Gordon A. Anderson

The Rhythm of cum littera Sections of Polyphonic Conductus in Mensural Sources

OR MODERN TRANSCRIPTIONS of polyphonic conductus the square notation in central Notre Dame sources gives so little guidance for rhythmic interpretation of cum littera sections that any help gained from other sources is most welcome. We are fortunate that there survive a few polyphonic Notre Dame conductus in mensural notation, and for them a much more secure transcription of rhythmic values for cum littera sections is possible. From this basis of confidence, a crucial step in procedure must ascertain whether we may apply rhythms found in later mensural sources to the same pieces transmitted in square notation; and further, if constant rhythmic values bridging the two traditions can be verified, whether we may construct general principles from a few examples of conductus in mensural notation and apply them to a much wider range of works in various styles preserved in the central Notre Dame sources. Four mensural sources are available for such an investigation: a fragment preserved at Heidelberg (Heid), the Spanish source Las Huelgas (Hu), a fragment from Darmstadt (Da), and two pieces belatedly written in mensural notation in the central Notre Dame source at Florence

New sources of mediaeval music

Abstract While working with the magnificent collection of mediaeval music manuscripts on microfilm housed at the Institut fur Musikwissenschaft der Universitat Erlangen—Nurmberg, at Erlangen, in search of sources for mediaeval sequences,1 I came across a number of curiosities, amongst which are two sources of almost completely unknown mediaeval motets, and a source for a well-known motet by Philippe de Vitry; I will add to these three sources another, which presents a unique fragment of two Ars nova Mass Ordinary movements.

Martin Gerbert (1720–1793): an eighteenth-century historian’s view of church music

Abstract Martin Gerbert von Hornau was born at Horb am Nekar, Germany,1 on August 12, 1720 and died at St. Blasien (Schwarzwald) on May 13, 1793; thus his long life of over seventy years covers most of the decades of the eighteenth century. He received a literary and musical education at Ludwigsburg, and when still quite young (1736) entered the Abbey of St. Blasien, where he studied philosophy and theology; he was professed as a Benedictine in 1737, ordained in 1744 and elected Prince-Abbot in 1764.2 He very soon became interested in historical research, especially in that of the liturgy and music, and as abbey librarian he became much absorbed in its manuscript transmissions of music treatises. His first publications, however, were not on music: Principia theologiae in eight volumes appeared in 1757–9, and was followed by a book against heresy, Demonstratio verae religionis veraeque ecclesiae contra quasvis falsas (1760), an apologetic, De legitima ecclesiastica (1761), and another on theology, Apparatu...