Early Music and Views from Ethnomusicology

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). I begin 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. I then introduce revival theory and its explication of processes of restoring, revitalising, and transforming musics from other times and places: I contend 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. I conclude by asking how we might envision the future of early music in a world that aspires to greater diversity, inclusivity, and resilience.