COMUNICACIÓN Y PRENSA

Jonathan Holt Shannon
Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, cop. 2015
This month we would like to recommend a book by Jonathan Holt Shannon, Professor of Anthropology at Hunter College of the City University New York, in which he studies the music of the three cultures that overlapped and intertwined in the Middle Ages in al-Andalus and the rest of the Iberian Peninsula: the Arabs, Christians and Jews.

In his study he tries to show how the musical and cultural heritage of Andalusia remains an inspiration for musicians and composers in Syria, Morocco and Spain, albeit in different ways according to the particular political and social context.

Divided into four chapters, the first provides an overview of the history of Andalusia and of music, detailing the ways in which it has advanced. In the second, he explores the Andalusian legacy in Syria. The third chapter takes us across the Mediterranean to Morocco, with its rich cultural heritage. The fourth and final chapter studies the ways in which the idea of al-Andalus and Andalusian culture manifests itself in Spain today.

And as in many pieces of music, it has an overture = introduction and a finale = epilogue.

Rosa García Blanco