Music theorists labelled the musical art of the 1330s and 1340s as 'new' and 'modern'. A close reading of writings on music theory and the polyphonic repertory from the first half of the fourteenth century reveals a modern musical art that arose due to specific innovations in music notation. The French ars nova employed as its theoretical fundament a new system for arranging musical time proposed by the astronomer and mathematician Jean des Murs. Challenging prevailing accounts of the ars nova, this book presents the 'new art' within the intellectual context of its time, revises the datings of Jean des Murs's writings on music theory, and presents the intersection of theory and practice for a crucial era in the history of music. Through contemporaneous accounts, Desmond explores how individuals were involved in 'changing' music in early fourteenth-century France, and the technical developments they pursued that precipitated this stylistic change.

Plague, a devastating and recurring affliction throughout the Renaissance, had a major impact on European life. Not only was pestilence a biological problem, but it was also read as a symptom of spiritual degeneracy and it caused widespread social disorder. Assembling a picture of the complex and sometimes contradictory responses to plague from medical, spiritual and civic perspectives, this book uncovers the place of music - whether regarded as an indispensable medicine or a moral poison that exacerbated outbreaks - in the management of the disease. This original musicological approach further reveals how composers responded, in their works, to the discourses and practices surrounding one of the greatest medical crises in the pre-modern age. Addressing topics such as music as therapy, public rituals and performance and music in religion, the volume also provides detailed musical analysis throughout to illustrate how pestilence affected societal attitudes toward music.

This engaging study introduces Renaissance polyphony to a modern audience. It helps readers of all ages and levels of experience make sense of what they are hearing. How does Renaissance music work? How is a piece typical of its style and type; or, if it is exceptional, what makes it so? The makers of polyphony were keenly aware of the specialized nature of their craft. How is this reflected in the music they wrote, and how were they regarded by their patrons and audiences? Through a combination of detailed, nuanced appreciation of musical style and a lucid overview of current debates, this book offers a glimpse of meanings behind and beyond the notes, be they playful or profound. It will enhance the listening experience of students, performers and music lovers alike.

Volume 3 of 3. This monumental three-volume work on the Italian madrigal from its beginnings about 1500 to its decline in the 17th century is based on the research of 40 years, and is a cultural history of the development of Italian music. Mr. Einstein, renowned musicologist, supplies a background and a sense of proportion to the field: he gives the right order to the single composers in the evolution fo the madrigal, attaches new values to old names, and places in the foreground the outstanding, but until now rather neglected, personality of Cipriano de Rore. His work is not, however, purely musicological; his object is to inquire into the functions of secular music in Italian life during the Cinquecento, and to contribute to our knowledge and understanding of that great century in general. Translated from the German by Oliver Strunk, Roger Sessions and Alexander H. Krappe. Originally published in 1948. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Pathbreaking study of a vast and intriguing repertoire: arrangements for keyboard instruments of songs, arias, and other vocal pieces, from the age William Byrd to that of Handel. Keyboard arrangements of vocal music flourished in England between1560 and 1760. Songs without Words, by noted harpsichordist and early-music authority Sandra Mangsen, is the first in-depth study of this topic, uncovering abody of material that is remarkably varied, musically interesting, and indicative of major trends in musical and social life at the time. Mangsen's Songs without Words argues that the pieces upon which these keyboardarrangements were based constituted a shared repertoire, akin to the jazz standards of the twentieth century. In Restoration England, the ballad tradition saw tunes and texts move between oral, manuscript, and printed transmissionand from street to playhouse and back again. During the eighteenth century, printed keyboard arrangements were aimed particularly at female amateur keyboardists and helped opera to become a widely popular genre. Songs without Words considers a wide range of model pieces, including songs of many kinds and arias and other numbers from operas and oratorios. The resulting keyboard versions range from simple and pedagogically oriented to highly virtuosic. Two central issues -- the relationship between an arrangement and its model and the reception and aesthetics of arrangements -- are explored in the framing chapters. The result is a study that will be of great interest toscholars, performers, and anyone who loves the music of the late Renaissance, Baroque, and early Classic eras. Sandra Mangsen is professor emerita of music at the University of Western Ontario.

