Fifteenth-century Masses Research Articles

Contrapuntal Direction and the Diagnosis of Compositional Relationships in Fifteenth-Century Masses

Contrapuntal direction—the principle that certain progressions may only occur through the motion of the contrapuntal voice towards a stable tenor—is a previously unrecognized implication of the teaching of the theorist and composer Johannes Tinctoris. Although Tinctoris’s interval successions are commonly the same whichever voice is the tenor, Tinctoris omits a small number of oblique progressions where the tenor would move. Although I will not investigate possible reasons for this omission, examples will show that when the missing progressions occur in repertoire, these can be explained by a reappraisal of the contrapuntal functions of the voices. The results extend Julie Cumming’s concept of the “movable module” and demonstrate its presence in music of the 1460s and 1470s. This principle emerges directly from a computer-assisted attempt to connect Tinctoris’s counterpoint with late-fifteenth century composition. Through its ability to recognise tenor function within a voice pair, to identify instances where the tenor function may have moved, or to mark voices that do not form a contrapuntal pair, directional analysis is able both to identify faulty analytical assumptions around voice pairing and to act as a validator of general theories of fifteenth-century compositional structure.

Cantus and Cantus Firmi: Solving Puzzles in Three Fifteenth-Century Masses for the Annunciation

The Missae Ecce ancilla Domini by Du Fay, Regis, and Ockeghem together incorporate no fewer than eight different chants from the Annunciation liturgy into their complex polyphonic web, the antiphon Ecce ancilla Domini being common to all three. On what basis did these composers select these particular chants, and what can their choices tell us about the connections between these three mass settings, their origin in particular local liturgical traditions, and their intended function? Using these three masses as exemplars, this essay demonstrates how the Cantus database can assist scholars working on chant-based sacred polyphony in their quest to solve mysteries about not only the sources and functions of plainsong cantus firmi, but also about the polyphonic works themselves.

Composing in Theory: Busnoys, Tinctoris, and the L'homme armé Tradition

Antoine Busnoys's Missa L'homme armé commits one notational error after another—at least according to Johannes Tinctoris. As several scathing passages in his Proportionale musices attest, Tinctoris abhors Busnoys's mensural innovations. And yet Busnoys's notational choices, while certainly idiosyncratic, are also arguably justifiable: the composer was merely finding ways of recording novel musical ideas that had no agreed-upon notational solutions. In this article I argue that Tinctoris's response to Busnoys is not limited to the criticisms in his theoretical treatises. Tinctoris the composer responds far more comprehensively, and at times with far greater sympathy for Busnoys's practice, in his own Missa L'homme armé. He echoes Busnoys's mass notationally, in that he treats it as an example of what not to do; his response is also deeply musical, in that he tackles similar technical problems as a means of achieving analogous contrapuntal effects. Tinctoris's and Busnoys's settings need to be understood in the context of fifteenth-century masses, one in which composers were not necessarily content to work within the system but invented new ways of writing in order to create new sounds. In doing so, mere “composers” could sometimes achieve significance as “theorists.” Taken together, the L'homme armé masses of Busnoys and Tinctoris raise a range of historiographical issues that invite us to reassess the figure of the “theorist-composer.” This article thus not only contributes to the discourse on musical borrowing but also opens out to a broader framework, asking what it means for a late medieval musician to theorize—in music as well as in prose.

Perusing space-time in medieval sacred architecture Paths, bundles, and constraints in Endre church during a fifteenth-century mass

ABSTRACTThis article investigates the spatial practice of a medieval mass by time-geography analysis and space-syntax analysis. The aim is methodological to test whether these methods of human geography and architectural research may contribute to cultural historical research on religious buildings and reveal new aspects of the complex relations between people and buildings. The analysis is based on building investigations and a re-enactment of a medieval mass in Endre Church on the Swedish island of Gotland. The re-enactment was filmed in 1989 by Swedish Television following an original mass instruction from about 1436–1448. The methodological result indicates the advantage of combining time-geography analysis and space-syntax analysis to identify the relations between spatial practice and spatial formation. The combined use of methods, based on a full-scale re-enactment of a medieval mass, suggests that the spatial units of the church change with people’s different paths and agencies in the project. The interior church space is visually transparent, seemingly integrated and intelligible, but the mass initiates a production of social spaces that are layered with boundaries other than the church’s stone walls and screens.

