Words and music in the Middle Ages : song, narrative, dance, and drama, 1050-1350 / John Stevens.
| Author/creator | Stevens, John |
| Format | Book |
| Publication Info | Cambridge [Cambridgeshire] ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1986. |
| Description | xvii, 554 pages : illustrations ; 26 cm. |
| Subjects |
| Series | Cambridge studies in music Cambridge studies in music. ^A252129 |
| Contents | Part I. Number in music and verse. Number symbolism and numerical disposition ; Number disposition and poetic theory ; Number: the texts ; Number: the melodies ; Words, notes and numbers -- Latin songs: conductus and cantio ; The medieval hymn ; The conductus ; Latin art-song: the cantio -- The sequence ; The early sequence: notker ; Later sequences: 'letabundus' ; The standard sequence: Adam of St Victor -- Lai and planctus ; The secular sequence ; The Cambridge songs ; Planctus ; Lai ; Conclusion: the song of the flood -- Part II. Relations of speech, action, emotion and meaning. The dance song ; Courtly dance-song: carole and rondeau ; The French refrain ; Clerical dance-song: rondellus ; The music of dance-song ; Words and music -- Narrative meoldy I: epic and chanson de geste ; Melodic types ; The old English period ; German narrative song ; The French tradition: chanson de geste -- Narrative melody II: Saint's life and liturgical narrative ; Saint's life and chanson de geste ; Epistles of the saints ; The rhymed office ; Narrative singing in drama ; Saints' lives in French -- Speech and melody: Gregorian chant ; Words and action in the liturgy ; Notation and speech ; The chant and the text: accent and duration ; Chant and text-structure ; Formulaic, adapted and 'free' melodies ; Sound and sense ; Detailed relations: 'important' words; rhetoric ; Detailed relations: the sound of meaning -- Drama I: liturgy, ceremony and play ; The 'drama of the liturgy' ; The liturgical drama ; The Rouen ceremony of the shepherds -- Drama II: music, action and emotion ; Dramatic emotion: 'angry Herod' ; Dramatic emotion: 'mourning Rachel' ; Dramatic singing: the evidence of the rubrics -- Music and meaning: the problem of expressiveness ; The concept of musica ; Text and music ; The emotive effects of music ; The experience of music ; Expressiveness -- Part III. Melody, rhythm and metre. The theorists ; Theory of ritmus and metrum ; Modal rhythm and musica metrica ; Johannes de Grocheo -- Palaeography, notation and presentation ; Notation and layout ; Mensural and non-mensural notation -- Rhythm and genre ; Monophonic melodies and the French motet ; Chansons-avec-des-refrains ; Refrain-songs ; The pastourelle ; The lai ; Conductus and cantio -- Words and music: a balanced relationship ; Assumptions and theories ; Balance: the 'double melody' and the numerical idea ; A balanced relationship: rhythmic implications. |
| Abstract | This book examines the relation of words and music in England and France during the three centuries following the Norman Conquest. The basic material of the study includes the chansons of the troubadours and trouvères and the varied Latin songs of the period. In addition to these 'lyric' forms, the author discusses the relations of music and poetry in dance-song, in narrative and in the ecclesiastical drama. Professor Stevens examines the ready-made, often unconscious, and misleading assumptions we bring to the study and performance of early music. In particular he affirms the importance of Number, in more than one sense, as a clue to the 'aesthetic' of the greater part of repertoire, to the relation of words and melody. and to the baffling problem of their rhythmic interpretation. This is the first wide-ranging study of words and music in this period in any language. It will be essential reading for scholars of the music and the literature of medieval Europe and will provide a basic and comprehensive introduction to the repertoire for students. |
| General note | Includes indexes. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references (pages 525-540). |
| LCCN | 85025496 |
| ISBN | 0521245079 |
| ISBN | 0521339049 (pbk.) |