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

MEDIEVAL & RENAISSANCE MUSIC CONFERENCE 2007 – WIEN, 7.-11. AUGUST ABSTRACTS
RYGG, Kristin (Department of Musicology, Hedmark University College)
Music as Ritual and Ritual Music
Samstag/Saturday, 11.8., 9.15 Uhr, KuGe, SR 1
In my understanding the English court masque of the late Renaissance stands out as a music
theatre offering an ultimate realization of esoteric Renaissance ideals, focusing on the
interplay of the arts as a path to spiritual development.
The masques were evidently suffused by singing, music and dance, but the bulk of
the musical sources are lost, and those remaining can only render a fragmented impression
of the musical side of these shows. Previous musicological studies have to a large degree
focused on various aspects of classification and attribution projects, whereas masque
scholarship at large has shown little interest in the music of the masques.
The paper I propose is a further development from my book Masqued Mysteries Unmasked
(Pendragon 2000). Using intermedial strategies combined with an approach inspired
by recent musical hermeneutics I shall argue that the makers of the Jonsonian
masque (created by poet laureate Ben Jonson in collaboration with prominent composers,
dancing masters and architect Inigo Jones) understood the masque as a ritual where the
interplay of music, poetry and dance IS the core of the rite; where this very interplay constitutes
the active vehicles of transcendence in the celebration of the rite. Through the
interpretation of music from the earlier stage of the Jonsonian masque I intend to demonstrate
that the leading creators of the masque were aiming at making music that in particular
ways could serve as a vehicle of transcendence in this ritual.
I shall conclude my paper with an interpretation of music from one of the last Renaissance
masques (text by William D’Avenant and music by William Lawes). Here we
can see how the concept of the masque as ritual has been consolidated, and how the concept
of music as ritual has developed into a musical style which may be understood as an
expression of the concept of ritual music.
� �
SAUNDERS, Zoe (University of Maryland)
The Anonymous Missa Cueur langoreulx and its Model
Mittwoch/Wednesday, 8.8., 12.15 Uhr, MuWi, HS 1
Among the 22 anonymous masses contained in the so-called Alamire manuscripts is an
unedited canonic, five-voice imitation mass – the Missa Cueur langoreulx – unique to
Montserrat 766 (a manuscript thought to have been sent to Charles V in Spain). I identify,
for the first time, the model for this mass as a chanson by Josquin des Prez and examine
the relationship between the mass and its model from an analytical perspective. In
order to determine the composer’s working methods and to place this mass in the context
of the 16 th -century polyphonic tradition, I will examine the anonymous composer’s treatment
of his borrowed material, the modal, mensural, and thematic structure of the mass in
comparison to that of the chanson, and, on a smaller scale, motivic development and internal
cadences. An investigation into why the anonymous composer may have chosen
this song as a cantus firmus and his treatment of his polyphonic model, the reception of
- 66 -