- Department of Music
University of Liverpool - 07753545404
Lisa Colton
University of Liverpool, School of Music, Faculty Member
- Church Music, Early Music, Music History, Musicology, Music, Music Psychology, and 30 moreGender and Sexuality, Popular Music, Film Music And Sound, Medieval Music, Analysis of Film Music, Cultural Musicology, Masculinities, Liturgy, Lesbian Historiography, Disability Studies, Affect (Cultural Theory), Gender Studies, Oral Traditions, Composition (Music), Electroacoustic Music, Sound and Image, Performance Practice, Renaissance music, Sound and Music Computing, Sociology Of Deviance, Women's Studies, Gender, Motets, Women Composers And Musicians, Popular Music Studies, Music and Gender, Medieval History, Medieval musicology, Manuscripts, and Lady Gaga Studiesedit
- Lisa Johnson (née Colton, publishing as Lisa Colton) is Professor of Musicology at the University of Huddersfield. He... moreLisa Johnson (née Colton, publishing as Lisa Colton) is Professor of Musicology at the University of Huddersfield. Her research interests are focused on medieval music and music of the twentieth century, especially in relation to issues of gender and sexuality.edit
- Nicky Losseffedit
The papers included in this volume were presented, in much shorter form, at a conference entitled ‘Sources of Identity: Makers, Owners and Users of Music Sources Before 1600’ held at the University of Sheffield in 2013. The stated aim of... more
The papers included in this volume were presented, in much shorter form, at a conference entitled ‘Sources of Identity: Makers, Owners and Users of Music Sources Before 1600’ held at the University of Sheffield in 2013. The stated aim of the event was to leave aside the traditionally dominant view of early music sources as a means of access to medieval and Renaissance repertoires, focussing instead on the people who commissioned, made, owned and used music books, and on their reasons for so doing. In the terms proposed by a recent study of art patronage in the period, what was the ‘payoff’ enjoyed by individuals and groups who created and deployed such objects?
Research Interests: Music, Early Music, Music History, Musicology, Self and Identity, and 26 moreItalian Studies, Book History, History of the Book, Iberian Studies, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Identity (Culture), Cultural Musicology, Medieval England, Medieval France, Medieval Music, Printing History, Renaissance music, Book History (History), Manuscripts (Medieval Studies), Codicology of medieval manuscripts, France, England, Holy Roman Empire, Spain, Identity, Italy, Germany, Books, Historical Musicology, Musical sources, and Late medieval and Renaissance music
Although medieval English music has been relatively neglected in comparison with repertoire from France and Italy, there are few classical musicians today who have not listened to the thirteenth-century song ‘Sumer is icumen in’, or read... more
Although medieval English music has been relatively neglected in comparison with repertoire from France and Italy, there are few classical musicians today who have not listened to the thirteenth-century song ‘Sumer is icumen in’, or read of the achievements and fame of fifteenth-century composer John Dunstaple. Similarly, the identification of a distinctively English musical style (sometimes understood as the contenance angloise) has been made on numerous occasions by writers exploring the extent to which English ideas influenced polyphonic composition abroad. Angel song: Medieval English music in history examines the ways in which the standard narratives of English musical history have been crafted, from the Middle Ages to the present. Colton challenges the way in which the concept of a canon of English music has been built around a handful of pieces, composers, and practices, each of which offer opportunities for a reappraisal of English musical and devotional cultures between 1250 and 1460.
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Previously published as the Eyewitness Companion: Classical Music, edited by John Burrow. My contributions were the entries for ten medieval and renaissance composers (e.g. Machaut, Byrd, Tallis, Palestrina), and the introductory section... more
Previously published as the Eyewitness Companion: Classical Music, edited by John Burrow. My contributions were the entries for ten medieval and renaissance composers (e.g. Machaut, Byrd, Tallis, Palestrina), and the introductory section on early music. Available in several languages.
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This chapter is pages 212–35.
Published in Donington by Shaun Tyas.
Published in Donington by Shaun Tyas.
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The present article demonstrates the complexity of musico-textual relationships in Ave miles celestis curie, a 14th-century polyphonic song whose generic markers relate it to both English troped chant settings and to the motet. Ave miles... more
The present article demonstrates the complexity of musico-textual relationships in Ave miles celestis curie, a 14th-century polyphonic song whose generic markers relate it to both English troped chant settings and to the motet. Ave miles celestis curie was written in honour of the St Edmund, king and martyr, whose cult flourished in England, particularly in East Anglia. Through a fresh analysis of the tenor parts, lyrics and structural elements, I argue that previous discussions of Ave miles celestis curie have overlooked some of the musical and textual troping on which it is based. Furthermore, Ave miles celestis curie is used to interrogate assumptions about the limitations of analysing English music in comparison with contemporary French motets; rather than being only generic in sentiment, I argue for fresh investigation into individual pieces to reconsider the presence of subtle relationships between music and text.
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This new article was under embargo until 1 April 2016 but is now fully available here free to read and to download.
(Obviously it's a spoof...)
(Obviously it's a spoof...)
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The introduction to the book is now available through open access. Let us whet your appetite for what is an absolutely fantastic volume.
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The cultural history of the telephone is one that has run in parallel with that of recorded technology in popular music. Both histories are invoked by the corpus of “telephone songs”, songs whose lyrics focus chiefly on the mediation of a... more
The cultural history of the telephone is one that has run in parallel with that of recorded technology in popular music. Both histories are invoked by the corpus of “telephone songs”, songs whose lyrics focus chiefly on the mediation of a romantic relationship by telecommunication technology. Lady Gaga’s “Telephone”, originally a solo project designed for Britney Spears but later a collaboration with Beyoncé, exploits the standard conventions of the telephone song genre. Common tropes are explored, but also sometimes subverted through playful manipulation of the expectations for women in relation to technology, sexuality, race and gender.