Late medieval motet texts are brimming with chimeras, centaurs and other strange creatures. In The Monstrous New Art, Anna Zayaruznaya explores the musical ramifications of this menagerie in the works of composers Guillaume de Machaut, Philippe de Vitry, and their contemporaries. Aligning the larger forms of motets with the broad sacred and secular themes of their texts, Zayaruznaya shows how monstrous or hybrid exempla are musically sculpted by rhythmic and textural means. These divisive musical procedures point to the contradictory aspects not only of explicitly monstrous bodies, but of such apparently unified entities as the body politic, the courtly lady, and the Holy Trinity. Zayaruznaya casts a new light on medieval modes of musical representation, with profound implications for broader disciplinary narratives about the history of text-music relations, the emergence of musical unity, and the ontology of the musical work.

Music theorists labelled the musical art of the 1330s and 1340s as 'new' and 'modern'. A close reading of writings on music theory and the polyphonic repertory from the first half of the fourteenth century reveals a modern musical art that arose due to specific innovations in music notation. The French ars nova employed as its theoretical fundament a new system for arranging musical time proposed by the astronomer and mathematician Jean des Murs. Challenging prevailing accounts of the ars nova, this book presents the 'new art' within the intellectual context of its time, revises the datings of Jean des Murs's writings on music theory, and presents the intersection of theory and practice for a crucial era in the history of music. Through contemporaneous accounts, Desmond explores how individuals were involved in 'changing' music in early fourteenth-century France, and the technical developments they pursued that precipitated this stylistic change.

The manuscript sources of medieval song rarely fit the description of 'songbook' easily. Instead, they are very often mixed compilations that place songs alongside other diverse contents, and the songs themselves may be inscribed as texts alone or as verbal and musical notation. This book looks afresh at these manuscripts through ten case studies, representing key sources in Latin, French, German, and English from across Europe during the Middle Ages. Each chapter is authored by a leading expert and treats a case study in detail, including a listing of the manuscript's overall contents, a summary of its treatment in scholarship, and up-to-date bibliographical references. Drawing on recent scholarly methodologies, the contributors uncover what these books and the songs within them meant to their medieval audience and reveal a wealth of new information about the original contexts of songs both in performance and as committed to parchment.

Polyphony associated with the Parisian cathedral of Notre Dame marks a historical turning point in medieval music. Yet a lack of analytical or theoretical systems has discouraged close study of twelfth- and thirteenth-century musical objects, despite the fact that such creations represent the beginnings of musical composition as we know it. Is musical analysis possible for such medieval repertoires? Catherine A. Bradley demonstrates that it is, presenting new methodologies to illuminate processes of musical and poetic creation, from monophonic plainchant and vernacular French songs, to polyphonic organa, clausulae, and motets in both Latin and French. This book engages with questions of text-music relationships, liturgy, and the development of notational technologies, exploring concepts of authorship and originality as well as practices of quotation and musical reworking.

Since her death in 1179, Hildegard of Bingen has commanded attention in every century. In this book Jennifer Bain traces the historical reception of Hildegard, focusing particularly on the moment in the modern era when she began to be considered as a composer. Bain examines how the activities of clergy in nineteenth-century Eibingen resulted in increased veneration of Hildegard, an authentication of her relics, and a rediscovery of her music. The book goes on to situate the emergence of Hildegard's music both within the French chant restoration movement driven by Solesmes and the German chant revival supported by Cecilianism, the German movement to reform Church music more generally. Engaging with the complex political and religious environment in German speaking areas, Bain places the more recent Anglophone revival of Hildegard's music in a broader historical perspective and reveals the important intersections amongst local devotion, popular culture, and intellectual activities.

Few now remember that the guitar was popular in England during the age of Queen Elizabeth and Shakespeare, and yet it was played everywhere from the royal court to the common tavern. This groundbreaking book, the first entirely devoted to the renaissance guitar in England, deploys new literary and archival material, together with depictions in contemporary art, to explore the social and musical world of the four-course guitar among courtiers, government servants and gentlemen. Christopher Page reconstructs the trade in imported guitars coming to the wharves of London, and pieces together the printed tutor for the instrument (probably of 1569) which ranks as the only method book for the guitar to survive from the sixteenth century. Two chapters discuss the remains of music for the instrument in tablature, both the instrumental repertoire and the traditions of accompanied song, which must often be assembled from scattered fragments of information.

