Anna Maria Busse Berger

Mensuration and proportion signs : origins and evolution

Abbreviations Introduction The representation and interpretation of mensuration signs The origins of the mensural system and mensuration signs The relationship between perfect and imperfect time The relationship between major and minor prolation Diminution by stroke and by mode signs Proportion signs Conclusions Appendix. Index of signs Bibliography Index of compositions General index.

Mnemotechnics and Notre Dame Polyphony

In recent decades, classical and medieval philologists have fundamentally transformed our understanding of how linguistic works of any kind, literary, historiographic, scientific, philosophical, or theological, were composed and transmitted. Albert Lord has argued that Southern Slavic epics were related to the Homeric ones in that both used the same manner of composing, learning, and transmitting the poems with the help of standard, repeatable formulas.2 Frances Yates has written the first comprehensive study of how the ancient art of memory continued to be practiced in medieval and early modern times.3 Mary Carruthers has demonstrated the importance of mnemotechnics for the Middle Ages in particular, showing that writing in no way replaced oral composition and transmission, but rather was used as a mnemonic tool within an oral context.4 What

Transformations in music theory and music treatises

This chapter discusses the evolution of the medieval beneficial system and its culmination in the fifteenth-century. It demonstrates how the system worked. The chapter also discusses the salutary effects of the system upon musicians, patrons, rulers, and the papacy, as well as ones understanding of music and musicians of that century. The fifteenth century saw the flowering of secular princely chapels, staffed with musicians adept at the performance, and frequently the composition, of sacred polyphony. The chapel served as the most visible emblem of political power and authority, impressing visiting diplomats, courtiers, and nobility with courtly civility and wealth represented by a sacred establishment highlighted by the performance of polyphony. The possession of one or more benefices served musicians as comfortable retirement plans, when it was time to end active service as a salaried member of a music chapel.

Making a motet: Josquin’s Ave Maria … virgo serena

The concept of the musical work is based on the assumption that a composed piece of music is a work of art. From a historical perspective, authorship stands as a comparatively recent determinant of the work concept. Imposing the concept of the work of art on music required the translation of the ars musicae from the context of the artes liberales into a more modern system of the arts. Around 1400 a new musical realm of experience emerged, and with it the idea that composed music was first and foremost a presentation of text to listeners, a concept introduced emphatically by Ciconia. A prerequisite for aesthetic discourse is the regular availability of music - or put differently, the reproducibility of a notated text and its sound; and it was written traditions that enabled composers to refer to each other and compare works through both reading and listening.

Gedächtniskunst und Kompositionsprozess in der Renaissance

Weil dies eine Wiener Vortragsreihe ist, mochte ich mit einer Ihnen allen gut bekannten Novelle von Stefan Zweig beginnen. Die Schachnovelle war Zweigs letztes Stuck, das er zwischen 1938 und 1941 im brasilianischen Exil geschrieben hat. Die Hauptperson ist ein ehemaliger Gestapo-Gefangener, der auf einem Oceanliner berichtet, wie er die Einzelhaft uberlebt hat, indem er Schach gegen sich selbst gespielt habe. Ich will mich hier nur auf einen Teil der Geschichte konzentrieren, und zwar auf die Beschreibung der Lernprozesse beim Schachspielen. Der Gefangene, Dr. B., hat damit angefangen, beruhmte Schachturniere zu rekonstruieren; durch standiges Uben war er bald in der Lage, ganze Spiele im Kopf zu planen. Er wusste, welche Zuge sein imaginarer Gegner ausfuhren wurde und welche Moglichkeiten fur den Rest des Spieles offen stunden. Durch besessenes Auswendiglernen — zunachst auf einem selbstgemachten Schachbrett, schlieslich auf rein mentaler Ebene — wurde der Gefangene ein Meister des Spieles und konnte jedes Spiel vollstandig im Kopf ausarbeiten.