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

MEDIEVAL & RENAISSANCE MUSIC CONFERENCE 2007 – WIEN, 7.-11. AUGUST ABSTRACTS
URQUHART, Peter (University of New Hampshire)
The final cadence of Josquin’s motet Benedicta es and the fermata
Samstag/Saturday, 11.8., 10.15 Uhr, MuWi, HS 1
Despite its 16 th century reknown, and its familiarity today, there remain significant questions
about the accidentals needed for performance of the motet Benedicta es, caelorum regina.
The end of the motet in particular presents a puzzle, describable in modern terms as
a minor dominant chord followed by the tonic. This interpretation seems quaintly different
from our modern harmonic expectations, but it is also contrary to norms of the period
regarding inflection of the cadence. Was the composer wrestling with the modal implications
of his chant model, or did the practice of performers’s accidentals – the addition of
musica ficta F#s – blanket the final ten measures of the motet? Modern editions seem split
between these two possibilities, yet a more nuanced answer is possible for this cadence. A
little-noticed feature links Benedicta es with a sizeable number of motets of the period,
many of which appear to resist inflection as effectively as does Josquin’s motet.
The backdrop to this issue is the well-trodden question about the inflection of cadences
with performers’s musica ficta sharps, which affects the editing and performance
of essentially every work of the period. Once cadential cross-relations are accepted (Apel,
1981; Boorman, 1990; Urquhart, 1993), it is only the “fermata cadence“ endings like Benedicta
es that stand in the way of the following general claim: all final cadences lacking propinquity
with an articulated two-voice framework were meant to have been inflected by
performers, and were written with that expectation in mind by composers. This paper will
describe a new interpretation of works like Benedicta es, not as exceptions to the norms of
counterpoint and tonality – and to our assumptions about performers’ accidentals – but as
important and clarifying examples of cadence treatment. When combined with the results
of a large-scale study of the final cadences of 1000 motets for five or more voices, this interpretation
will close the book on cadential inflection in Franco-Flemish music c. 1500: we
now know how it was done.
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VAN BENTHEM, Jaap (Universität Utrecht)
Johannes Tourout’s Ordinarium settings: an approach to style
Mittwoch/Wednesday, 8.8., 17.00 Uhr, KuGe, SR 3
Two complete Masses for three voices and one setting for four voices have been transmitted
under Tourout’s name. In the past decades at least five more Ordinarium-settings,
among which a three-voice Mass transmitted under Johannes Ockeghem’s name, have
been attributed to the composer. In trying to formulate tentative stylistics for further investigations,
this contribution will deal with both groups of settings.
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