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Zelo tui langueo / T. [Omnes de Saba] / Reor nescia has been discussed more widely than many other English motets on account of a number of puzzling elements of its content and provenance. Two manuscript copies of the motet survive; in... more
Zelo tui langueo / T. [Omnes de Saba] / Reor nescia has been discussed more widely than many other English motets on account of a number of puzzling elements of its content and provenance. Two manuscript copies of the motet survive; in addition, two images of clerics performing the motet are preserved in psalters of the early 14th century, roughly contemporary with the musical sources. The feminine poetic voice used in one of the motet's texted lines has invited speculation that Zelo tui langueo may have been composed or performed by women. The provenance of one musical source (York Minster, Ms. xvi.N.3) offered corroboration, linking the music to a community of monks and nuns from a Gilbertine double house in Shouldham, Norfolk, but this origin was rejected after palaeographical studies undertaken in the last decades of the 20th century. This article examines the motet within a network of various documents, and relocates it musically, textually and socially within devotional life in East Anglia. In addition, it explores elements of the historiography of female music-making in late medieval England.
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Judith Weir's music embraces the unusual, from libretti drawing on the medieval past to fantastic narratives set within diverse stylistic frames. Her musical language has been praised and criticised in almost equal measure for its... more
Judith Weir's music embraces the unusual, from libretti drawing on the medieval past to fantastic narratives set within diverse stylistic frames. Her musical language has been praised and criticised in almost equal measure for its versatility and humour. Weir's music seems tied to the musical past, but in ways so divergent between pieces that critics struggle to engage with it as fully as with the music of other British composers of recent decades. Focusing on several works, I explore the often fraught sense of historical subjectivity in Weir's music and its reception. I also examine the critical discourse relating to Weir's music, in particular works based on historical or non-Western stimuli, arguing that these texts (even the words of the composer herself) are tied closely to a historical line that continues to feel anxious about the creative powers of women composers.
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The chanson de nonne presents stereotypical images of young women whose bodies and voices are trapped within the confines of a nunnery. Close examination of the architectural metaphors used to describe virginity and chastity in the... more
The chanson de nonne presents stereotypical images of young women whose bodies and voices are trapped within the confines of a nunnery. Close examination of the architectural
metaphors used to describe virginity and chastity in the Middle Ages allows comparisons to be made between the structures – metaphorical, musical and textual – that held fictitious nuns within the frame of the clerical imagination at the centre of thirteenth-century motet production.
metaphors used to describe virginity and chastity in the Middle Ages allows comparisons to be made between the structures – metaphorical, musical and textual – that held fictitious nuns within the frame of the clerical imagination at the centre of thirteenth-century motet production.
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This article describes a previously undocumented source of English music dating from the middle of the seventeenth century. The musical content comprises four short popular tunes, set to simple bass lines. The significance of the source... more
This article describes a previously undocumented source of English music dating from the middle of the seventeenth century. The musical content comprises four short popular tunes, set to simple bass lines. The significance of the source lies in its notation, which, it is argued, is a unique form of keyboard tablature whose melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic details are largely recoverable. It is also suggested that the music was copied by a learner under the supervision of her music tutor. The music is transcribed and the context of the source explored in relation to the performance and copying cultures of seventeenth-century amateur musicians.
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This chapter draws on texts by mystics and religious commentators whose writings were considered unorthodox, in order to examine how sound was understood by individuals living on the fringes of official religious doctrine. Examples will... more
This chapter draws on texts by mystics and religious commentators whose writings were considered unorthodox, in order to examine how sound was understood by individuals living on the fringes of official religious doctrine. Examples will include the spiritual song of Richard Rolle, sounds experienced by Margery Kempe, and the description of performance found in the reforming tracts of John Wycliffe. These were individuals whose personal spirituality was both informed by the teachings of the Christian church and in some ways positioned in opposition to it. My purpose is not to attempt a recreation of the sound of a specific piece of music, nor to summarise the different musical sounds (vocal, instrumental, percussive) familiar to members of medieval society in their daily lives. Rather, I interrogate the issue of what musical sound meant to religious writers of the age. I have purposefully avoided ‘learned’ texts, such as treatises on plainchant, harmony, the modes and rhythm, focusing instead on more personal perceptions of musical sound. My question is not ‘what did music sound like’, but ‘how did these people perceive sound, and what did it mean to them’? The link between musical sounds and the other senses is something that recurs in my examples.
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What might queerness mean when considering medieval culture? Certainly the term itself is a much later one, but the concept of sex, the body and sexuality as fluid and in play pervades much medieval discourse, from the theological to the... more
What might queerness mean when considering medieval culture? Certainly the term itself is a much later one, but the concept of sex, the body and sexuality as fluid and in play pervades much medieval discourse, from the theological to the fictional. This chapter seeks to examine some of the ways in which music, sound and musical bodies can be understood as queer during the Middle Ages, focusing on the way in which musicians and their instruments are depicted. Often located in the margins of devotional manuscripts, images of music-making range from the conventional to the grotesque and obscene, sometimes involving hybrid men/instruments in which the player and the played become confused. Such images invite speculation as to how people living during the later Middle Ages understood their musical selves, and are suggestive of a cultural understanding of the body which was far from accepting of standard binaries of male/female, lay/religious, human/animal, or of normative/queer sexual behaviours, desires and identities.
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An edition of the complete movement and fullest fragments of the York Masses, a collection of vocal polyphony probably copied for an institution in the city of York c.1500.
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An edition of the plainchant sequence 'Scrupulosa', according to the Use of York, and taken from the only full copy of the text with its music to have survived, the 15th-century York Gradual. Text translated by Leofranc Holford-Strevens.
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A blog post on the large-scale work Revelations of the Seven Angels (1988) for the British Music Collection / Sound and Music project 50 Things
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A short paper containing some thoughts about the epitaphs in honour of composer John Dunstaple.
