David Fallows

THE GRESLEY DANCE COLLECTION, c.1500

It is a slightly embarrassing story. In 1984 Mr Adrian Bassett sent me xeroxes of four pages of mono phonic English dance melodies that he had received from the Derbyshire Record Office. Quite why they made so little impact on me at the time is long forgotten. But the information that came with them suggested that they were Elizabethan; I passed on some details to a few scholars concerned with such matters and effectively forgot them. In any case, Derbyshire may stretch to within ten miles of my home in Manchester, but the accident of both roads and public transport means that the County Record Office in Matlock is easier to reach from London. So it was a full eleven years later that I mentioned them in passing to another colleague, who showed an active interest. I pulled out the old xeroxes and realised with a shock that they must be from nearer 1500 and therefore far closer to my own urgent concerns.

Prenez sur moy: Ockeghem's tonal pun

Just fifty years after Okeghem died, apparently as a very old man, Glareanus published a massive treatise entitled Dodecachordon (1547). In the last chapter, which Glareanus describes as an afterthought, he discusses the skill of certain composers, using mostly canonic works as his examples. Among them is Okeghems three-out-of-one canon Prenez sur moy , which Glareanus describes as a ‘catholicon’. It is a song that has caught the imagination of many commentators over the centuries. Composed before c . 1470, it was presented and discussed by five music theorists of the sixteenth century and reprinted as late as 1594 – a matter that gives it a longer continuous career than any other polyphonic song of the fifteenth century. But therein lies the problem. Later writers added details that they thought would clarify the music but which only confused the issue.

Two equal voices: a French song repertory with music for two more works of Oswald von Wolkenstein

Lorenz Welker kindly allowed me to see the typescript of his paper just as I was embarking on an attempt to list the polyphonic song repertory of the years 1415–80. With the startling knowledge that some of Oswalds music originated as late as 1420, my ear was obviously alert for more such pieces. Sure enough two additional polyphonic songs by Oswald turned out to have music taken from the French repertory of the early fifteenth century. They are Sag an gesellschaft/Von rechter lieb kraft and Kom liebster man .

Josquin and Milan

Writing in 1882, Edmond Vander Straeten was the first to argue that the name ‘Juschino’ among the singers of Galeazzo Maria Sforzas household chapel referred to the composer Josquin des Prez. Assuming a birthdate in the early 1450s, Vander Straeten found it easy to understand why the young Josquin was at the bottom of the salary scale in 1475, the date of the documents. Soon afterwards, Eugenio Motta provided new evidence to support that identification and stretch Josquins Milanese career to 1479. Since then the years in Milan have had a fixed and central place in all studies of Josquins life.

Companion to Medieval and Renaissance Music

BL An up to date survey of all aspects of early music Forty-five eminent writers and performers present their views and analyse the outstanding issues concerning music before 1600. How do we judge it? What are the main problems in its performance and appreciation? Where do we look for answers, and what help can we find in the figurative arts, manuscripts, and modern performance techniques? This book is intended for students of early music, university music departments, performers of early music.