Ruth I. DeFord's book explores how tactus, mensuration, and rhythm were employed to articulate form and shape in the period from c.1420 to c.1600. Divided into two parts, the book examines the theory and practice of rhythm in relation to each other to offer new interpretations of the writings of Renaissance music theorists. In the first part, DeFord presents the theoretical evidence, introduces the manuscript sources and explains the contradictions and ambiguities in tactus theory. The second part uses theory to analyse some of the best known repertories of Renaissance music, including works by Du Fay, Ockeghem, Busnoys, Josquin, Isaac, Palestrina, and Rore, and to shed light on composers' formal and expressive uses of rhythm. DeFord's conclusions have important implications for our understanding of rhythm and for the analysis, editing, and performance of music during the Renaissance period.

Improvisation and Inventio in the Performance of Medieval Music: A Practical Approach is an innovative and groundbreaking approach to medieval music as living repertoire. The book provides philosophical frameworks, primary-source analysis, and clear, actionable practices and exercises aimed at recovering the improvisatory and inventive aspects of medieval music for contemporary musicians. Aimed at both instrumentalists and vocalists, the book explores the utilization of musical models, the inventive implications of medieval notation, and the ways in which memory, mode, rhetoric, and primary source paradigms inform the improvisatory process in both monophonic and polyphonic music of the Middle Ages. Angela Mariani, an experienced performer of both medieval music and folk and traditional musics, rediscovers and explicates the processes of imagination, invention, and improvisation which historically energized both medieval music in its own period and in its revival in our own time. Based on decades of research, university teaching, ensemble direction, collaboration, and performance, Mariani's impassioned stance that "the elusive element of inventio, as the medieval rhetoricians would have called it, must always be provided by the performer in the present," emphasizes medieval music performance practice as a dynamic and still-vital tradition. Students, teachers, directors, and those interested in the wealth of expressive beauty found in the music of the middle ages will likewise find value and meaning in her clear and accessible prose, and in the practical processes and exercises that make this book unique within the literature of medieval performance practice.

Throughout the Renaissance, composers often expressed themselves in a language of riddles and puzzles, which they embedded within the music and lyrics of their compositions. This is the first book on the theory, practice and cultural context of musical riddles during the period. Katelijne Schiltz focuses on the compositional, notational, practical, social and theoretical aspects of musical riddle culture c.1450-1620, from the works of Antoine Busnoys, Jacob Obrecht and Josquin des Prez to Lodovico Zacconi's manuscript collection of Canoni musicali. Schiltz reveals how the riddle both invites and resists interpretation, the ways in which riddles imply a process of transformation and the consequences of these aspects for the riddle's conception, performance and reception. Lavishly illustrated and including a comprehensive catalogue by Bonnie J. Blackburn of enigmatic inscriptions, this book will be of interest to scholars of music, literature, art history, theology and the history of ideas.

During the years 1500-1800, European performing arts reveled in a kaleidoscope of Otherness: Middle-Eastern harem women, fortune-telling Spanish 'Gypsies', Incan priests, Barbary pirates, moresca dancers, and more. In this prequel to his 2009 book Musical Exoticism, Ralph P. Locke explores how exotic locales and their inhabitants were characterized in musical genres ranging from instrumental pieces and popular songs to oratorios, ballets, and operas. Locke's study offers new insights into much-loved masterworks by composers such as Cavalli, Lully, Purcell, Rameau, Handel, Vivaldi, Gluck, and Mozart. In these works, evocations of ethnic and cultural Otherness often mingle attraction with envy or fear, and some pieces were understood at the time as commenting on conditions in Europe itself. Locke's accessible study, which includes numerous musical examples and rare illustrations, will be of interest to anyone who is intrigued by the relationship between music and cultural history, and by the challenges of cross-cultural (mis)understanding.