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A chapter that I published in 2014, “Who’s Calling? Lady Gaga’s ‘Telephone’, Female Vocal Empowerment and Signification”, examined the ways in which women’s historical relationship with telephone technology was highly inflected by... more
A chapter that I published in 2014, “Who’s Calling? Lady Gaga’s ‘Telephone’, Female Vocal Empowerment and Signification”, examined the ways in which women’s historical relationship with telephone technology was highly inflected by cultural expectations for the sexes. It also sought to demonstrate that some of the evidence for this relationship, or interrelationship, could be traceable in songs themselves, songs that explicitly feature telephone calls. This is a short article discussing its main content, research context, and sharing some additional thoughts about the song.
The Word document has hyperlinks to relevant literature.
The Word document has hyperlinks to relevant literature.
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Benjamin Britten’s music drew on texts taken from English music, lyrics and subject matter relating to the period c.1250–c.1650 (e.g. Gloriana, A Ceremony of Carols, Lacrimae, A Midsummer Night’s Dream) throughout his compositional... more
Benjamin Britten’s music drew on texts taken from English music, lyrics and subject matter relating to the period c.1250–c.1650 (e.g. Gloriana, A Ceremony of Carols, Lacrimae, A Midsummer Night’s Dream) throughout his compositional career. Britten’s interest in this material was partly historical, in keeping with the spirit of his age, but infused within this was a deliberate alignment of his creative output with a lost ‘Merrie England’ of the medieval period, and with the ‘Golden Age’ of English music in the century that followed it. This was not, in itself, exceptional: during World War 2 and the post-war period a great many artists created pieces that conjured with nostalgia and ‘innocence’, while simultaneously tapping into nationalist sentiment. However, perhaps more than for others, Britten’s reputation as a national composer – undermined by his pacifism and exile during the War – was reliant on his crafting of a uniquely British-English identity. This paper argues that through his appropriation of historical subject matter, and his choice of texts relating to springtime and renewal (notably his Spring Symphony, 1949), Britten was reborn as a composer of national significance. In particular, I will show how Britten’s selection of the most famous of medieval English songs, Sumer is icumen in, reflected a more widespread appropriation of the piece for this purpose than has hitherto been appreciated.
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What might queerness mean when considering medieval culture? Certainly the term itself is a much later one, but the concept of sex, the body and sexuality as fluid and in play pervades much medieval discourse, from the theological to the... more
What might queerness mean when considering medieval culture? Certainly the term itself is a much later one, but the concept of sex, the body and sexuality as fluid and in play pervades much medieval discourse, from the theological to the fictional. This chapter seeks to examine some of the ways in which music, sound and musical bodies can be understood as queer during the Middle Ages, focusing on the way in which musicians and their instruments are depicted. Often located in the margins of devotional manuscripts, images of music-making range from the conventional to the grotesque and obscene, sometimes involving hybrid men/instruments in which the player and the played become confused. Such images invite speculation as to how people living during the later Middle Ages understood their musical selves, and are suggestive of a cultural understanding of the body which was far from accepting of standard binaries of male/female, lay/religious, human/animal, or of normative/queer sexual behaviours, desires and identities.
Zelo tui langueo / Reor nescia / T. Omnes de Saba has been discussed widely, certainly more than most other English motets, on account of a number of puzzling elements of its content and provenance. Two manuscript sources of the motet... more
Zelo tui langueo / Reor nescia / T. Omnes de Saba has been discussed widely, certainly more than most other English motets, on account of a number of puzzling elements of its content and provenance. Two manuscript sources of the motet survive; in addition, two images of ...
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The University of Huddersfield logo. ...
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The lack of authorial attribution for almost all English repertoire before the fifteenth century, especially within polyphonic music, makes answering questions relating to style and genesis difficult. Music with English text makes an... more
The lack of authorial attribution for almost all English repertoire before the fifteenth century, especially within polyphonic music, makes answering questions relating to style and genesis difficult. Music with English text makes an English place of origin more plausible, but English lyrics are relatively rarely outside of the para-liturgical repertory of thirteenth-century devotional items and fifteenth-century carols. Musical style itself has less potential for secure attribution. Though aspects of musical language have sometimes been associated with English compositional practice (notably voice-exchange and a preponderance of thirds), a number of scholars have found that the same features are often found in pieces that have uncontested origins from across the English Channel. Such discussions were particular energetic in articles by Jacques Handschin and Ernest Sanders in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. The need to satisfy the question of a piece of music’s ‘ethnicity’ (that is, in addition or in place of similar information about the composer him/herself) pervades much of the writing about medieval English music. Nicky Losseff queried the validity of mapping style onto national origin:
It does now seem that a more cautious attitude towards real or imagined ethnic differences should be taken, and that a more imaginative approach to questions of reception and influence is needed (The Best Concords (1993), p.15).
As Martin Stokes has commented, ‘musical styles can be made emblematic of national identities in complex and often contradictory ways’ (Stokes, ‘Ethnicity, Identity and Music’ (1994), p.13). Thus in musicology, a discipline whose origins lie in the classification of musical repertories, genres and styles in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, there has been a historical trend to separate characteristics, to identify differences, along a number of lines that include ethnic boundaries. In this paper, I will explore anxieties relating to the ‘ethnicity’ of English medieval music, with the aim of moving towards a more representative historical approach for the repertory.
It does now seem that a more cautious attitude towards real or imagined ethnic differences should be taken, and that a more imaginative approach to questions of reception and influence is needed (The Best Concords (1993), p.15).
As Martin Stokes has commented, ‘musical styles can be made emblematic of national identities in complex and often contradictory ways’ (Stokes, ‘Ethnicity, Identity and Music’ (1994), p.13). Thus in musicology, a discipline whose origins lie in the classification of musical repertories, genres and styles in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, there has been a historical trend to separate characteristics, to identify differences, along a number of lines that include ethnic boundaries. In this paper, I will explore anxieties relating to the ‘ethnicity’ of English medieval music, with the aim of moving towards a more representative historical approach for the repertory.
