Aztecs were brilliant scientists, writers, and artists. Medicine is an example of their scientific activities. They developed ideas about the causes of illness, practical and supernatural. Priests and priestesses were involved in curing, but Aztecs had an array of healers. The most commonly used term by Aztecs for a doctor – someone with specific and practical knowledge about healing – was “ticitl,” female and male. That Aztecs wrote is not widely recognized. They used writing to name people, titles, places, and deities. Not merely pictography, their writing is complex and developed from the late prehispanic period into the colonial period. Their books recorded calendars, history, tribute payments, and succession to rulerships. They also created a rich oral literature, often expressed through songs. Many were ancient, others composed in the early colonial period. Those that became written in alphabetized Nahuatl dealt with deities, temples, flowers, lords, war, sexuality, even conquest and Christian worship. Also great artists, they were influenced by the art of earlier peoples and the Mixteca-Puebla style and worked in several media: architecture; monumental and small-scale stone sculptures; books; precious stones and gold work; textiles; dough sculptures; and paper. This art expressed an official ideology as well as resistance to it.

This chapter covers three situations of vocabulary learning, all of which can occur outside the classroom. The first situation has been called extramural English or extramural learning, and could be called learning through entertainment. It involves largely incidental learning through watching TV or movies, surfing the Internet, online social interaction, playing online games, listening to songs, or reading or listening for pleasure. It can also include social interactions with native speakers. Extramural learning is not a part of a regular English course and is not under the control of a classroom teacher. The second situation is supplementary learning. This involves learning outside the classroom which is related to a course occurring inside the classroom. It is largely directed by the classroom teacher. It may involve extensive reading, extensive listening, interacting with others, and writing, and could also involve the deliberate learning of vocabulary and other language features. The third situation has been called self-directed learning and involves the learner organising their own language course without the help of a teacher.

The inevitable pairing of the names of Britten and Purcell, a pairing promoted by Britten himself, was one in which he was linked to Britain’s ‘only’ composer. In response, Britten willingly took on the mantle of hope for English composition. At the same time, there is no doubt that the Britten felt an affinity with the earlier composer, and drew considerable strength and inspiration from his works. However, although Britten’s response is often presented as a personal one, this article suggests that his engagement with Purcell’s music was part of an earlier and broader picture of the use and reuse of earlier English music in the first decades of the twentieth century. His engagement with Purcell’s music, which included realisations of his songs and the use of forms and techniques associated with the composer, was at its most intense in 1945, and was focused on the period round 21 and 22 November, the dates of the Wigmore Hall concerts which saw the premieres of Britten’s Quartet No. 2 and The Holy Sonnets of John Donne. The reception of Britten’s ‘Purcell’ works was sometimes mixed, but this article concludes that for Britten, it was a matter of supreme enjoyment.

This chapter adds to our understanding of popular memory by considering how English Catholics memorialised the effects of the Reformation through music, and focuses on Catholic songs that were preserved and circulated in manuscript miscellanies. Catholic musical responses to the Reformation can be divided into three necessarily interrelated categories: self-memorialisation; the composition of music that represented and remembered religious change; and musical memorials by future generations of Catholics which were informed by previous musical traditions. Composing, collecting and copying songs into manuscript miscellanies were creative, transformative activities; writing preserved visual evidence of acoustic events, and imprinted the music, words and ideas more firmly into the minds of the individuals holding the pen. Acts of preservation also subjected the songs to transformations due to their spatial context on the page. As well as thinking about their performers, composers and subjects, we also need to focus on the material aspects of the songs themselves. As a result, this chapter ends by focusing in particular on the little known manuscript miscellany BL Add MS 38599 started by Richard Shanne (1561-1627) from Methley, West Yorkshire. Attending to the commemorative layers of preserved manuscript miscellanies, it challenges existing binary understandings of confessional identity and memorial practices.

Examines the development of servicemen’s concert parties in the context of the rapid expansion of the fighting forces, and of the significant figures who were key to the provision of music for the purposes of recreation and amusement. This chapter will show that Britain’s armed forces each had a strong tradition of musical entertainments solely by servicemen for their comrades which was much bolstered by men who had been professional performers before they enlisted. Furthermore, this chapter will show that servicemen used the pantomime form to reinforce their belief that they were fighting in a just war.

Shows how music played a key part in the unit’s identity on land, at sea and in the air. The squadron songs of the RFC, for example, tell us a great deal about how airmen dealt with combat stress and fear. The singing of songs on the march or at rest was a vital component of regimental identity as well as discipline.

Explains what happens to military music in the aftermath of the Great War. Briefly explains the establishment of the RAF Music School by Henry Walford Davies in 1918, and goes on to explain what happened to various organisations and individuals who have featured in the book. This chapter also features the role of music in remembrance, particularly in the first Festivals of Remembrance, 1923-27.