Music

... Sargent pursued an early modern conception of the two L'homme armé Masses by Cristóbal de Morales, in which he simultaneously ... Michelle Urberg examined the source of patronage for Josquin's motet cycle O Domine Jesu Christe, which appears in Petrucci's Motetti B (1503 ...

In the first half of the thirteenth century, Jean Renart initiated a new type of romance literature by “embroidering” his text with musical/lyric performances by his characters.  Existing lyrics, many with associated melodies, are re-presented within a narrative context, suggesting new interpretations of the original song while bringing some of its associations to the new context.  In modern critical responses to this technique, the chansons courtoises, and their predominantly male performers, have generally been privileged.  But songs with a female narrative voice, or “women’s songs” appear often in romances, where they are sung by both male and female characters.
The romance of Guillaume de Dole and the Roman de la Violette are among the most famous and prolific users of lyric interpolation.  The genres of chanson courtoise and chanson de femme both appear extensively in these romances, but an investigation of their use reveals that they function rather differently.  Courtly love songs are often used to express a character’s point of view, conveying the singer’s emotions through analogy with the lyric subject, and are frequently associated with male voices.  However, “minor” female-voice genres, typically with strong generic conventions, rarely affect a depiction of a character’s emotional state.  Instead, the generic associations and conventional language of the various female-voice genres allows these lyrics to reflect competitive play, authorial foreshadowing, and the interplay between narrative and lyric worlds.

"Many Arthurian romances are known by titles that derive from the name of the male hero. Chrétien de Troyes’s romance Erec et Enide, however, gives equal billing to both the knight and his lady. Discussion of the relationship between the two title characters has often centered on the tension created in the story by Erec’s insistence on his wife’s silence. Some see the narrative as one of the “education of Enide,” the silencing of the female character as she learns to submit to the authority of her husband. Others attribute to Enide traditionally masculine characteristics of the clerk or hero. This paper reads the romance in the context of contemporary misogynistic stereotypes of female vocality and demonstrates the possibility of a reading that resists these stereotypes.
Throughout the story, Enide’s voice creates a sort of catalog of female sins of the tongue, reinforcing the stereotype of women as talkative, even deceitful or gossiping, and contributing to the sense that gender difference is implicated in vocal behavior. But analysis of Chrétien’s story shows that, rather than demonstrating excess or disruption, Enide’s abundant speech works in fact to protect and better herself and her husband. Erec’s attempt to manage their difference by controlling Enide’s voice ultimately does not succeed and, in the end, Enide’s speech, not her silence, defines her participation in the story, and functions as both catalyst and resolution for the primary set of adventures. The story of the couple’s journey can thus be read as a powerful and subversive response to medieval ideas about women and their voices, contributing to a wider understanding of contemporary tropes of female vocal behavior. According to this reading, women should, as Chrétien’s prologue exhorts his audience, not keep silent but “strive in every way to speak well.”"

Much of this material can be found in my dissertation, linked below. See especially Chapter 2, pages 81-94.

Studies of medieval lyric are often concerned with the identity and characteristics of the lyric subject. The Old French motet, despite sharing many of the generic and textual tropes of contemporary monophonic song, has rarely inspired a similar approach. This is in large part because the polytextuality of the motet complicates any such discussion. Alongside melodic polyphony, many motets demonstrate a different sort of polyphony, the textual phenomenon outlined by Mikhail Bahktin in his study of the novel; this use of “polyphony” indicates the coexistence within one work of multiple, equal voices or perspectives. Parallels between the musical and textual polyphony of the Old French motet have the potential to give new insight into musical style in this critical genre.

In a 1989 article, Sylvia Huot made a case for the motet as an early example of literary polyphony. The motet, Huot argues, simultaneously gives voice to multiple perspectives, often in combinations that suggest a conversation. While Huot does not explicitly say what marks these voices as belonging to a particular persona, perspectives are often distinguished by generically marked language and subject matter, which identifies the character as male or female, noble or peasant, joyous or unhappy. The idea of literary polyphony in the motet thus has implications for discussions of lyric subject in the motet. Whether a given work isolates a single voice, combines two versions of the same genre, or contrasts multiple voices, it has the ability to isolate characteristics of different “dialects.” Furthermore, while Huot’s argument is a textual one, the phenomenon of multi-vocality is not limited to text. In a reversal of Bahktin’s borrowing of the metaphor of musical polyphony, I would like to reappropriate Bakhtin’s literary sense of “polyphony” to discuss the combined text and music of the motet. Along with the multiple texts, motets include multiple musical “voices,” each with their own internal structure, motives and style. The term heteroglossia, another Bakthinian coinage similar to polyphony, avoids confusion with the common musical meaning of polyphony. Motets, however, can also be in this sense “monophonic,” or “homoglossic,” either by combining multiple versions of what is textually and stylistically the same voice, or including a single upper voice paired with a more abstract tenor voice.

