The title of the book under review encapsulates exceptionally well just what the reader will find... more The title of the book under review encapsulates exceptionally well just what the reader will find in its pages: a balanced engagement with words and music, at times treated in isolation, but more commonly as conjoined wholes. The survey favours a broad range of literary, theological and aesthetic considerations over a narrowly historical treatment. The subtitle indicates the ambitious aims of the book: to lay bare the creative processes that produced the monophonic repertoires of the Middle Ages. The emphasis is on sacred music, in particular additions made to the canonical repertoire of Gregorian (or ‘Romano-Frankish’) chants in the form of prosae, prosulae and tropes. Secular music receives less attention, its presence in La parole chantée justified by verbal links with the sacred repertoire. Both authors are well known for their books and essays that have explored the balance between words and music, and previously published material is here placed in a coherent context. A very positive advantage of the book is the wealth of illustrative material placed at the reader’s disposal. Not only is there a generous anthology (‘Florilège’) of more than a hundred pages (forty-two pieces), but most of the pieces are replicated in the main text where they are discussed, thus sparing the reader the distraction of having to flip back and forth. Complete French translations are given in both places. A dozen pieces from the Florilège, recorded by the Ensemble Gilles Binchois under the direction of Dominique Vellard, are included on a CD that accompanies the book. The musical transcriptions use the Volpiano font, but the singers generally impose a rhythmic treatment on the melodies. Descending threeor four-note groups are sung rapidly, as is the torculus, at times resembling a Pralltriller; syllabic texts are sung with more or less equal note values. The gradual Exaltabo te in the Florilège reproduces pages from the Graduale Triplex, but the version of the chant sung on the CD (with repeat of the full respond) is different. The ‘paroles’ most frequently sung during the Middle Ages were, of course, the psalms. Chapter 1 aims to provide a résumé of selected topics relating to the complex history of psalmody – not an easy task in the space of forty-five pages. In apostolic times the psalms were not ‘paroles chantées’ but prophecies fulfilled with the coming of Christ and in the life of the nascent Church. For example, the Christian community
L'epistolaire de Ste.-Cecile-au-Trastevere est un temoin fragmentaire de la liturgie medieval... more L'epistolaire de Ste.-Cecile-au-Trastevere est un temoin fragmentaire de la liturgie medievale de Rome comme elle se celebrait dans l'eglise ou le manuscrit etait copie. Ecrit vers la fin du onzieme siecle, il consiste a present de 40 feuilles. Le manuscrit contient les pericopes des Epitres et lectures veterotestamentaires pour environ la moitie du careme, les dernieres quatre jours de la Semaine Sainte, une partie de la semaine de Pâques, tous les dimanches apres Pâques, les dimanches 4-14 apres la Pentecote (avec indications des propres evangiles), et une partie des Quatre-Temps de septembre. Le trait le plus significatif du manuscrit a present est la serie de douze lectures pour la veillee pascale avec des lectures longues de Jonas (1-3) et Daniel (3,1-52 avec extraits des versets 53-100). La notation musicale se trouve sporadiquement dans les sections narratives, mais les elements lyriques (la priere de Jonas et le cantique des trois jeunes hommes) sont entierement note...
The Scientia artis musice, a music theory treatise completed in the year 1274 by Hélie Salomon, a... more The Scientia artis musice, a music theory treatise completed in the year 1274 by Hélie Salomon, a cleric from the village of St-Astier (Périgord/Dordogne), covers all the usual topics treated in such sources: letter names, hexachord syllables, the claves (letter + syllable(s)), the musical hand, mutation, staff notation, clef placement and chant genres. It includes an incomplete tonary with representative chant genres together with a commentary on the seculorum (differentiae) appropriate to various chant incipits. A lengthy instruction on the performance of parallel four-voice organum is also included. The Scientia is the only medieval theory treatise whose eight illustrations (called ‘figurae’) include human figures. These images relate directly to matters covered in the treatise and serve to make its main points more easily committed to memory. Of especial interest is the image of an enthroned bishop that serves as the focal point for a novel exposition of the tonal system of chan...
