sustainability are illuminated through the example of Georgian polyphony and its post-Soviet revival. The chapter concludes by asking how the future of early music might be envisioned in a world that aspires to greater diversity, inclusivity, and resilience. |