The comparison of heteroglossic and homoglossic motets has the potential to expand our discussion of the relationship between music and lyric subject in the Old French motet. Such comparison can help to identify musical characteristics associated with particular lyric subjects and genres: when the parallel or divergent identity of lyric subjects seems to be mirrored by parallel or divergent musical content, it may be that the music is related to the lyric subject. While heteroglossic motets can draw attention to particular features through contrast, homoglossic motets have the potential to amplify the voice of a single persona by doubling it. This paper offers a new vocabulary for discussing motets and their lyric personae, with the potential to provoke new conversations about genre and musical semiotics in the Middle Ages.

Studies of medieval lyric are often concerned with the identity and characteristics of the lyric subject. The Old French motet, despite sharing many of the tropes of contemporary monophonic song, has rarely inspired a similar approach. However, the polytextuality that often hampers discussion of lyric identity may also offer an opportunity for better understanding of the relationship between musical style and lyric subject. Literary scholars, including Sylvia Huot and Kevin Brownlee, have described the effect of multiple lyric voices in the motet as textual “polyphony,” drawing on the work of Mikhail Bahktin; his use of “polyphony” indicates the coexistence within one work of multiple, equal voices or perspectives. In this paper I will suggest that another Bakhtinian coinage, “heteroglossia,” and its corollary “homoglossia,” are better suited to the motet. Further, I will show that this terminological appropriation provides a conceptual framework for understanding motets for which models of allegory and dialogue have not been fruitful.
      A revealing case is the motet Ce que je tieng/Certes mout est bone vie/Bone compaignie/MANERE_. This combination of drinking song, courtly love lyric and anticlerical polemic has not yet yielded a satisfactory reading. My approach takes this motet as a representation of three categorically disparate lyric subjects, as a heteroglossic representation of varied subject positions, pointing to an important literary context: medieval estates satire. The three upper voices of this motet use techniques associated with this literary genre to portray the characteristic voice of each of the three major estates: cleric, knight and commoner. While the texts suggest three monologues rather than a dialogue, the musical setting produces a satiric commentary on the relationship between the stereotyped figures portrayed. Rather than mimicking the disparity between the texts, the musical lines uncover unexpected similarities between the voices, drawing attention to moments in the text that suggest that clerics, knights and common people have more in common than they ought. Revealing the connection between this motet and estates satire not only helps to elucidate this motet’s textual and musical content, but suggests the role motets can play in studies of intellectual and literary trends in medieval France.

This thesis or dissertation is not available through the W&M Digital Archive at this time. The item is available in Swem Library and electronic access is possible for some items through the database ProQuest Dissertations and Theses--Full Text. Consult the Swem Library ...

Over the past 20 years, scholarship by Sylvia Huot, David Rothenberg and Jennifer Saltzstein, among others, has revealed the importance of clerical modes of reading to the understanding of motets, but one common aspect of clerical discourse is surprisingly rare in the motet repertory. While many motet texts reveal a reductionist or abusive view of a particular lady, very few include the explicit and generalized denunciation of women common in the clerical misogynistic tradition. The motet voice Qui voudroit femme esprouver (M639), which is found in motets on the tenor TAMQUAM in the Montpellier and Bamberg manuscripts, is an exception, a text that aggressively condemns disloyal women while other voices sing of courtly love, springtime, and the Blessed Virgin. Contemporary misogynistic writing and its reliance on authority offer a framework for understanding these voices; the traditions of courtly love and of clerical misogyny share important source material in Ovid’s Ars amatoria and its medieval French redactions. The musical and textual structure of the Montpellier motet Qui voudroit/Deboinerement/Quant naist/TANQUAM reflects what A. J. Minnis calls the “resistance to closure” typical of medieval Ovidianism, combining exhortation to love with denigration of the love object in a genre uniquely suited to such multiplicity.

A new understanding of these motets may also have implications for our understanding of the organizational principles behind the Montpellier Codex. Qui voudroit/Deboinerement/Quant naist/TANQUAM appears in the second fascicle of Mo, amid four other motets that share refrains with French adaptations of Ovid’s works. This paper will demonstrate the place of this grouping of motets in the medieval Ovidian tradition, and suggest the possibility of thematic groupings in the Montpellier fascicle. As recordings of this motet are not available, this presentation could also benefit from the presence of performers experienced with ars antiqua repertory.

