The Motet in the Late Middle Ages
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Oxford University Press Inc
Published:1st Feb '24
£71.00
Supplier delay - available to order, but may take longer than usual.
A unique capacity of measured polyphony is to give precisely fixed places not only to musical notes, but also to individual words in relation to them and each other. The Motet in the Late Middle Ages offers innovative approaches to the equal partnership of music and texts in motets of the fourteenth century and beyond, showcasing the imaginative opportunities afforded by this literal kind of intertextuality, and yielding a very different narrative from the common complaint that different simultaneous texts make motets incomprehensible. As leading musicologist Margaret Bent asserts, they simply require a different approach to preparation and listening. In this book, Bent examines the words and music of motets from many different angles: foundational verbal quotations and pre-existent chant excerpts and their contexts, citations both of words and music from other compositions, function, dating, structure, theory, and number symbolism. Individual studies of these original creations tease out a range of strategies, ingenuity, playfulness, striking juxtapositions, and even subversion. Half of the thirty-two chapters consist of new material; the other half are substantially revised and updated versions of previously published articles and chapters, organized into seven Parts. With new analyses of text and music together, new datings, new attributions, and new hypotheses about origins and interrelationships, Bent uncovers little-explored dimensions, provides a window into the craft and thought processes of medieval composers, and opens up many directions for future work.
Bent's research on the motet has been fundamental to the fields of musicology and medieval studies, and it is a joy to see that work gathered into a single publication. The book is chronologically wide-ranging, covering the development of the genre from the fourteenth through the mid-fifteenth centuries, and geographically diverse, encompassing the motet in France and the Low Countries, England, Italy, with forays into eastern Europe and the Mediterranean region—an astonishing achievement. * Anne Walters Robertson, Claire Dux Swift Distinguished Service Professor of Music, University of Chicago *
This extraordinary collection of essays by the reigning medieval musicologist of our time presents the fruits of Margaret Bent's intense engagement with different facets of late medieval motets over the course of more than fifty years. Almost half of the thirty-two chapters are new, and earlier essays are recast, taking measure of new scholarly work and then pushing it farther. One finds surprising discoveries at every turn. * Lawrence Earp, Emeritus Professor of Musicology, University of Wisconsin-Madison *
In this impressive collection of essays, Margaret Bent assembles a lifetime of path-breaking research and engages with the rich scholarship it has engendered. Throughout, Bent thoughtfully reflects on her own contributions, and adds much previously unpublished material. As a study of the fourteenth- and early fifteenth-century motet in England, Italy, and France, it is a magisterial tour de force that will help map the field for decades to come. * Jessie Ann Owens, Distinguished Professor of Music Emeritus, University of California Davis *
In this monumental study of the late medieval motet, Margaret Bent has brought together studies of a range of individual motets, English, French, and Italian, seeking through close reading to tease out the range of strategies employed to serve the uniqueness of these technically advanced, prestigious, compositions. These 32 essays—all now updated or offered for the first time—rest on a lifetime's study of compositional craft. Their richness cannot be overestimated. * Susan Rankin, Professor of Medieval Music, University of Cambridge *
ISBN: 9780190063771
Dimensions: 241mm x 185mm x 81mm
Weight: 1497g
776 pages