In this book, John Haines presents a detailed survey of songs performed in Vulgar Latin and early Romance languages from around 500 to 1200. The first part of the book discusses this enormous body of neglected songs according to the categories of lament, love song, epic and devotional song. Medieval sources - mostly condemnations - ranging from sermons to chronicles attest to the long life and popularity of this music performed all throughout this period, and predominantly by women. Performance contexts range from the burial of the dead to the nursing of infants. The study argues for the reinstatement of female vernacular song in the mainstream of medieval music historiography and ends with a discussion of the neglected medieval lullaby. The second part of the book presents an edition and informative commentary of the dozen surviving witnesses with musical notation in the early Romance period prior to 1200.

Plague, a devastating and recurring affliction throughout the Renaissance, had a major impact on European life. Not only was pestilence a biological problem, but it was also read as a symptom of spiritual degeneracy and it caused widespread social disorder. Assembling a picture of the complex and sometimes contradictory responses to plague from medical, spiritual and civic perspectives, this book uncovers the place of music - whether regarded as an indispensable medicine or a moral poison that exacerbated outbreaks - in the management of the disease. This original musicological approach further reveals how composers responded, in their works, to the discourses and practices surrounding one of the greatest medical crises in the pre-modern age. Addressing topics such as music as therapy, public rituals and performance and music in religion, the volume also provides detailed musical analysis throughout to illustrate how pestilence affected societal attitudes toward music.

The first full-length study of how motets were used and performed in the fifteenth century, this book dispels the mystery surrounding these outstanding works of vocal polyphony. It covers four areas of intense compositional activity: England, the Veneto, Bruges and Cambrai, with reference to the works of Dunstaple, Forest, Ciconia, Grenon and Du Fay. In every documented instance, motets functioned as ceremonial vehicles, whether voiced in procession through the streets of a city or the chapel of a king, at the guild chapel of a parish church or the high altar of a cathedral. The motet was an entirely vocal genre that changed radically during the period from 1400 to 1475. Robert Nosow outlines the motet's social history, demonstrating how the incorporation of different texts, musical dialects, cantus firmus materials and melodic styles represents an important key to the evolution of the genre, and its adaptability to widely variant ritual circumstances.

Drawing upon hundreds of newly uncovered archival records, Gretchen Peters reconstructs the music of everyday life in over twenty cities in late medieval France. Through the comparative study of these cities' political and musical histories, the book establishes that the degree to which a city achieved civic authority and independence determined the nature and use of music within the urban setting. The world of urban minstrels beyond civic patronage is explored through the use of diverse records; their livelihood depended upon seeking out and securing a variety of engagements from confraternities to bathhouses. Minstrels engaged in complex professional relationships on a broad level, as with guilds and minstrel schools, and on an individual level, as with partnerships and apprenticeships. The study investigates how minstrels fared economically and socially, recognizing the diversity within this body of musicians in the Middle Ages from itinerant outcasts to wealthy and respected town musicians.

This innovative and multi-layered study of the music and culture of Renaissance instrumentalists spans the early institutionalization of instrumental music from c.1420 to the rise of the basso continuo and newer roles for instrumentalists around 1600. Employing a broad cultural narrative interwoven with detailed case studies, close readings of eighteen essential musical sources, and analysis of musical images, Victor Coelho and Keith Polk show that instrumental music formed a vital and dynamic element in the artistic landscape, from rote function to creative fantasy. Instrumentalists occupied a central role in courtly ceremonies and private social rituals during the Renaissance, and banquets, dances, processions, religious celebrations and weddings all required their participation, regardless of social class. Instrumental genres were highly diverse artistic creations, from polyphonic repertories revealing knowledge of notated styles, to improvisation and flexible practices. Understanding the contributions of instrumentalists is essential for any accurate assessment of Renaissance culture.