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John Dunstaple is popularly perceived as the first significant composer in the history of English music, and he remains one of the first to whom a substantial body of works can be confidently attributed. Yet, many details of his career... more
John Dunstaple is popularly perceived as the first significant composer in the history of English music, and he remains one of the first to whom a substantial body of works can be confidently attributed. Yet, many details of his career and biography remain elusive. Of the ‘John Dunstaples’ identifiable in fifteenth-century records, distinguishing between those that may be the same man has been problematic, even with Andrew Wathey’s identification of Dunstaple as an owner of property in Normandy, and with the confirmation of the composer’s handwriting and scribal activities by Rodney M. Thomson.
This paper reinvestigates two previous identifications—John Dunstaple of Broadfield (Hertfordshire) and John Dunstaple of Steeple Morden (Cambridgeshire)—and securely links these two men under one identity. Wathey’s identification of Dunstaple the composer with the landowner of that name is also scrutinised. The paper will further examine various unexplored documents, notably a sixteenth-century copy of the will of John Dunstaple of Broadfield, and documents from 15th-century London. The will raises a key problem for the accepted biography of the composer if the two ‘Dunstaples’ are the same man: namely, the long-accepted date of Dunstaple’s death, 24 December 1453.
This paper reinvestigates two previous identifications—John Dunstaple of Broadfield (Hertfordshire) and John Dunstaple of Steeple Morden (Cambridgeshire)—and securely links these two men under one identity. Wathey’s identification of Dunstaple the composer with the landowner of that name is also scrutinised. The paper will further examine various unexplored documents, notably a sixteenth-century copy of the will of John Dunstaple of Broadfield, and documents from 15th-century London. The will raises a key problem for the accepted biography of the composer if the two ‘Dunstaples’ are the same man: namely, the long-accepted date of Dunstaple’s death, 24 December 1453.
The history of music is fashioned around the authors of the written musical past, but the history of English music is one largely told sine nominibus. English music before 1400 lacks attributions except in a very small number of cases,... more
The history of music is fashioned around the authors of the written musical past, but the history of English music is one largely told sine nominibus. English music before 1400 lacks attributions except in a very small number of cases, most of which relate to liturgical chant rather than to extant polyphony, and all of which are problematic in various ways. After 1400, the situation becomes complex for an entirely paradoxical reason: alongside the anonymity that persists in many 15th-century manuscripts, sources of polyphony such as the Old Hall Manuscript bring a sudden influx of composers’ names into the picture. The emergence of authors appears to solve a range of problems, from considering style, influence and intention to correcting the undervaluing of English music against that from the Continent. In this paper, I examine what lessons can be learned from the pre-1400 context in dealing with authorship (or anonymity) in post-1400 music, examining the difficulties posed by three case studies:
1) Liturgical song and musical practice in the historia of St Edburga of Pershore
2) Authorship and homage in sequences attributed to Archbishop of York Richard Scrope
3) Challenges to the accepted biography of John Dunstaple and their implications
Although the comments in this paper concern liturgical materials that relate to places and people within England’s borders, however one defines them, the questions at their heart have a relevance to the music found within other parts of Britain, including Ireland, because of the overwhelming anonymity of medieval repertoire in the British Isles in comparison with mainland Europe.
1) Liturgical song and musical practice in the historia of St Edburga of Pershore
2) Authorship and homage in sequences attributed to Archbishop of York Richard Scrope
3) Challenges to the accepted biography of John Dunstaple and their implications
Although the comments in this paper concern liturgical materials that relate to places and people within England’s borders, however one defines them, the questions at their heart have a relevance to the music found within other parts of Britain, including Ireland, because of the overwhelming anonymity of medieval repertoire in the British Isles in comparison with mainland Europe.
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All welcome
John Dunstaple is popularly perceived as the first significant composer in the history of English music, and he remains one of the first to whom a substantial body of works can be confidently attributed. Yet, many details of his career... more
John Dunstaple is popularly perceived as the first significant composer in the history of English music, and he remains one of the first to whom a substantial body of works can be confidently attributed. Yet, many details of his career and biography remain elusive or have been absorbed into music history only hesitantly. Of the ‘John Dunstaples’ (or Dunstables) identifiable in fifteenth-century records, distinguishing between those that may be the same man has been problematic, even with Andrew Wathey’s identification of Dunstaple as an owner of property in Normandy, and with the recent confirmation of the composer’s handwriting and scribal activities by Rodney Thomson.
Over the past century, a picture has gradually emerged of at least one man named John Dunstaple who was evidently a wealthy landowner, and who was amply rewarded for various types of (usually unspecified) service; this John Dunstaple was variously described in the sources as ‘esquire’ or ‘armiger’, in recognition of his high social status. This paper reinvestigates two previous identifications—John Dunstaple of Broadfield (Hertfordshire) and John Dunstaple of Steeple Morden (Cambridgeshire)—and securely links these two men under one identity. It also examines a document not previously known to musicologists, a sixteenth-century copy of the will of John Dunstaple, armiger, of Broadfield. The will fills out information relating to the Hertfordshire man and raises a key problem for the accepted biography of the composer if the two ‘Dunstaples’ are the same man: namely, the long-accepted date of Dunstaple’s death, 24 December 1453.
Over the past century, a picture has gradually emerged of at least one man named John Dunstaple who was evidently a wealthy landowner, and who was amply rewarded for various types of (usually unspecified) service; this John Dunstaple was variously described in the sources as ‘esquire’ or ‘armiger’, in recognition of his high social status. This paper reinvestigates two previous identifications—John Dunstaple of Broadfield (Hertfordshire) and John Dunstaple of Steeple Morden (Cambridgeshire)—and securely links these two men under one identity. It also examines a document not previously known to musicologists, a sixteenth-century copy of the will of John Dunstaple, armiger, of Broadfield. The will fills out information relating to the Hertfordshire man and raises a key problem for the accepted biography of the composer if the two ‘Dunstaples’ are the same man: namely, the long-accepted date of Dunstaple’s death, 24 December 1453.
