As we continue to be waylaid by the aftereffects of this year’s premature winter weather, we reflect on why we bother investing heart, soul and our few remaining cents in old music.  One grows weary with the attempt to gain and maintain a foothold in performing early music, a field that has become as tawdry and commercial as any other aspect of life in these United States.  Credentials and connections seem to take precedence over music-making in the world of early music, and it has simply become tiresome to those of us who care about aesthetics.

It has always been thus.  According to Gioseffo Zarlino (1517 – 1590) author of the important treatise Le istitutioni harmoniche (1558), even his teacher, the famous Adriano Willaert (c.1490 – 1562), suffered insulting behavior when singers discovered he was the the composer of a piece that was mistakenly attributed to Josquin:

„I shall now…