Contextualising Music at a Cinematic Tudor Court

Music plays an important function in the production of meaning in sound films. In particular, its role in the construction of historical sensibilities and musico-historical identities in film narratives is significant, capitalising on the underscore’s dependency on dominant referential cliches. This book examines the deployment of sixteenth-century music in film. By critically engaging with film music literature on the subject of music and anteriority in history films, issues of musico-historical awareness in film soundtracks are examined and inconsistencies revealed. History is presented as a dialogical construct of narrative and nostalgia. Hermeneutics and psychoanalysis help to deconstruct the notion of the musico-historical feel. The functional and categorical status of sixteenth-century music and the idea of early music in mass-entertainment period films form the focus of investigation in order to understand the cinematic representation of Tudor history in a twenty-first century context. This book should be of interest to students and scholars of film music, early music and historical performance, popular cultures as well as historical film and early music enthusiasts.