| Contents |
Part I: Background. Overview of repertory and sources. Manuscripts, source scholarship, and editions ; Criteria for inclusion of works to be considered ; Grouping of sources ; Musical criteria for organizing the corpus of mass ordinary settings -- Analytical concerns and methodology. Objectives and methods of analysis in the present study ; Modern views of compositional process in fourteenth-century music ; Contemporary theoretical concepts relevant to analysis -- Part II: Basic elements of musical organization. Text as a conceptual basis of structure. Liturgical genres of polyphony through the fourteenth century ; General textual considerations in the polyphonic mass ordinary ; Text setting in ordinary items with extended texts (Credo/Gloria) ; Text setting in ordinary sections with brief texts (Kyrie/Agnus/Sanctus) ; Text setting in the Ite missa est and Benedicamus Domino -- General rhythmic treatment and texture. Mensuration, proportion, and tempo ; Characteristic rhythmic devices ; Musical texture ; Aggregate phrasing -- Fundamental structural patterns of pitch and rhythm. Tenor patterns (Talea and color) ; Coordinated rhythmic patterns (Isorhythm) ; Cantus firmus and paraphrase -- Part III: Counterpoint. Linear preconditions of counterpoint. Pitch-ordering of individual voice parts ; Tenor as foundation of counterpoint -- Principles of discant in three-voice works. General principles of contrapuntal motion ; Voice designations, musical texture, and counterpoint ; Basic techniques of counterpoint ; Contrapuntal progression and three-voice cadence types -- Contrapuntal conditions of four-voice writing. Voice designations and musical texture in four-voice works ; Techniques of four-voice counterpoint ; Contrapuntal progression and four-voice cadence types -- Part IV: Large-scale structural and pitch organization. Contrapuntal context and disposition of cadences. Practical application of basic contrapuntal techniques ; Divergences from standard cadence types ; Methods of mitigating expected cadences ; Hiearchy of cadences in overall design -- Sonority as a structural resource. Significant non-cadential sonorities ; Sonority integrated with other large-scale structural elements ; Structural analyses of seven individual mass settings ; Aspects of regularity in large-scale musical structure -- Part V: Codification and assessment of the repertory. Classification and comparison of sub-genres. Archetypes of musical texture as a basis of classification ; Consistency and contrast within sub-genres ; Musical resources of text expression ; Concluding remarks on classification -- Musical style, chronology, and provenance. Style characteristics as a basis for ascertaining chronology ; Relationship of style to physical provenance ; Questions of authorship -- Mass cycles and related individual movements. Defining cyclicity in the French mass ordinary of the period ; The Machaut mass in its historical context ; Use of common polyphonic material in individual mass movements -- Conclusions. Results and implications of this study ; A historical view of the French polyphonic ordinary in the period -- Appendix I. Tabulation of final and major sectional cadences ; Appendix II. Source and analytical information for complete works. |
| Summary |
This study explores compositional techniques manifest in a specific genre of medieval liturgical polyphony--the mass ordinary--as reflected in a relatively homogenous group of settings presumably written by French composers, some of whom may have been associated with the papal chapel at Avignon durin the years 1316-78, and subsequently under the succeeding anti-popes. The surviving repertory of some 160 works is historically significant in that it represents, alongside its counterparts from England and Italy, the first large body of polyphonic compositions for the Ordinary. The goals of the dissertation are fourfold: 1) to redefine the repertory based on a network of sources (chiefly of French, Flemish, and Spanish provenance), related to the two central manuscripts--Ivrea and Apt, but including additional works of similar style (e.g., the Machaut Mass and the movements in the Cypriot-French codex, Turin J.II.9) that have no concordances with the main sources (the resulting corpus is ordered according to a series of pitch criteria--final, signatures, cleffing, etc.); 2) to identify, through analysis, the operative elements of counterpoint and musical structure, and to reevaluate previous scholarship on musical style and techniques in the settings examined; 3) to offer the first comprehensive interpretation of large-scale form, focusing on the role played by sonority in articulating musical structure; 4) to revise previous contrapuntal paradigms, style classifications, and general historical judgments, of French mass composition in the fourteenth century, and to distinguish its main peripheral traditions. The study is disposted in five main parts, each consisting of several chapters. Part I (Background) is a comprehensive general introduction, discussing first the repertory and its transmission, and second, the analytical goals sought and methodology to be followed. This latter section includes a summary of the applicable secondary literature, and identifies concepts derived from medieval theory of the applicable secondary literature, and identifies concepts derived from medieval theory relevant to analysis. Part II (Basic elements of musical organization) deals with certain fundamental aspects of form, including: 1) disposition of text; 2) mensuration, proportion, and other characteristic rhythmic devices such as melisma and hocket; 3) interrelationships among the various voice parts of rhythm, ambitus, and text disposition (entailing issues of performance practice); and 4) use of structural rhythmic and pitch patterns. Part III (Counterpoint) addresses linear preconditions such as ambitus, the contrapuntal functions of the respective voice parts, basic techniques of voice leading, and treatment of vertical sonority. An important component of this section is a definition and taxonomy of cadence types in three- and four-voice writing. Part IV (Large-scale structural and pitch organization) integreates the d iscussion of counterpoint into the context of large-scale form, showing how musical intelligibility is achieved through coordinated manipulation of the various elements introduced in Parts II and III, with particular reference to the role played by sonority. Part V (Codification and assessment of the repertory) interprets the material presented in the earlier chapters in light of larger issues, such as the applicability of the term "cycle" to the mass repertory of the period. The concluding chapter presents a series of conclusions drawn from the study, readdresses the historical context of the repertory, and suggests avenues for further research. The two appendices present the raw material interpreted in Parts II-IV: Appendix I lists the final and major sectional cadences in the 106 works surviving in a complete state; Appendix II gives a variety of source and analytical information (including a structural reduction) for each of the complete settings. This dissertation has yielded two major results. First is a recognition that two basic contrapuntal paradigms (adopted from Ernst Apfel), which I identify respectively as "multiple two-voice" and "expanded two-voice" counterpoint, underlie the entire repertory. The second result is the conclusion that the accepted "style categories" of French mass composition in the period, initially formulated by Friedrich Ludwig (i.e., "simultaneous," "motet," and "song" styles), are founded on inadequate premises and are unsuitable as a comprehensive means of classification. I have suggested instead a more fundamental set of criteria, based on attributes of "musical texture" (defined in Chapter 4) and counterpoint. In reinterpreting the corpus from the perspective of the two results outlined above, the dissertation offers stylistic means of establishing chronology, and develops a vocabulary that should prove more adequate for the discussion of late-medieval counterpoint than that currently at hand. |