The perception of sound by individuals and the meanings that they attributed to sounds heard and unheard are revealed in various texts from the later Middle Ages. Many writers incorporated reference to ‘heavenly’ or ‘hellish’ sounds into... more
The perception of sound by individuals and the meanings that they attributed to sounds heard and unheard are revealed in various texts from the later Middle Ages. Many writers incorporated reference to ‘heavenly’ or ‘hellish’ sounds into their religious writings, often as a metaphor for the divine or as representative of more earthly, morally corrupting delights.
This paper will draw on texts by mystics and religious commentators whose writings were considered unorthodox, in order to examine how sound was understood by individuals living on the fringes of official religious doctrine. Examples will include the spiritual song of Richard Rolle, sounds experienced by Margery Kempe and the description of performance found in the reforming tracts of John Wycliffe. These were individuals whose personal spirituality was both informed by the teachings of the Christian church and in some ways positioned in opposition to it. My purpose is not to attempt a recreation of the sound of a specific piece of music, nor to summarise the different musical sounds (vocal, instrumental, percussive) familiar to members of medieval society in their daily lives. Rather, I wish to interrogate the issue of what musical sound meant to religious writers of the age. I have purposefully avoided ‘learned’ texts, such as treatises on plainchant, harmony, the modes and rhythm, focusing instead on more personal perceptions of musical sound. My question is not ‘what did music sound like’, but ‘how did these people perceive sound, and what did it mean to them’? The link between musical sounds and the other senses is something that will recur in my examples.
This paper will draw on texts by mystics and religious commentators whose writings were considered unorthodox, in order to examine how sound was understood by individuals living on the fringes of official religious doctrine. Examples will include the spiritual song of Richard Rolle, sounds experienced by Margery Kempe and the description of performance found in the reforming tracts of John Wycliffe. These were individuals whose personal spirituality was both informed by the teachings of the Christian church and in some ways positioned in opposition to it. My purpose is not to attempt a recreation of the sound of a specific piece of music, nor to summarise the different musical sounds (vocal, instrumental, percussive) familiar to members of medieval society in their daily lives. Rather, I wish to interrogate the issue of what musical sound meant to religious writers of the age. I have purposefully avoided ‘learned’ texts, such as treatises on plainchant, harmony, the modes and rhythm, focusing instead on more personal perceptions of musical sound. My question is not ‘what did music sound like’, but ‘how did these people perceive sound, and what did it mean to them’? The link between musical sounds and the other senses is something that will recur in my examples.
The history of medieval English music is often dominated by laments as to its status as ‘fragmentary’ and ‘anonymous’, a poor cousin to the music of the European mainland. French and Italian composers such as Guillaume de Machaut and... more
The history of medieval English music is often dominated by laments as to its status as ‘fragmentary’ and ‘anonymous’, a poor cousin to the music of the European mainland. French and Italian composers such as Guillaume de Machaut and Francesco Landini have offered historians recognisable characteristics of ‘greatness’, more easily measured against nineteenth-century ideals of creative genius, and such composers have therefore been free from the potential criticism that their music was purely ‘functional’ rather than of ‘artistic’ merit. In 1979, Ernest Sanders claimed that ‘the highly important role played by England in the musical culture of the Middle Ages is still insufficiently appreciated’, and I would argue that English music is still relatively neglected, and therefore poorly understood, today, in relative terms to that produced in mainland Europe. But why? One answer may lie in the exception to this rule of neglect, and it is this song that forms the focus of my paper.
Review of Mediaeval Carols, transcribed and ed. by John Stevens, 3rd rev. edn prepared by David Fallows, Musica Britannica 4. London: Stainer & Bell and the Musica Britannica Trust, 2018. David Fallows, Henry V and the Earliest English... more
Review of Mediaeval Carols, transcribed and ed. by John Stevens, 3rd rev. edn prepared by David Fallows, Musica Britannica 4. London: Stainer & Bell and the Musica Britannica Trust, 2018. David Fallows, Henry V and the Earliest English Carols: 1413–1440. Abingdon: Routledge, 2018. Plainsong and Medieval Music, 29(2), 180-18
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Review of Haines's book, as published online at
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=50418
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=50418
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Recordings review of fourteenth-century music, including new recordings of Machaut.
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Book review
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Review of Christopher Page, The Christian West and its Singers: The First Thousand Years (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009) £30
Research Interests: Christianity, Music, Early Music, Musicology, Medieval History, and 12 moreHistory of Christianity, Early Christianity, Medieval Church History, Church History, Medieval Music, Trade, Mediterranean archaeology, Amphorae, Wine and Olive Oil Production, Wine and Olive Oil Production, Songs, and Antic Technology
Review of three recent editions of early English music.
Music and Letters (2014) 95 (4): 648-650. doi: 10.1093/ml/gcu094
Music and Letters (2014) 95 (4): 648-650. doi: 10.1093/ml/gcu094
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A review of Dillon's book
Review of Mark Everist ed. Cambridge Companion to Medieval Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010)
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Within film scholarship, the use of the musical score to denote emotion has been frequently commented upon, but rarely theorised with any subtlety in relation to aspects of gender. The Gendered Musical Score questions the association... more
Within film scholarship, the use of the musical score to denote emotion has been frequently commented upon, but rarely theorised with any subtlety in relation to aspects of gender. The Gendered Musical Score questions the association between the portrayal of male and female characters in ...
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Review of Bryan Gillingham, Music in the Cluniac ecclesia: a pilot project (Ottawa: Institute of Medieval Music, 2006)
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The Medieval Song Project is a result of the Institute for Music Research's encouragement of collaboration between music researchers working at different institutions, in this case three musicologists who, between them, have... more
The Medieval Song Project is a result of the Institute for Music Research's encouragement of collaboration between music researchers working at different institutions, in this case three musicologists who, between them, have expertise ranging across the period c.800c.1500: Sam Barrett ( ...