A History of Western Choral Music by Chester L. Alwes

Reviewed by: A History of Western Choral Music by Chester L. Alwes Anne Shelley A History of Western Choral Music. By Chester L. Alwes. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015–2016. [Volume 1: xiv, 488 p. ISBN 9780195177428 (hardback), $150; ISBN 9780199361939 (paperback), $74.00; 9780190457723 (ebook), varies; Volume 2: xiv, 452 p. ISBN 9780199376995 (hardback), $150; ISBN 9780199377008 (paperback), $74.00; 9780190463656 (ebook), varies.] Music examples, tables, illustrations, bibliography, index. [End Page 73] In this two-volume set, author Chester L. Alwes discusses composers and elements critical to understanding Western choral music from the medieval period until the mid-2010s. Alwes feels it is essential to familiarize oneself with medieval-era liturgy and theory before examining fifteenth-century masses, so these works are presented mostly chronologically. Volume 1 begins with Guillaume de Machaut (approximately 1300–1377) and ends with Josef Rheinberger (1839–1901); volume 2 opens with the development of the oratorio and nineteenth-century genres such as the choral symphony, and concludes with John Adams. The publication is based on thirty years of Alwes's teaching of upper-level undergraduate and graduate student courses on the history of choral literature. In the preface to volume 1, Alwes outlines the three foci of the set: (1) text, due to the fact that most elements of choral music are naturally driven by words; (2) analysis, because knowing the composer's intent leads the conductor to a more informed performance; and (3) external influences—such as religion, culture, and politics—that shaped composers' motivations (ix–x). Few comprehensive surveys of the development of Western choral music are currently in print, so Alwes's contribution is particularly welcome. The most comparable recent publication is Dennis Shrock's Choral Repertoire, published in 2009, also by Oxford University Press. The two publications differ in several ways. Shrock's book first appeared as a single volume that was later supplemented by an anthology, Choral Scores (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). While there is no separate score anthology for the book by Alwes, his discussion of the music is detailed and theoretical enough that music examples are necessary, and the charts exploring texts and translations as well as movement titles and their elements (keys, meters, modes) are helpful. Shrock very cleanly assigned major musical eras to his chapters, and within each chapter he adhered to a hierarchical arrangement by country, composer, and selected works listed by genre (for composers with a notable output of choral music). He followed a predictable formula for each composer: a brief biography, summary of the composer's compositional output, and some detailed discussion of select works. While this is a sensible structure, Shrock's book functions more like a reference tool than Alwes's history, which is much more free-flowing in thought and concept, and more transparently acknowledges the ambiguity of transitions between time periods and classification of works into certain genres. Alwes's volumes could certainly be used as course texts. Section headings tend to reflect the composer, time period, or genre being discussed, rather than something more specific. Both volumes have an abbreviation key, and the thorough indexes represent composers, work titles, genres, techniques, and subject terms in useful detail. However, the volumes lack the pedagogical tools typically provided in a textbook; for example, there are no checklists at the end of each chapter or in the margins, or obvious questions that might encourage readers to reflect on what they just read. Volume 1 has fourteen chapters that flow mostly chronologically, each focusing on a genre, composer(s), or location within a particular time period. Alwes covers the Middle Ages in a single chapter; in chapter 1, he briefly explains the liturgical frameworks that became the basis for later polyphonic vocal music, then follows with the effect of modality on chant, and concludes with the emergence of polyphony. Sacred choral music of the Renaissance outside of England receives two chapters, which sandwich a single chapter that discusses madrigals, chansons, and other secular genres. Ending at the year 1525, chapter 2 explores developments in the mass and motet. Alwes unsurprisingly turns to the innovations of Franco-Flemish giants—Guillaume Dufay, Johannes Ockeghem, and Josquin des Prez—to demonstrate the...

Squaring the Triangle: Interrelations and Their Meanings in Some Early Fifteenth-Century Mass Pairs

Research Article| October 01 1998 Squaring the Triangle: Interrelations and Their Meanings in Some Early Fifteenth-Century Mass Pairs Robert E. Palmer Robert E. Palmer Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Journal of Musicology (1998) 16 (4): 494–518. https://doi.org/10.2307/763980 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Robert E. Palmer; Squaring the Triangle: Interrelations and Their Meanings in Some Early Fifteenth-Century Mass Pairs. Journal of Musicology 1 October 1998; 16 (4): 494–518. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/763980 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter All ContentJournal of Musicology Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1998 Regents of the University of California Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Squaring the Triangle: Interrelations and Their Meanings in Some Early Fifteenth-Century Mass Pairs

Research Article| October 01 1998 Squaring the Triangle: Interrelations and Their Meanings in Some Early Fifteenth-Century Mass Pairs Robert E. Palmer Robert E. Palmer Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Journal of Musicology (1998) 16 (4): 494–518. https://doi.org/10.2307/763980 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Robert E. Palmer; Squaring the Triangle: Interrelations and Their Meanings in Some Early Fifteenth-Century Mass Pairs. Journal of Musicology 1 October 1998; 16 (4): 494–518. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/763980 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentJournal of Musicology Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1998 Regents of the University of California Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

The Counterpoint of Allusion in Fifteenth-Century Masses

This study examines the likelihood that the contrapuntal voices of fifteenth-century Masses quoted or alluded to chansons unrelated to the chanson cited in the tenor. Often these melodic quotations or allusions in turn alluded to the unsung chanson text, in order to offer modern interpretive commentary on the sung Mass text or an elaboration of the textual idea expressed in the tenor. Examples come from works of Dufay, Ockeghem, Busnois, Caron, and others. The relationship of this technique to the rhetorical practices of the time is examined. A comparison to earlier musical and rhetorical techniques suggests that northern composers were aware of the rhetorical theories and practices of Italian humanists.

The Counterpoint of Allusion in Fifteenth-Century Masses

The Counterpoint of Allusion in Fifteenth-Century Masses Author(s): Christopher A. Reynolds Source: Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 45, No. 2 (Summer, 1992), pp. 228- Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the American Musicological Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/831448 Accessed: 14-01-2016 08:28 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. American Musicological Society and University of California Press are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of the American Musicological Society. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 128.120.194.194 on Thu, 14 Jan 2016 08:28:02 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Studies in the Performance of Late Mediaeval Music

1. Fifteenth-century northern book painting and the a cappella question: an essay in iconographic method James W. McKinnon 2. The visualisation of music through pictorial imagery and notation in late mediaeval France Tilman Seebass 3. The trecento harp Howard Mayer Brown 4. The 'reconstruction' of instrumental music: the interpretation of the earliest practical sources Wulf Arlt 5. Mimesis and woodwind articulation in the fourteenth century Margaret Paine Hasselman and David McGown 6. Specific information on the ensembles for composed polyphony, 1400-1474 David Fallows 7. The performing ensemble for English church polyphony, c. 1320-c. 1390 Roger Bowers 8. Some evidence for French influence in northern Italy, c. 1400 Anne Hallmark 9. Parts with words and without words: the evidence for multiple texts in fifteenth-century Masses Alejandro Enrique Planchart 10. Fourteenth-century music with texts revealing performance practice Ursula Gunther.