Margot E. Fassler's richly documented history--winner of the
Otto Kinkeldey Award from the American Musicological Society and
the John Nicholas Brown Prize from the Medieval Academy of
America--demonstrates how the Augustinians of St. Victor, Paris,
used an art of memory to build sonic models of the church. This
musical art developed over time, inspired by the religious ideals
of Hugh and Richard of St. Victor and their understandings of image
and the spiritual journey. "Gothic Song: Victorine Sequences and
Augustinian Reform in Twelfth-Century Paris "demonstrates the
centrality of sequences to western medieval Christian liturgical
and artistic experience, and to our understanding of change and
continuity in medieval culture. Fassler examines the figure of Adam
of St. Victor and the possible layers within the repertories
created at various churches in Paris, probes the ways the Victorine
sequences worked musically and exegetically, and situates this
repertory within the intellectual and spiritual ideals of the
Augustinian canons regular, especially those of the Abbey of St.
Victor.
Originally published in hardcover in 1993, this paperback
edition includes a new introduction by Fassler, in which she
reviews the state of scholarship on late sequences since the
original publication of "Gothic Song." Her notes to the
introduction provide the bibliography necessary for situating the
Victorine sequences, and the late sequences in general, in
contemporary thought.
"Reviews for the first edition: "
"In relation to this apotheosis of the Word, the sequences of
the Middle Ages present an intriguing paradox. On one hand, the
melodies of sequences in many sources carry a Latin text, intensely
coloured by the Vulgate Bible and by the rich tradition of
Christian Latinity. On the other hand, as Margot Fassler points out
in this fine book, the sequence was often conceived in the Middle
Ages as an anticipation of angelic praise and therefore of a
heavenly song where human language has no meaning. Margot Fassler
explores this contrast in a richly documented survey of the
sequence tradition, concentrating upon the late sequence, which, as
she convincingly shows, was championed at the Abbey of St Victor in
Paris." --"Early Music," November 1994
." . . This represents a considerable revision and expansion of
our previous knowledge of musical life in 12th-century Paris and of
the background to the late medieval sequence. . . . It is through
commendable, detailed studies such as this] that our views of the
early epochs of music will gradually crystallise into clearer
shapes." --"The Musical Times," January 1994
"What meanings did liturgical chant convey to its elite medieval
audience, the educated clergy? How did this audience understand the
connection between text and music, and how did this conception
change over time? These timely questions form the backdrop for
"Gothic Song," Margot Fassler's engaging study of the
twelfth-century sequence. Focusing primarily on the Augustinian
abbey of Saint-Victor de Paris, Fassler argues that it was there
and at the nearby cathedral that Adam Precentor (Adam of
Saint-Victor) and his circle developed a new approach to sequence
composition." --"The Journal of the American Musicological
Society," Summer 1996
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