List of figures; List of tables; List of musical examples; Acknowledgements; Manuscript sigla; Abbreviations; A note on transcriptions and numbering systems; Introduction; 1. Plainchant in polyphony: the gradual Propter Veritatem in organa, clausulae and motets; 2. Mini clausulae and the Magnus Liber Organi; 3. Texting clausulae: repetition and regularity on the Regnat tenor; 4. Transcribing motets: vernacular refrain melodies in Magnus Liber clausulae; 5. Framing motets: quoting and crafting refrains against plainchant tenors; 6. Intertextuality, song and female voices in motets on a Saint Elizabeth of Hungary tenor; 7. From Florence to Fauvel: re-reading musical paradigms through a long-lived Iohanne motet; 8. Conclusions; Bibliography; Index.
Redefines musical analysis for a period that marks the beginnings of composition as we know it now.
Catherine A. Bradley is Associate Professor at the Universitetet i Oslo. She has published widely on the earliest motets in journals including Speculum, the Journal of Musicology, Music Analysis, and Early Music History.
'Catherine A. Bradley's superb new book takes us back to the world
of medieval Paris where musicians and poets were experimenting with
the ways in which plainsong, polyphony, rithmus and the conventions
of liturgical and paraliturgical celebration could be combined,
differentiated and subverted. She does this by returning to the
venerable question of the birth of the motet, and cognate genres.
On the way, she brilliantly reminds us of the importance of the
female voice in some unlikely places and, in a virtuosic side
glance at the relationship between organum and clausula, comes
close to uncovering an entirely new subgenre. Magisterial in every
regard.' Mark Everist, University of Southampton
'Polyphony in Medieval Paris brings a much-needed analytical
perspective to thirteenth-century polyphony. With exceptional
acumen, Bradley challenges prevailing narratives about how this
repertory emerged and offers fresh insights into the priorities and
choices of its composers. Through the new analytical approaches she
develops, she also deepens our understanding of issues as diverse
as intertextuality and gender.' Rebecca Maloy, University of
Colorado, Boulder
'Bradley's book unsettles received views of the thirteenth-century
motet and impresses by its powerful combined methodology of
incisive musical analysis, and consideration of the material and
notational trace. She animates the skilled and serious playfulness
of nameless medieval composer-singers, authoritatively exemplifying
the broad range of precise and technically advanced skills
necessary to engage these fascinating and compositionally complex
pieces of music … Of particular note is Bradley's combination of
detailed philological inquiry with creative musical imagination.
Her hermeneutic lens challenges traditional understandings of the
evolution of the motet genre, finding a surprising degree of
bi-directional fluidity. This reframing has significant value for
broader considerations of compositional process, musical borrowing,
and intertextuality in and beyond medieval Paris.' Official
citation for 2019 Early Music Prize, American Musicological Society
Awards Committee
'… this remarkable study … constitutes an undeniably important
contribution to the revival of musicological thought on the motet
of Ars Antiqua … the reader will be rewarded by the beautiful
immersion it offers in the workshop polyphonic writing of the
thirteenth century, and the spectacle offered by the richness and
virtuosity of its composition processes.' Gaël Saint-Cricq,
translated from Revue de musicology
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