FW: Early music theory
Sig Rosen
Sig Rosen
<www.renaissancechorus.org>
------ Forwarded Message
From: "Joshua B. Mailman" <jm0...@mail.rochester.edu>
Mailman <jmai...@alumni.uchicago.edu>
Subject: Re: FW: [earlym-l] Early music theory
Also, an interesting anthology of recent scholarly analyses of
works from the Renaissance repertoire is this:
Tonal Structures in Early Music 1999
edited by Cristle Collins Judd
http://www.amazon.com/Tonal-Structures-Early-Critisism-Analysis/dp/081533638
1
Includes articles by some of the most important scholars in the field:
Owen, Bent, Powers, Fuller, Powers, Wiering, Judd, etc.
-Josh
On Sat, 9 May 2009, Joshua B. Mailman wrote:
> Hi All,
> I can't get into a whole debate about this right now, but may I
> respectively suggest to Jose (is he even on this email?) that much music
> theory from the Renaissance and Middle Ages continues the Ancient Greek
> tradition of _pure_ theory (what Plato espoused) mostly about
> numerical ratios, and is not actually particularly relevant or necessary
> to understanding how the medieval and Rennaissance repertoire was created.
> A good example is Gufforio's Theorica Musice of 1492, which is almost
> completely irrelevant to composing music of the period. Gufforio's
> Practica Musice, however, _is_ relevant to composing the repertoire.
> (The word "theory" then didn't mean what means to us now--remember that
> to the ancient Greeks, "music" didn't even necessarily mean something
> you heard, with your ears.)
>
> There are other examples of theorists writing treatises that deal with
> repertoire, such as Glarean's Dodecachordan and also the writings of
> Tinctoris, and earlier (for composing chant) Guido's Micrologous and (for
> composing organum) Musica Enchriadis and Scolica Enchiriadis. These
> treatises were (are) considered at least as much "practica" as "theorica"
> in that they deal with repertoire and composing (as opposed to Boethius or
> Gufforio's theorica which deals in numerical ratios).
>
> Keep in mind too that under Charlemagne's Carolingian empire, the modal
> classification of plainchants was somewhat distorted (to a fit a more
> scalar model) in order to make the liturgy more uniform across the empire,
> and this distortion partly evolved from Boethius's misunderstanding of
> Ptolemy's theories (see Harold Powers New Grove article on "Mode").
>
> Bottom line for someone (like Jose) wanting to compose "in the style" is
> not to assume that a treatise called "theory" will be relevant to
> composing.
>
> Incidentally, there's an obscure modern music theory/practica/analysis
> textbook+workbook that actually goes chronologically from plainchant
> through organum and through the middle ages and Renaissance repertoire.
>
> Joseph Bauer "Music theory through literature" volume 1 (1995)
> Memphis State University
> ISBN: 0-13-607821-4
> http://www.amazon.com/Music-Theory-Through-Literature-I/dp/0136078214
>
> Hope this helps. Someone should pass this on to Jose, if he's not already
> receiving this.
>
> -Josh
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