The complex relationship between myths and music is here investigated. Myths and stories offer a window onto medieval and early modern musical culture. Far from merely offering material for musical settings, authoritative tales from classical mythology, ancient history and the Bible were treated as foundations for musical knowledge. Such myths were cited in support of arguments about the uses, effects, morality and preferred styles of music in sources as diverse as theoretical treatises, defences or critiques of music, art, sermons, educational literature and books of moral conduct. Newly written literary stories too were believed capable of moral instruction and influence, and were a medium through which ideas about music could be both explored and transmitted. How authors interpreted and weaved together these traditional stories, or created their own, reveals much about changing attitudes across the period. Looking beyond the well-known figure of Orpheus, this collection explores the myriad stories that shaped not only musical thought, but also its styles, techniques and practices. The essays show that music itself performed and created knowledge in ways parallel to myth, and worked in tandem with old and new tales to construct social, political and philosophical views. This relationship was not static, however; as the Enlightenment dawned, the once authoritative gods became comic characters and myth became a medium forridicule. Overall, the book provides a foundation for exploring myth and story throughout medieval and early modern culture, and facilitating further study into the Enlightenment and beyond. KATHERINE BUTLER is a seniorlecturer in music at Northumbria University; SAMANTHA BASSLER is a musicologist of cultural studies, a teaching artist, and an adjunct professor in the New York metropolitan area. Contributors: Jamie Apgar, Katie Bank, Samantha Bassler, Katherine Butler, Elina G. Hamilton, Sigrid Harris, Ljubica Ilic, Erica Levenson, John MacInnis, Patrick McMahon, Aurora Faye Martinez, Jacomien Prins, Tim Shephard, Jason Stoessel, Ferdia J. Stone-Davis, Amanda Eubanks Winkler.

It has become widely accepted among musicologists that medieval music is most profitably studied from interdisciplinary perspectives that situate it within broad cultural contexts. The origins of this consensus lie in a decisive reorientation of the field that began approximately four decades ago. For much of the twentieth century, research on medieval music had focused on the discovery and evaluation of musical and theoretical sources. The 1970s and 1980s, by contrast, witnessed calls for broader methodologies and more fully contextual approaches that in turn anticipated the emergence of the so-called 'New Musicology'. The fifteen essays in the present collection explore three interrelated areas of inquiry that proved particularly significant: the liturgy, sources (musical and archival), and musical symbolism. In so doing, these essays not only acknowledge past achievements but also illustrate how this broad, interdisciplinary approach remains a source for scholarly innovation.

Devotion to Saint Anne, the apocryphal mother of the Virgin Mary, reached its height in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Until now, Anne's reception history and political symbolism during this period have been primarily discussed through the lens of art history. This is the first study to explore the music that honored the saint and its connections to some of the most prominent court cultures of western Europe. Michael Alan Anderson examines plainchant and polyphonic music for Saint Anne, in sources both familiar and previously unstudied, to illuminate not only Anne's wide-ranging intercessional capabilities but also the political force of the music devoted to her. Whether viewed as a fertility aide, wise mother, or dynastic protector, she modeled a number of valuable roles that rulers reflected in the music of their devotional programs to project their noble lineage and prestige.

Few now remember that the guitar was popular in England during the age of Queen Elizabeth and Shakespeare, and yet it was played everywhere from the royal court to the common tavern. This groundbreaking book, the first entirely devoted to the renaissance guitar in England, deploys new literary and archival material, together with depictions in contemporary art, to explore the social and musical world of the four-course guitar among courtiers, government servants and gentlemen. Christopher Page reconstructs the trade in imported guitars coming to the wharves of London, and pieces together the printed tutor for the instrument (probably of 1569) which ranks as the only method book for the guitar to survive from the sixteenth century. Two chapters discuss the remains of music for the instrument in tablature, both the instrumental repertoire and the traditions of accompanied song, which must often be assembled from scattered fragments of information.

The manuscript sources of medieval song rarely fit the description of 'songbook' easily. Instead, they are very often mixed compilations that place songs alongside other diverse contents, and the songs themselves may be inscribed as texts alone or as verbal and musical notation. This book looks afresh at these manuscripts through ten case studies, representing key sources in Latin, French, German, and English from across Europe during the Middle Ages. Each chapter is authored by a leading expert and treats a case study in detail, including a listing of the manuscript's overall contents, a summary of its treatment in scholarship, and up-to-date bibliographical references. Drawing on recent scholarly methodologies, the contributors uncover what these books and the songs within them meant to their medieval audience and reveal a wealth of new information about the original contexts of songs both in performance and as committed to parchment.