Royal College of Organists, November 2023

It is difficult to describe Andrew Parrott’s magnificent book The Pursuit of Musick, except with superlatives: he has assembled an extraordinary treasure trove of material which documents the myriad ways in which our recent ancestors engaged with music.

These are the unfiltered voices from the past: The Pursuit of Musick is an encyclopaedic and generously illustrated anthology of original written sources, exploring some 600 years of musical activity in Europe, from the first troubadours to the emergence of the pianoforte. And the modern practising musician quickly notes that nothing much has changed in the sheer dogged business of ‘getting music done’ which Andrew Parrott, in his long and exemplary career, knows only too well.

With translations from five principal languages, nearly 3,000 individual entries document the trials of orchestra administrators, conductors, impresarios and organists: fighting salary arrears, dealing with musicians that are past their prime, and discordant congregational singing. Composers shake their heads over players mutilating their works. ‘You must rummage all Paris to fit out a good band,’ grumbles Francois Raguenet in 1702, and Pisendel complains to Telemann that there are too many deputies in his orchestra.

However there is praise and admiration for excellence where it is found, plenty of enjoyment of music as entertainment, and much contemporary advice on performance practice. Pleasingly, the organ gets a big section. ‘It lends splendour and preserves order,’ says C P E Bach, and who is going to argue with that?

The Pursuit of Musick is not just a book to lose yourself in for an evening, but a valuable collection of original source material for the specialist. Illustrated with over 500 images, it’s arranged in three main parts – Society, Ideas, Performance – and includes thematic introductions by Hugh Griffith and four distinctive appendices which are an enjoyable read in themselves. Free access to a bibliography and texts in their original languages is given online.