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The music cultivated by the Cluniacs in the Middle Ages has been practically obliterated since the Reformation. The Cluniacs were monks and nuns whose way of life was based on the Benedictine rule, from which they developed their own... more
The music cultivated by the Cluniacs in the Middle Ages has been practically obliterated since the Reformation. The Cluniacs were monks and nuns whose way of life was based on the Benedictine rule, from which they developed their own distinct customs. Like the Cistercians, whose ...
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The Ensemble In Cortezia's disc Vox nostra resonet (INCOR 2, issued 2006, 66′) is a well-planned anthology of pieces relating to the Compostela pilgrimage route, taken principally from the Codex Calixtinus, the Llibre Vermell and... more
The Ensemble In Cortezia's disc Vox nostra resonet (INCOR 2, issued 2006, 66′) is a well-planned anthology of pieces relating to the Compostela pilgrimage route, taken principally from the Codex Calixtinus, the Llibre Vermell and the Cantigas de Santa Maria. Pascale Costantini's ...
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The Psalter of Henry VI contains a striking image of ten nuns seated in choir, singing (British Library, Cotton Domitian A, xvii, f. 74v). One nun is depicted holding her book facing outwards, perhaps to reveal the liturgical... more
The Psalter of Henry VI contains a striking image of ten nuns seated in choir, singing (British Library, Cotton Domitian A, xvii, f. 74v). One nun is depicted holding her book facing outwards, perhaps to reveal the liturgical book's notated musical contents to the viewer. ...
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A new dictionary entry on the song 'Sumer is icumen in
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Book review of Christopher Page, The Christian West and its Singers: The First Thousand Years (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009)
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This chapter is pages 212–35. Published in Donington by Shaun Tyas.
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A review of Emma Dillon's boo
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This chapter examines the prominence of “queerness” in music-related images in devotional books of the period 1200–1500. Musical and sexualized images in the physical margins of medieval books blurred the divinely ordained categories of... more
This chapter examines the prominence of “queerness” in music-related images in devotional books of the period 1200–1500. Musical and sexualized images in the physical margins of medieval books blurred the divinely ordained categories of society, reveling in the queering of traditional hierarchies by music and the sounding sexual body. The chapter first considers notions of queerness in music in the Middle Ages, particularly as it pertains to music’s conception, representation, and performance. It then explores the concept of queerness and sexuality before 1500 by referencing Christian legal texts and musical behaviors and practices that might have been construed as acts of transgression, and the distinct overlap of discourses relating to musical and erotic pleasures. It concludes with a discussion of clerics’ sexual identity, showing that the increased focus on celibacy threatened the distinction between men and women, and sparking a crisis in clerical identity in which masculinity ...
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print Share/Save/Bookmark Leaving aside the traditional view of early music sources as a means of access to medieval and Renaissance repertoires, this anthology focuses instead on the people who commissioned, made, owned and used music... more
print Share/Save/Bookmark Leaving aside the traditional view of early music sources as a means of access to medieval and Renaissance repertoires, this anthology focuses instead on the people who commissioned, made, owned and used music books, and on their reasons for so doing. The chapters in this volume were presented, in much shorter form, at a conference held at the University of Sheffield in 2013. The aim of the event was to leave aside the traditionally dominant view of early music sources as a means of access to medieval and Renaissance repertoires, focussing instead on the people who commissioned, made, owned and used music books, and on their reasons for so doing. In the terms proposed by a recent study of art patronage in the period, what was the ‘payoff’ enjoyed by individuals and groups who created and deployed such objects?
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From the perennially young, precocious figure of 'little orphan Annie' to the physical and vocal ageing of the eighteenth-century castrato, interlinked cultural constructions of age and gender are central to the historical and... more
From the perennially young, precocious figure of 'little orphan Annie' to the physical and vocal ageing of the eighteenth-century castrato, interlinked cultural constructions of age and gender are central to the historical and contemporary depiction of creative activity and its audiences. Gender, Age and Musical Creativity takes an interdisciplinary approach to issues of identity and its representation, examining intersections of age and gender in relation to music and musicians across a wide range of periods, places, and genres, including female patronage in Renaissance Italy, the working-class brass band tradition of northern England, twentieth-century jazz and popular music cultures, and the contemporary 'New Music' scene. Drawing together the work of musicologists and practitioners, the collection offers new ways in which to conceptualise the complex links between age and gender in both individual and collective practice and their reception: essays explore juvenilia and 'late' style in composition and performance, the role of public and private institutions in fostering and sustaining creative activity throughout the course of musical careers, and the ways in which genres and scenes themselves age over time.
Research Interests: Cultural Studies, Music, Musical Composition, Early Music, Musicology, and 15 moreGender Studies, Art, Popular Music, Creativity, Cultural Musicology, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Contemporary Music, Classical Music, Historical Musicology, New Musicology, Late Style, New Music, Contemporary Classical Music, Musical, and Juvenalia
The community of Summerisle is characterised by contradiction and ambiguity. The pseudo-pagan rituals in The Wicker Man (dir. Robin Hardy, 1973) are enacted through elaborate trickery and deception, and ostensibly draw upon a set of local... more
The community of Summerisle is characterised by contradiction and ambiguity. The pseudo-pagan rituals in The Wicker Man (dir. Robin Hardy, 1973) are enacted through elaborate trickery and deception, and ostensibly draw upon a set of local beliefs, rooted in occult historical practices related to springtime, fertility, and harvest. The villagers are framed as modern-day peasants, subject to the ultimate control of their feudal Lord, whose leadership of the community culminates in his role as master of ceremonies in the three-day ritual that provides the film’s narrative frame. The villagers are ultimately responsible for the sacrificial murder of policeman Sergeant Neil Howie, and seem unfazed by the brutality of their communal act. An ancient past, whose practices were revived by Lord Summerisle’s Victorian grandfather, is pitched against the urgency of the present in which Sergeant Howie searches for missing girl Rowan Morrison against the ticking clock of a murderous Mayday rite. ...
