Guillaume de Machaut (1300-1377) is regarded as the greatest French poet-composer of the middle ages, as he was during his lifetime. A trained secretary, with a passion for collecting, copying and ordering his own work, the number of surviving notated musical works attributed to him far exceeds that of any of his contemporaries. All the main genres of song - lais, virelais, balades, and rondeaux - together with Machaut's motets, and his famous Mass cycle are considered here from a variety of perspectives. These incorporate the latest scholarly understanding of both Machaut's poetry and music,...

Winner of the 2007 AMS Robert M. Stevenson prize The arrival of Francisco de Penalosa at the Aragonese court in May 1498 marks something of an epoch in the history of Spanish music: Penalosa wrote in a mature, northern-oriented style, and his sacred music influenced Iberian composers for generations after his death. Kenneth Kreitner looks at the church music sung by Spaniards in the decades before Penalosa, a repertory that has long been ignored because much of it is anonymous and because it is scattered through manuscripts better known for something else. He identifies sixty-seven pieces of...

First full-length consideration of the role played by young singers, bringing out its full significance and its development over time.

Hermann Potzlinger (+ 1469), the university-educated schoolmaster of the monastery of St Emmeram, Regensburg, was the creator of one of the largest and most intriguing collections of late-medieval polyphonic music to have survived from Central Europe. His music book, the so-called 'St Emmeram Codex' (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 14274), was compiled in the years immediately following his graduation from Vienna University in 1439. It contains a unique cross-section of polyphonic vocal music not only from the West but also from Central and Eastern Europe; moreover, it is only one...

How do text and melody relate in western liturgical chant? Is the music simply an abstract vehicle for the text, or does it articulate textual structure and meaning? These questions are addressed here through a case study of the second-mode tracts, lengthy and complex solo chants for Lent, which were created in the papal choir of Rome before the mid-eighth century. These partially formulaic chants function as exegesis, with non-syntactical text divisions and emphatic musical phrases promoting certain directions of inner meditation in both performers and listeners. Dr Hornby compares the four...

First study of Juan Esquivel, a highly significant figure in Spanish musical life in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603) had a strong reputation for musicality; her court musicians, Thomas Tallis and William Byrd, even suggested that music was indispensable to the state. But what roles did music play in Elizabethan court politics? How did a musical image assist the Queen in projecting her royal authority? What influence did her private performances have on her courtships, diplomatic affairs, and relationships with courtiers? To what extent did Elizabeth control court music, or could others appropriate performances to enhance their own status and achieve their ambitions? Could...

The Montpellier Codex (Bibliotheque interuniversitaire, Section Medecine, H.196) occupies a central place in scholarship on medieval music. This small book, packed with gorgeous gold leaf illuminations, historiated initials, and exquisite music calligraphy, is one of the most famous of all surviving music manuscripts, fundamental to understandings of the development of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century polyphonic composition. At some point in its history an eighth section (fascicle) of 48 folios was appended to the codex: when and why this happened has long perplexed scholars. The...

First full comprehensive guide to one of the most important genres of music in the middle ages.