Hearing the Motet
Hearing the Motet
Hearing the Motet
Trending Bestseller

Hearing the Motet

No reviews yet Write a Review
"This collection of essays by leading scholars explores sacred vocal polyphony from the 12th through the late 16th centuries. The emphasis is less on broad stylistic or historical trends than on the insights offered by particular compositions and on the tools of critical interpretation. For instance, Margaret Bent considers the ways in which informed 14th-century readers might have understood the several simultaneous Latin and musical 'texts' of a motet preserved in the Roman de Fauvel, and how their ways of understanding relate to the current practice of critical analysis of music. Rob Wegman's study of a motet by the 15th-century composer Antoine Busnois similarly juxtaposes modern and contemporaneous concerns, in this case as a means of exploring the rival assumptions of different communities of readers. Craig Monson artfully explores previously unnoticed sensibilities among William Byrd's motets and publications, and in so doing points out how modern assumptions about 'political' motets have tended to obscure the significance of other compositions. These essays are as different as the motets they consider, but all share a concern for the close reading of musical and verbal texts and an interest in exploring original and present intellectual, political, and artistic contexts."--Choice
Paperback / softback
01-February-1998
RRP: $247.00
$150.00
Ships in 3-5 business days
Hurry up! Current stock:
icon Share icon Share
Description  
The motet was unquestionably one of the most important vocal genres from its inception in late twelfth-century Paris through the Counter-Reformation and beyond. Heard in both sacred and secular contexts, the motet of the Middle Ages and Renaissance incorporated a striking wealth of meaning, its verbal textures dense with literary, social, philosophic, and religious reference. In Hearing the Motet, top scholars in the field provide the fullest picture yet of the motet's "music-poetic" nature, investigating the virtuosic interplay of music and text that distinguished some of the genre's finest work and reading individual motets and motet repertories in ways that illuminate their historical and cultural backgrounds. How were motets heard in their own time? Did the same motet mean different things to different audiences? To explore these questions, the contributors go beyond traditional musicological methods, at times invoking approaches used in recent literary criticism. Providing as well a cutting-edge look at performance questions and works by composers such as Josquin, Willaert, Obrecht, Byrd, and Palestrina, the book draws a valuable new portrait of the motet composer. Here, intriguingly, the motet composer emerges as a "reader" of the surrounding culture--a musician who knew liturgical practice as well as biblical literature and its exegetical traditions, who moved in social contexts such as humanist gatherings, who understood numerical symbolism and classical allusion, who wrote subtle memorie for patrons, and who found musical models to emulate and distort. Fresh, broad-ranging, and unique, Hearing the Motet makes vital reading for scholars, performers, and students of medieval and Renaissance music, and anyone else with an interest in the musical culture of these periods. Contributors include Rebecca A. Baltzer, Margaret Bent, M. Jennifer Bloxam, David Crook, James Haar, Paula Higgins, Joseph Kerman, Patrick Macey, Craig Monson, Robert Nosow, Jessie Ann Owens, Dolores Pesce, Joshua Rifkin, Anne Walters Robertson, Richard Sherr, and Rob C. Wegman.
Customer reviews  

This product hasn't received any reviews yet. Be the first to review this product!

Write a Reviews
Flat Rate Shipping  
Easy Returns  
RRP: $247.00
$150.00
Ships in 3-5 business days
Hurry up! Current stock:
icon Share icon Share
Flat Rate Shipping  
Easy Returns  

Hearing the Motet

RRP: $247.00
$150.00

Description

The motet was unquestionably one of the most important vocal genres from its inception in late twelfth-century Paris through the Counter-Reformation and beyond. Heard in both sacred and secular contexts, the motet of the Middle Ages and Renaissance incorporated a striking wealth of meaning, its verbal textures dense with literary, social, philosophic, and religious reference. In Hearing the Motet, top scholars in the field provide the fullest picture yet of the motet's "music-poetic" nature, investigating the virtuosic interplay of music and text that distinguished some of the genre's finest work and reading individual motets and motet repertories in ways that illuminate their historical and cultural backgrounds. How were motets heard in their own time? Did the same motet mean different things to different audiences? To explore these questions, the contributors go beyond traditional musicological methods, at times invoking approaches used in recent literary criticism. Providing as well a cutting-edge look at performance questions and works by composers such as Josquin, Willaert, Obrecht, Byrd, and Palestrina, the book draws a valuable new portrait of the motet composer. Here, intriguingly, the motet composer emerges as a "reader" of the surrounding culture--a musician who knew liturgical practice as well as biblical literature and its exegetical traditions, who moved in social contexts such as humanist gatherings, who understood numerical symbolism and classical allusion, who wrote subtle memorie for patrons, and who found musical models to emulate and distort. Fresh, broad-ranging, and unique, Hearing the Motet makes vital reading for scholars, performers, and students of medieval and Renaissance music, and anyone else with an interest in the musical culture of these periods. Contributors include Rebecca A. Baltzer, Margaret Bent, M. Jennifer Bloxam, David Crook, James Haar, Paula Higgins, Joseph Kerman, Patrick Macey, Craig Monson, Robert Nosow, Jessie Ann Owens, Dolores Pesce, Joshua Rifkin, Anne Walters Robertson, Richard Sherr, and Rob C. Wegman.

Customers Also Viewed