Full Description
The articles collected and updated in this volume constitute the results of the author's research in the area of medieval polyphony. The most significant advance in music during the period of the High Gothic was the development of a system of rhythm and of its notation, the understanding of which was, according to the author, obscured during the 20th century because of an undue emphasis on the so-called rhythmic Latin poetry from the time of St Augustine to the High Middle Ages. The essays survey the accomplishments of Europe's first great composers, the flourishing of the medieval polyphony and the remains of the motets by Philippe de Vitry, a major figure in the Parisian intelligentsia of the 14th century.
Contents
Tonal aspects of 13th-century English polyphony; cantilena and discant in 14th-century English polyphony; the question of Perotin's "Oeuvre" and dates; the medieval motet; the medieval hocket in practice and theory; the early motets of Philippe de Vitry; English polyphony in the Morgan Library Manuscript; consonance and rhythm in the organum of the 12th and 13th centuries; "sine littera" and "cum littera" in medieval polyphony; style and technique in datable polyphonic Notre-Dame conductus; conductus and modal rhythm; the earliest phases of measured polyphony; rithmus; additions and corrections.
