The Flower of Paradise: Marian Devotion and Secular Song in Medieval and Renaissance Music by David J. Rothenberg (review)

Abstract

The Flower of Paradise: Marian Devotion and Secular Song in Medieval and Renaissance Music. By David J. Rothenberg. (New York: Oxford University Press. 2011. Pp. xviii, 264. $35.00. ISBN 978-0-19-539971-4.)David J. Rothenberg, associate professor of music at Case Western Reserve University, based his book substantially on his 2004 Yale dissertation and sub- sequent articles published in the Journal of Musicology (2004) and the Journal of the American Musicological Society (2006). His thesis, that courtly love song traditions and Marian devotions became symbolically linked in polyphonic motets from the thirteenth century up to the Reformation, is persuasively defended through analyses of select examples. Although Rothenberg's thesis leans heavily on the research of eminent music and litur- gical scholars, his primary contribution is his thoughtful synthesis of existing scholarship presented in a cogent and cohesive narrative.The book is divided into seven chapters. The first is an informative overview of medieval secular song traditions, the early motet, and the devel- oping Marian liturgy and devotions. Chapter 2 focuses on thirteenth-century French motets, specifically those set to tenors (chant fragments) borrowed from the Marian Feast of the Assumption as practiced at Notre Dame of Paris. the French texts sung simultaneously above the motet's liturgical Latin tenor, Rothenberg discerns what he calls secular/sacred signification (p. 48) that transforms their earthly and often earthy love texts into Marian allegory. Chapter 3 remains in the thirteenth century, sampling a few of many French motets set to the tenor In seculum from the Easter gradual Haec dies. Here, Rothenberg extends the connection between the French spring- time motives and the Resurrection liturgy to include the pastourelle charac- ters Robin and Marion, found in such motets, as representations of Christ and the Virgin Mary.The fourteenth century receives little attention except to acknowledge that the imagery of Guillaume de Machaut's famous rondeau Rose, liz, print- emps, verdure exhibits strong Marian overtones.This creates a bridge to the fifteenth century as chapter 4 examines Guillaume Dufay's setting of Petrarch's canzona Vergene bella, pursuing a circuitous discussion that includes John Dunstable's cantilena-motet Quam pulchra es; Dante Alighieri's Commedia, Vita nuova, and De vulgari eloquentia as well as Giovanni di Paolo's manuscript illumination in the Paradiso, which Rothenberg interprets as a reference to the Marian chant Ave maris Stella. …