OBLIGATO / OBLIGÉ: A MUSICAL ETYMOLOGY Suzanne Anita Bratt Emily I. Dolan Ask for a definition of the musical term “obligato”; receive a different answer from everyone asked. What truth this axiom possesses lies in the multiple meanings acquired by the word during the past four hundred years. The varied definitions that presently circulate – an obligatory musical line, a virtuosic one, a filigree or descant, the use of a specific instrument, the use of organ pedal, the interaction of solo instrument and voice – all convey this complex legacy. Through analyses of music in manuscript, printed scores, and publishing materials, this dissertation concludes that certain meanings of “obligato” are active at different points in the history of Western musicking. Meanings activated by different instruments and in different genres can indicate the places of those instruments within an expected hierarchy, and can create those genres. This dissertation begins by considering certain in consistenc...

In the history of music theory, the polymath Leonhard Euler is most often remembered for his theory of consonance.  Published in 1739 as the Tentamen novae theoriae musicae (or Attempt at a New Theory of Music), the theory did not meet with much success.  It has fared only a little better in the present day, perhaps because the oft-repeated appraisal that the work “contained too much mathematics for musicians and too much music for mathematicians” is still thought to hold true (Fuß 1786, 30).  Unlike other eighteenth-century theories, however, Euler’s has become more broadly applicable with the diversification of musical repertoire rather than less, and a modest amount of scholarship currently exists building on or explaining his consonance theory.
Whether they are celebrated or dismissed, Euler’s music theories are not often presented in full.  His theory of consonance was one piece of an intricate system that was meant to assess the “degree of agreeability” not only of sonorities, but also of successions of sonorities, phrases, and even entire musical works.  Euler outlined his procedures in detail in the Tentamen novae theoriae musicae, but contemporary studies shy away from his sweeping analytical generalizations.  In addition to all of this, it appears that Euler’s already ambitious treatise did not elaborate the full extent of his theoretical vision.  At several points in his text, Euler suggests that everything he has written about consonance should also apply to duration.  In fact, his mathematical consonance theory uses numbers in a way that almost makes more sense for rhythm than it does for pitch.  Perhaps even more curiously, the application of Euler’s consonance principles to the temporal elements of music renders a theory that has interesting and provocative connections to several contemporary theories of rhythm and meter.
This paper is an attempt to sketch Euler’s unfinished theory of rhythm, and to demonstrate the links between this hypothetical theory and those with which we are familiar today.  The analytical applications of Euler’s unfinished theory are surprising and extend beyond the music of the eighteenth century.  Euler had a vision for a unified theory of music that was only partially realized in his extant writings.  Rhythm was only one aspect he explicitly aspired to theorize.  Elaborating his proposed treatment of rhythm sheds light not only on Euler’s project, but also—and perhaps more provocatively—on twenty-first century music theory.

Descriptions and explanations of the harmonic series changed dramatically over the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These changes in music theoretical knowledge were intimately tied to conceptual developments in the mathematics of the era. During this period, the concepts of number and pitch slowly transformed from discrete quantities to continuous quantities. These new understandings of quantity were as much involved in theories of consonance and descriptions of the harmonic series as they were entangled in the debating of metaphysical systems. Through a detailed study of these intertwined concepts, this article assesses a reorientation of music theory’s metaphysics from Zarlino to Euler.

Whether or not we are aware of it, music theory pedagogy is ahead of the game.  While many in the humanities are searching for alternatives to the careful historicism and contextual scholarship of the past few decades, our discipline—and particularly our pedagogical practice—finds itself in the unexpected position of having anticipated the newest trend.  In recent years, many scholars in the fields of literature and the arts have urged a reinvestment in the study of form and in formalist analysis.  Scholars of English literature, specifically, have called the movement a “New Formalism.”  The work collected under this rubric employs a diverse array of methods in order to redress a perceived neglect of the forms, styles, techniques, and material dimensions of the cultural products under consideration.  Form, in this context, should be understood in the broadest possible sense as a means of organization, and formalisms as the tools employed in order to understand it.  Music theory, of course, has never truly turned away from form or formalisms, and this is nowhere more apparent than in the standard practices of our pedagogy.  Although some of our methods have changed, we remain committed to the technical vocabulary and formal abstraction necessary to understand musical systems.  In a way we have been working to accomplish the goals of New Formalism for many years.  Nevertheless, instead of congratulating ourselves for holding fast to tradition through the tempest of contextualism (in our field, the “new musicology”), we ought to use this moment to reflect on our classroom formalisms and ask questions about our commitments to the understanding of form.