This book is only partially related to the Middle Ages, and it is not exclusively concerned with Western music. In fact, a large portion of this study is focused on the evolution of the Western singing tradition, both classical and popular, from its earliest witnesses to the present day. Considerable attention is also given to non-Western cultures, with a special focus on the Hindustani tradition of the Indian subcontinent. The volume, after all, is the result of the collaboration of an acknowledged singer of Western music (John Potter) and an expert in Asian musical culture (Neil Sorrell). The task of dealing with such a broad topic is clearly overwhelming, and this justifies the authors' proposition of a history rather than the history of singing. Yet despite the book's title, the approach to the material is not exclusively historical, but also anthropological. This is especially evident in the first part (pp. 13–34), where the authors address the origins of human singing through an outline of the main musicological and anthropological theories.

As far as medieval music is concerned, it must be said that basically every history of medieval music is doomed to be almost entirely a history of medieval singing, as there are virtually no extant sources of medieval instrumental music. But somehow the section of the book dealing with medieval singing cannot be labelled as a mere brief résumé on the general history of music of the Middle Ages. The space dedicated to medieval music is inevitably quite limited (pp. 44–66), and the aim of these pages is not to bring innovations to the present state of research, but this little excursus offers some interesting insights into the practice of medieval singing. Particularly remarkable is the brief discussion on the sound of medieval singing (pp. 50–2). The focus in this section, which clearly benefits from Potter's experience as both an academic and a performer, is on how medieval singers sang rather than what they sang. Potter and Sorrell are well aware that this argument relies largely on conjectures, which are in turn based on occasional and scattered records that describe singing; however, they make some fundamental points that may interest both the musicologist and the performer of medieval music. The concept of ‘performance’, for instance, can hardly be applied to monastic choirs, who possibly considered their singing more as a sort of religious meditation; in this case, the authors seem to be rather against projection and reverberation, and seem to imply that the singing was more like a muttering. On the basis of written sources (especially Isidore of Seville and Jerome of Moravia), Potter and Sorrell suggest that one of the main concerns of medieval singing was the vocal range: singers were possibly expected to ‘maintain the integrity of each register’ (p. 52), thus the sound could substantially change, since singers may use chest, falsetto or head voice.

Particular emphasis is given to the distinction between oral and written traditions. In the wake of Anna Maria Busse Berger's Medieval Music and the Art of Memory (Berkeley, 2005), the authors, focusing mainly on the Notre-Dame repertory (pp. 52–7), underline the likelihood that the circulation of medieval music mostly relied on oral transmission and memorisation, and that medieval notation could be considered as a descriptive record of a performance rather than prescriptive instructions for singers. Yet the book does not entirely relegate notation to a unique function of storing. Particularly fascinating is the authors' assumption that the act of notating music ‘eventually led to the separation of performer and composer into two distinct creative entities’ (p. 38).

This volume could be considered as a good introduction to Western and World singing for both scholars and performers. The authors address the history of singing by considering the socio-political factors that determined its development, and at the same time they address matters of performance. This work provides a good introduction for readers concerned with singing, whether medieval or not. Moreover, those willing to deepen specific aspects of singing will find the ‘Sources and References’ section (pp. 295–320) quite helpful: here further bibliographical indications are arranged by argument. Anyone with an interest in vocal music – and this will definitely include medievalists – is likely to enjoy A History of Singing.