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This essay examines a number of key works by British composer Margaret Lucy Wilkins, whose music regularly engaged with medievalism its inspiration, choice of texts, musical borrowing, and in the composer’s broader evocation of historical... more
This essay examines a number of key works by British composer Margaret Lucy Wilkins, whose music regularly engaged with medievalism its inspiration, choice of texts, musical borrowing, and in the composer’s broader evocation of historical practices and architecture. Through analysis of pieces composed across two decades, the discussion confronts several tensions between Wilkins’ reception of the medieval past and her emphatically modern aesthetic. Focusing on four pieces—Witch Music (1971), Ave Maria (1974), Revelations of the Seven Angels (1988), and Musica Angelorum (1991)—this essay shows how Wilkins’s medievalism manifests an ambivalent relationship with central compositional aesthetics of the twentieth century such as serialism and modernism.
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The papers included in this volume were presented, in much shorter form, at a conference entitled ‘Sources of Identity: Makers, Owners and Users of Music Sources Before 1600’ held at the University of Sheffield in 2013. The stated aim of... more
The papers included in this volume were presented, in much shorter form, at a conference entitled ‘Sources of Identity: Makers, Owners and Users of Music Sources Before 1600’ held at the University of Sheffield in 2013. The stated aim of the event was to leave aside the traditionally dominant view of early music sources as a means of access to medieval and Renaissance repertoires, focussing instead on the people who commissioned, made, owned and used music books, and on their reasons for so doing. In the terms proposed by a recent study of art patronage in the period, what was the ‘payoff’ enjoyed by individuals and groups who created and deployed such objects?
Research Interests: Music, Early Music, Italian Studies, Book History, History of the Book, and 15 moreIberian Studies, Cultural Musicology, Medieval England, Medieval France, Medieval Music, Codicology of medieval manuscripts, France, England, Holy Roman Empire, Identity, Italy, Germany, Books, Historical Musicology, and Late medieval and Renaissance music
rebellion against Henry IV. It seems plausible that the sequence Scrupulosa was written by one of Scrope’s staff, between the establishment of the feast in the York calendar on 12 September 1401 and the feast’s first occurrence the same... more
rebellion against Henry IV. It seems plausible that the sequence Scrupulosa was written by one of Scrope’s staff, between the establishment of the feast in the York calendar on 12 September 1401 and the feast’s first occurrence the same year. The composer used a pre-existent melody, but created for it a new poetic text. The lyrics focus on the martyrdom of the virgins, remarking upon the contrast between the constancy of these women and the fickleness with which women were usually associated at the time. Richard Scrope emphasised the need for clerical chastity throughout his career, and the opening of the poetic text, containing an unmistakable pun on Scrope’s name, invites an association to be made between the Archbishop and the purity of the virgin martyrs. The author of the Chronica Pontificum Ecclesiae Eboracensis named Scrope as the composer of Scrupulosa. This attribution, while almost certainly fanciful, reflected the Archbishop’s ongoing reputation as a scholar, liturgical i...
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This essay highlights the permeability of the walls that bounded devotional music, and will identify the complexity of interactions between space and song. Just as physical spaces were designed to house song but could not fully contain... more
This essay highlights the permeability of the walls that bounded devotional music, and will identify the complexity of interactions between space and song. Just as physical spaces were designed to house song but could not fully contain it, so were musical genres and structures capable of reflecting and testing those spatial boundaries. In this chapter, I consider music in relation not only to the sacred architectural spaces designed for formal performance of liturgical song, but also (and more provocatively) the spacial metaphors of the body – simultaneously devotional song’s most ubiquitous subject and the performance vehicle for those ideas – and the gendered nature of texted song itself.
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Although medieval English music has been relatively neglected in comparison with repertoire from France and Italy, there are few classical musicians today who have not listened to the thirteenth-century song ‘Sumer is icumen in’, or read... more
Although medieval English music has been relatively neglected in comparison with repertoire from France and Italy, there are few classical musicians today who have not listened to the thirteenth-century song ‘Sumer is icumen in’, or read of the achievements and fame of fifteenth-century composer John Dunstaple. Similarly, the identification of a distinctively English musical style (sometimes understood as the contenance angloise) has been made on numerous occasions by writers exploring the extent to which English ideas influenced polyphonic composition abroad. Angel song: Medieval English music in history examines the ways in which the standard narratives of English musical history have been crafted, from the Middle Ages to the present. Colton challenges the way in which the concept of a canon of English music has been built around a handful of pieces, composers, and practices, each of which offer opportunities for a reappraisal of English musical and devotional cultures between 1250 and 1460.
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The late medieval motet is a complex and intriguing genre, whose sacred roots are often revealed even when its subject purports to be amorous, and whose many types continue to invite speculation. In this paper, I will study just one theme... more
The late medieval motet is a complex and intriguing genre, whose sacred roots are often revealed even when its subject purports to be amorous, and whose many types continue to invite speculation. In this paper, I will study just one theme in the medieval French motet: the youth, age and sexual experience of women as revealed in the lyrics of pieces in the Montpellier Codex. The pieces selected for discussion revolve around the sexuality of women, and I will focus on the subgenre known as the chanson de nonne, songs which purport to express the experiences of women living as nuns in convents. This category has strong associations with the chanson de femme, songs written from a female subject position. Though these motets are anonymous, circumstantial evidence suggests that perhaps the majority were in fact the product of the male, clerical imagination. Rather than examining motets written in the ‘female voice’ to access the true opinions and experiences of women in the secular and monastic world, this paper argues that it is more appropriate to view them as a window into the way women and their bodies were considered by men in different contexts. The music, poetry and imagery in a select number of motets will be analysed, and will demonstrate the close relationship between the treatment of female characters in the chanson de nonne, religious didactic literature and romance literature of the thirteenth century. In this way, the cultural significance of motets will be explored, showing the ways in which women and their bodies were portrayed and manipulated through this most learned of polyphonic genres.
