Inside Early Music

In Inside Early Music, Bernard D. Sherman has invited twenty-three of the leading practitioners to speak out about their passion for early music - why they are attracted to a historically oriented approach and how it shapes their work.

Readers listen in on conversations with conductors John Eliot Gardiner, Roger Norrington, William Christie, and Philippe Herreweghe; choral director Peter Phillips of the Tallis Scholars; vocalists Susan Hellauer of Anonymous 4 and Barbara Thornton of Sequentia: fortepianists Robert Levin and Malcolm Bilson; harpsichordist Gustav Leonhardt; cellist Anner Bylsma; and many others. The book is divided into musical eras - Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, and Classical and Romantic - with each interview focusing on particular composers or styles, touching on heated topics such as how historical evidence should be used, why period instruments might matter, and what "authenticity" is.

Whether debating how to perform Monteverdi's madrigals or comparing Andrew Lawrence-King's Renaissance harp improvisations to jazz, the performers convey not only a devotion to the spirit of period performance, but the joy of discovery as they struggle to bring the music most fully to life.

Spurred on by Sherman's probing questions and immense knowledge of the subject, these conversations movingly document the aspirations, growing pains, and emerging maturity of one of the most exciting movements in contemporary classical performance, allowing each artist's personality and love for his or her craft to shine through.