The Emergence of ars nova

Abstract

that title: the texts that used to be thought of as preserving an Ars nova declaration by Philippe de Vitry must now be seen as transmitting no more than distorted images of his teaching.1 Edward Roesner has argued that Vitry's association with Le Roman de Fauvel-previously thought to contain his early works-cannot be proved: however much we know about his political career, the most that we can say with any certainty about Vitry the composer is that he wrote five, or perhaps seven motets,2 one of which has lost its music. This leaves the emergence of ars nova in semi-darkness. We can see a new manner of in pieces from around 1320,3 and we can see motets that seem to be approaching it in Fauvel, but exactly how was it developed and by whom? Since the Ars nova texts now offer us so little, and the biography of Philippe de Vitry nothing, the only sensible way to attempt to answer this question is to go back to Le Roman de Fauvel to see what we can learn from its music.