A Briefe and Short Introduction (1631) is one of about a dozen late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century English music instruction books that go beyond the absolute basics for beginners, and it is the only member of the published English theoretical writings dealing with the art of singing and elementary counterpoint that has not existed in a published modern edition until now. The topic most extensively treated in the book is the composition of 'all sorts of canons' on a plainsong which goes beyond anything found on canon in other English theoretical writings. Bevin's legacy in this treatise is the exposition of the art of canon in a systematic arrangement suitable for students of this discipline, with a thorough presentation of procedures and techniques that occupied the attention of many musicians in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. His work was read widely in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and was quoted or commented upon by Playford, Purcell, Simpson, Burney and Kollmann.Elway Bevin's A Briefe and Short Instruction of the Art of Musicke begins with rudimentary instruction on consonance, dissonance and proportions but quickly turns to a presentation of examples of plainsong-based canonic writing of increasing complexity and remarkable diversity. Bevin's book was well known in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and was quoted or commented upon by Christopher Simpson, Henry Purcell, Charles Burney, John Hawkins and Augustus Kollmann. In the introduction to this modern edition of the work, the first edition to appear since the original was published in 1631, Denis Collins establishes the great importance of A Briefe and Short Instruction of the Art of Musicke in the history of canon. He assesses Bevin's relationship to English theories of canon and to manuscript collections of plainsong canons from the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and he proposes a typology for canonic processes and structures which is applied in the discussion of Bevin's canons.

Contents: Part I Introduction: Elway Bevin and Canon in England: Background to Bevin; An overview of the typology of canons; Canon in English theoretical sources before Bevin; Collections of plainsong canons; The contents of Bevin's treatise; Canon in English theoretical sources after Bevin; Notes. Part II Elway Bevin's A Briefe and Short Instrvction of the Art of Mvsicke: Editorial note; Edition; Notes. Bibliography; Index.About the Author: Denis Collins is Lecturer at the University of Queensland, Australia.