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The chanson de nonne presents stereotypical images of young women whose bodies and voices are trapped within the confines of a nunnery. Close examination of the architectural metaphors used to describe virginity and chastity in the Middle... more
The chanson de nonne presents stereotypical images of young women whose bodies and voices are trapped within the confines of a nunnery. Close examination of the architectural metaphors used to describe virginity and chastity in the Middle Ages allows comparisons to be made between the structures — metaphorical, musical and textual — that held fictitious nuns within the frame of the clerical imagination at the centre of thirteenth-century motet production.
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Zelo tui langueo / T. [Omnes de Saba] / Reor nescia has been discussed more widely than many other English motets on account of a number of puzzling elements of its content and provenance. Two manuscript copies of the motet survive; in... more
Zelo tui langueo / T. [Omnes de Saba] / Reor nescia has been discussed more widely than many other English motets on account of a number of puzzling elements of its content and provenance. Two manuscript copies of the motet survive; in addition, two images of clerics performing the motet are preserved in psalters of the early 14th century, roughly contemporary with the musical sources. The feminine poetic voice used in one of the motet’s texted lines has invited speculation that Zelo tui langueo may have been composed or performed by women. The provenance of one musical source (York Minster, Ms. xvi.n.3) offers corroboration, linking the music to a community of monks and nuns from a Gilbertine double house in Shouldham, Norfolk, but this origin was rejected after palaeographical studies undertaken in the last decades of the 20th century. This article examines the motet within a network of various documents, and relocates it musically, textually and socially within devotional life in East Anglia. In addition, it explores elements of the historiography of female music-making in late medieval England. Keywords: medieval music; English music; motet; women; historiography
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In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the term ‘new music’ has served as a catch-all for a proliferation of current musical practices. Yet the appellation ‘new’, which might seem unambiguous, has come to designate a wide range of... more
In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the term ‘new music’ has served as a catch-all for a proliferation of current musical practices. Yet the appellation ‘new’, which might seem unambiguous, has come to designate a wide range of compositional praxes. For some, to be ‘new’ has meant a conscious break with past traditions, through the value placed on novelty and innovation in musical language. For others, the appropriation of past traditions, whether ancient or from more recent music history, has been a starting point or catalyst for experimentation. Recycling and Innovation in Contemporary Music offers readers an opportunity to explore the relationships between old and new in music within a variety of stylistic contexts, from the classical avant-garde to turntablism. Composers’ use of pre-existent materials, borrowing, recycling and sampling are all considered in a set of articles confronting particular works or repertories, and integrating the critical reflections of several composers on their own creative work. Like the idea of newness, musical borrowing covers a disparate, and sometimes contradictory, range of approaches. Musical borrowing has been well documented since antiquity, but the many and subtle reasons why composers have selected particular aspects of music—whether through direct and recognisable borrowings, or compositional techniques such as hocket and cantus firmus—are easily overlooked. In this issue, the contributions of Cox, Holger Petersen and Roderick explore music of the twentieth century that has borrowed extensively from earlier music by way of quotation and appropriation. Cox finds that the aesthetic concerns of some postWorld War II composers were part of a complex redrawing of the cultural landscape after ‘Year Zero’, which, he argues, had its musical impact later than the immediate aftermath of the War in the works of Luciano Berio and George Rochberg. Borrowing not from a compositional ‘masterpiece’ but from that most ubiquitous of liturgical plainchants, the ‘Dies irae’, Luigi Dallapiccola’s Canti di Prigionia was described by its composer as an anti-Fascist political statement; Roderick’s article demonstrates that we must treat such belated claims with scepticism, and that the meaning of borrowing can be subject to change and reinterpretation even by the composer himself. Contemporary Music Review Vol. 29, No. 3, June 2010, pp. 229–230
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Judith Weir's music embraces the unusual, from libretti drawing on the medieval past to fantastic narratives set within diverse stylistic frames. Her musical language has been praised and criticised in almost equal measure for its... more
Judith Weir's music embraces the unusual, from libretti drawing on the medieval past to fantastic narratives set within diverse stylistic frames. Her musical language has been praised and criticised in almost equal measure for its versatility and humour. Weir's music seems tied to the musical past, but in ways so divergent between pieces that critics struggle to engage with it as fully as with the music of other British composers of recent decades. Focusing on several works, I explore the often fraught sense of historical subjectivity in Weir's music and its reception. I also examine the critical discourse relating to Weir's music, in particular works based on historical or non-Western stimuli, arguing that these texts (even the words of the composer herself) are tied closely to a historical line that continues to feel anxious about the creative powers of women composers.
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The Medieval Song Project is a result of the Institute for Music Research's encouragement of collaboration between music researchers working at different institutions, in this case three musicologists who, between them, have... more
The Medieval Song Project is a result of the Institute for Music Research's encouragement of collaboration between music researchers working at different institutions, in this case three musicologists who, between them, have expertise ranging across the period c.800c.1500: Sam Barrett ( ...
Research Interests: Music and Early Music
Mediaeval Carols, transcribed and ed. by John Stevens, 3rd rev. edn prepared by David Fallows, Musica Britannica 4. London: Stainer Bell and the Musica Britannica Trust, 2018. xxxiv + 180 pp. £98. ISBN 978 0 852 49958 0. - David Fallows, Henry V and the Earliest English Carols: 1413–1440. Abingdo...more
Research Interests: Music and Early Music
Context: The chapter is the first published overall examination of musical sources from late medieval York, and reflects the book's emphasis on using a variety of original documents... more
Context: The chapter is the first published overall examination of musical sources from late medieval York, and reflects the book's emphasis on using a variety of original documents (churchwardens' accounts, wills, music manuscripts) in order to explore liturgical practice ...
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Lisa Colton introduces us to the history of carol singing at Christmas.
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24 November 2017
BBC Radio 3
Release date:
24 November 2017
BBC Radio 3
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Colton, L. (2019) ‘Channelling the Ecstasy of Hildegard von Bingen: “O Euchari” Remixed’, in Monty Adkins and Simon Cummings ed., Music Beyond Airports: Appraising Ambient Music, 147–75. University of Huddersfield Press.