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

MEDIEVAL & RENAISSANCE MUSIC CONFERENCE 2007 – WIEN, 7.-11. AUGUST ABSTRACTS
with recomposition that in all likelihood stems from Zarlino himself. The rewriting of the
non-canonic voices of the motet is not merely that of minor adjustments, and appears
predicated on changed priorities of text setting, declamation, and articulation. While the
brief chapter of the final section of the Le istitutioni harmoniche entitled “How to Assign
Note Values to Words” is sometimes adduced in support of principles of text setting, the
two versions of the Pater noster – Ave Maria offer an object lesson in how such principles
might be realized.
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JÜRGENSEN, Frauke (Department of Music, University of California)
Performers’ accidentals in the Buxheim Organ Book and its concordances: a computer-aided
study
Mittwoch/Wednesday, 8.8., 14.30 Uhr, KuGe, SR 1
Modern performers of fifteenth-century music must make decisions about where to add
accidentals. Scholars have pursued two traditional strategies for answering these questions:
the study of theoretical treatises, and the analysis of small groups of pieces. Each of
these strategies is limited, in that the conclusions that can be drawn are not broadly applicable.
I have addressed these problems by using a new methodology on a larger sample
group than ever before: the Buxheim Organ Book (about 250 pieces), and all its concordances
(over 200). Buxheim’s tablature notation is more pitch-specific than mensural notation,
making it especially valuable for telling us about actual musical practice. My findings
show a considerable degree of consistency in the placement of accidentals.
The entire Buxheim repertory with concordances was electronically encoded in a
format compatible with David Huron’s Humdrum Toolkit for computer-aided musical
analysis. I developed new tools to identify situations in the music that might carry accidentals.
Each of these situations can then be cross-referenced against many other features
of the music. For example, all leaping-contratenor cadences can be extracted, and sorted by
arrival pitch, signature accidentals, and finals. These tools reveal patterns that shed light
on the intabulators’ priorities in choosing accidentals.
Analysis of the data provides us with several noteworthy conclusions. There is
strong statistical support for the use of double leading tones. The incidence of raised leading
tones correlates with the apparent strength of a cadential progression, as well as the
cadential pitch in relation to final of the composition. Other findings concern the use of
flats at the peaks of melodic arches; also, there are clear differences between the treatment
of ascending and descending lines.
These conclusions are specific to the Buxheim intabulators, but the methodology
explored here will prove helpful for understanding performers’ accidentals in both mensural
and tablature sources of late medieval and early modern music.
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