(Stand: 25. Juli 2007) ANDERSON, Michael Alan ... - Universität Wien

MEDIEVAL & RENAISSANCE MUSIC CONFERENCE 2007 – WIEN, 7.-11. AUGUST ABSTRACTS
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HICKS, Andrew (University of Toronto, Centre for Medieval Studies)
New Texts and Contexts for Twelfth-Century Music Theory
Mittwoch/Wednesday, 8.8., 14.30 Uhr, KuGe, SR 3
“Where are the writers on music west of the Rhine?” This is the question Lawrence
Gushee posed upwards of thirty years ago as he surveyed eleventh- and twelfth-century
music-theoretical writings. As far as the “technical” tradition is concerned, the story is a
familiar one, indeed. Following an eleventh-century flurry of activity in South-German
monasteries, music-theoretical discourse seems to exhibit a decisive change in register.
The broad mathematical and cosmological concerns that had bound music to the
quadrivium seem to be supplanted by a much narrower and more practical focus on the
rapidly developing polyphonic practices. Comprehensive and substantive musical treatises
either were not written or have not survived. But this apparent dearth of twelfthcentury
“writers on music” does not, in fact, reflect the evidence of surviving texts; rather, it is a
product of modern disciplinary divisions and musicological expectations. Musical discourse
belongs as much, if not more, to the rich cosmological and philosophical traditions
of the twelfth century. The language of music theory not only allowed twelfthcentury
cosmologists (like Bernard of Chartres, William of Conches and Bernard Silvestris) to
conceptualize the fabric of the universe; it also provided a hermeneutic tool for interpreting
the Antique and late-Antique texts that offered detailed theories of the world’s construction.
Philosophical and cosmological commentaries comprise a distinct and influential
music-theoretical tradition – one that speaks not only to the scope of twelfth-century
musical learning, but also to the application of that learning in the quest for philosophy
and, ultimately, theology. This study will outline this theoretical tradition and re-assess
the aim and scope of twelfth-century music theory by introducing unedited texts into the
discussion – including a Florentine commentary on Martianus’s De nuptiis (Florence, Bibl.
Naz., Conv. soppr. J.1.29, ff. 50 r –64 v ) and a partial commentary on Plato’s Timaeus (Paris,
BN, lat. 8624, ff. 17 r –22 v ).
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HIGGINS, Paula (University of Nottingham)
Of Mice and Manhood: Discourses of Aesthetic Excess in the Reception of Josquin’s
Planxit autem David
Samstag/Saturday, 11.8., 11.15 Uhr, MuWi, HS 1
Heinrich Glarean introduced his discussion of the opening of Josquin’s motet Planxit autem
David with the famous line from Horace’s Ars poetica ‘The mountains are in labor, but
a ridiculous mouse will be born’. This citation, together with Glarean’s ensuing disclaimer
that ‘nothing in this piece is unworthy of the composer’, has long been adduced as evidence
of the Swiss humanist’s doubts as to Josquin’s authorship. While Glarean’s somewhat
defensive framing of the discussion seems to anticipate criticism, its presumed correlation
with the motet’s inauthenticity remains open to interpretation.
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