Henricus Isaac gehört zu jenen frankoflämischen Komponisten, die durch ihr Wirken an zentralen musikalischen Institutionen Europas die Musik um 1500 maßgeblich beeinflussten. Seine Tätigkeit u. a. für Kaiser Maximilian I. brachte ihn in Kontakt mit verschiedenen kompositorischen Traditionen, Musizierpraktikten und Repertoires, was sich auch in der Art und Stilhöhe der Kompositionen niederschlägt. Der vorliegende Band präsentiert Beiträge, die anlässlich des 500. Todesjahres Isaacs im Jahr 2017 entstanden sind und die unterschiedlichsten Bereiche von dessen Wirken berücksichtigen. Schwerpunkte bilden Untersuchungen zu seinen Wirkungsstätten, Fragen der Quellenüberlieferung und die Auseinandersetzung mit der instrumentalen Rezeption und Aufführungspraxis seiner Werke.
Chronological surveys of national musical cultures (in Italy, France, the Netherlands, Germany, England, and Spain), genre studies (Mass, motet, madrigal, chanson, instrumental music, opera), as well as essays on intellectual and cultural developments and concepts relevant to music (music theory, printing, the Protestant Reformation and the corresponding Catholic movement, humanism, the concepts of "Renaissance" and "Baroque").
This volume brings together twenty original essays by distinguished scholars on the life, works, and cultural context of Antoine Busnoys (c.1430-1492), musician to Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy, and one of the most celebrated composers of the fifteenth century. The chapters offer a wealth of new information about musical culture in the late middle ages.
How did Renaissance composers write their music? In this revolutionary look at a subject that has fascinated scholars for years, musicologist Jessie Ann Owens offers new and striking evidence that contrary to accepted theory, sixteenth-century composers did not use scores to compose--even to write complex vocal polyphony. Drawing on sources that include contemporary theoretical treatises, documents and letters, iconographical evidence, actual fragments of composing slates, and numerous sketches, drafts, and corrected autograph manuscripts, Owens carefully reconstructs the step-by-step process by which composers between 1450 and 1600 composed their music. The manuscript evidence--autographs of more than thirty composers--shows the stages of work on a wide variety of music--instrumental and vocal, sacred and secular--from across most of Renaissance Europe. Her research demonstrates that instead of working in full score, Renaissance composers fashioned the music in parts, often working with brief segments, according to a linear conception. The importance of this discovery on editorial interpretation and on performance cannot be overstated. The book opens with a broad picture of what has been known about Renaissance composition. From there, Owens examines the teaching of composition and the ways in which musicians and composers both read and wrote music. She also considers evidence for composition that occurred independent of writing, such as composing "in the mind" or composing with instruments. In chapters on the manuscript evidence, she establishes a typology both of the sources themselves and of their contents (sketches, drafts, fair copies). She concludes with case studies detailing the working methods of Francesco Corteccia, Henricus Isaac, Cipriano de Rore, and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. This book will change the way we analyze and understand early music. Clear, provocative, and painstakingly researched, Composers at Work: The Craft of Musical Composition 1450-1600 makes essential reading for scholars of Renaissance music as well as those working in related fields such as sketch studies and music theory.
"Florence is justly celebrated as one of the world's most important cities. It enjoys mythic status and occupies an enviable place in the historical imagination. But its music-historical importance is less well understood than it should be. If Florence was the city of Dante, Michelangelo, and Galileo, it was also the birthplace of the madrigal, opera, and the piano. This is the only book of its kind, a comprehensive account of music in Florence from the late Middle Ages until the end of the Medici dynasty in the mid-eighteenth century. It recounts the principal developments in the history of Florence's contributions to music and how music was heard and cultivated in the city, from civic and religious institutions to private patronage and the academies. Scholars from sister disciplines and a general readership interested in the history and culture of Florence will find this book an invaluable complement to studies of the art, literature, and political thought of the late-medieval and early-modern eras and the quasi-legendary figures in the Florentine cultural pantheon"--
This 1994 collection of fourteen essays, written by an eminent group of scholars, explores the musical culture of the German-speaking realm between c.1450 and 1600. The essays demonstrate the important role played by German speakers in the development of instrumental music in the Renaissance, the shaping of the curricula of musical education in the modern age, in setting patterns of musical patronage, in establishing congregational singing in churches, and in developing commercial music printing. The essays shed light on the music that flourished at Imperial and ducal courts, universities, parish churches, collegiate schools, as well as the homes of prosperous merchants. The volume thus provides an overview of German polyphonic music in the age of Gutenberg, Dürer and Luther and documents the changing social status of music in Germany during a crucial epoch of its history.
New articles on du Fay and Desprez, on sacred and secular music, and reception history, form a fitting tribute to one of the field's foremost scholars. This volume celebrates the work of David Fallows, one of the most influential scholars in the field of medieval and Renaissance music. It draws together articles by scholars from around the world, focusing on key topics to which Fallows has contributed significantly: the life and works of Guillaume Du Fay and of Josquin Desprez, archival studies and biography, sacred and secular music of the late mediaeval and Renaissance period, and reception history. Studies include major archival discoveries concerning the identity of the composer Fremin Caron; a reconsideration of the authorship of works within the Josquin canon, notably Mille regretz and Absalon fili mi; a freshlook at key works from Du Fay's youth and early maturity; accounts of newly discovered sources and works; and an appraisal of David Fallows' contribution to the early music performance movement by Christopher Page, former directorof Gothic Voices. The collection also includes two newly published compositions dedicated to the honorand. Fabrice Fitch teaches at the Royal Northern College of Music; Jacobijn Kiel is an independent scholar. Contributors: Rob C. Wegman, Jane Alden, Bonnie J. Blackburn, Honey Meconi, Gianluca D'Agostino, Andrew Kirkman, Jaap van Benthem, Margaret Bent, James Haar, Alenjandro Enrique Planchart, Jesse Rodin, Lorenz Welker, Kinuho Endo, Joshua Rifkin, Thomas Schmidt-Beste, Richard Sherr, Peter Wright, Fabrice Fitch, Tess Knighton, Warwick Edwards, Adam Knight Gilbert, Markus Jans, Oliver Neighbour, Anthony Rooley, Keith Polk, John Milsom, Jeffrey J. Dean, EricJas, Peter Gülke, Iain Fenlon, Barbara Haggh, Dagmar Hoffmann-Axthelm, Leofranc Holford-Strevens, Andrea Lindmayr-Brandl, Esperanza Rodríguez-García, Eugeen Schreurs, Reinhard Strohm