The title of the book under review encapsulates exceptionally well just what the reader will find... more The title of the book under review encapsulates exceptionally well just what the reader will find in its pages: a balanced engagement with words and music, at times treated in isolation, but more commonly as conjoined wholes. The survey favours a broad range of literary, theological and aesthetic considerations over a narrowly historical treatment. The subtitle indicates the ambitious aims of the book: to lay bare the creative processes that produced the monophonic repertoires of the Middle Ages. The emphasis is on sacred music, in particular additions made to the canonical repertoire of Gregorian (or ‘Romano-Frankish’) chants in the form of prosae, prosulae and tropes. Secular music receives less attention, its presence in La parole chantée justified by verbal links with the sacred repertoire. Both authors are well known for their books and essays that have explored the balance between words and music, and previously published material is here placed in a coherent context. A very positive advantage of the book is the wealth of illustrative material placed at the reader’s disposal. Not only is there a generous anthology (‘Florilège’) of more than a hundred pages (forty-two pieces), but most of the pieces are replicated in the main text where they are discussed, thus sparing the reader the distraction of having to flip back and forth. Complete French translations are given in both places. A dozen pieces from the Florilège, recorded by the Ensemble Gilles Binchois under the direction of Dominique Vellard, are included on a CD that accompanies the book. The musical transcriptions use the Volpiano font, but the singers generally impose a rhythmic treatment on the melodies. Descending threeor four-note groups are sung rapidly, as is the torculus, at times resembling a Pralltriller; syllabic texts are sung with more or less equal note values. The gradual Exaltabo te in the Florilège reproduces pages from the Graduale Triplex, but the version of the chant sung on the CD (with repeat of the full respond) is different. The ‘paroles’ most frequently sung during the Middle Ages were, of course, the psalms. Chapter 1 aims to provide a résumé of selected topics relating to the complex history of psalmody – not an easy task in the space of forty-five pages. In apostolic times the psalms were not ‘paroles chantées’ but prophecies fulfilled with the coming of Christ and in the life of the nascent Church. For example, the Christian community
L'epistolaire de Ste.-Cecile-au-Trastevere est un temoin fragmentaire de la liturgie medieval... more L'epistolaire de Ste.-Cecile-au-Trastevere est un temoin fragmentaire de la liturgie medievale de Rome comme elle se celebrait dans l'eglise ou le manuscrit etait copie. Ecrit vers la fin du onzieme siecle, il consiste a present de 40 feuilles. Le manuscrit contient les pericopes des Epitres et lectures veterotestamentaires pour environ la moitie du careme, les dernieres quatre jours de la Semaine Sainte, une partie de la semaine de Pâques, tous les dimanches apres Pâques, les dimanches 4-14 apres la Pentecote (avec indications des propres evangiles), et une partie des Quatre-Temps de septembre. Le trait le plus significatif du manuscrit a present est la serie de douze lectures pour la veillee pascale avec des lectures longues de Jonas (1-3) et Daniel (3,1-52 avec extraits des versets 53-100). La notation musicale se trouve sporadiquement dans les sections narratives, mais les elements lyriques (la priere de Jonas et le cantique des trois jeunes hommes) sont entierement note...
The Scientia artis musice, a music theory treatise completed in the year 1274 by Hélie Salomon, a... more The Scientia artis musice, a music theory treatise completed in the year 1274 by Hélie Salomon, a cleric from the village of St-Astier (Périgord/Dordogne), covers all the usual topics treated in such sources: letter names, hexachord syllables, the claves (letter + syllable(s)), the musical hand, mutation, staff notation, clef placement and chant genres. It includes an incomplete tonary with representative chant genres together with a commentary on the seculorum (differentiae) appropriate to various chant incipits. A lengthy instruction on the performance of parallel four-voice organum is also included. The Scientia is the only medieval theory treatise whose eight illustrations (called ‘figurae’) include human figures. These images relate directly to matters covered in the treatise and serve to make its main points more easily committed to memory. Of especial interest is the image of an enthroned bishop that serves as the focal point for a novel exposition of the tonal system of chan...
In medieval music writings there are many terms referring to ‚gentes‘ or ‚nationes‘ like Itali, S... more In medieval music writings there are many terms referring to ‚gentes‘ or ‚nationes‘ like Itali, Suevi or Angli etc. Those texts often describe, critisize or estimate the music of specific cultural contexts. They are revealing with respect to the pre-history of musical nationalism and they provide valuable information about the geographic and political shaping of medieval music. However, the respective meaning of the single nationes- or gentes terms has, due to the necessarily interdisciplinary character of the research, never systematically been investigated. The present book, that summarizes the results of a project that was funded by the DFG, aims at reconstructing the meaning of all relevant passages that can be found in medieval music writings between 800 und 1400.
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