JiscMail Logo
Email discussion lists for the UK Education and Research communities

Help for MEDIEVAL-RELIGION Archives


MEDIEVAL-RELIGION Archives

MEDIEVAL-RELIGION Archives


MEDIEVAL-RELIGION@JISCMAIL.AC.UK


View:

Message:

[

First

|

Previous

|

Next

|

Last

]

By Topic:

[

First

|

Previous

|

Next

|

Last

]

By Author:

[

First

|

Previous

|

Next

|

Last

]

Font:

Monospaced Font

LISTSERV Archives

LISTSERV Archives

MEDIEVAL-RELIGION Home

MEDIEVAL-RELIGION Home

MEDIEVAL-RELIGION  November 2014

MEDIEVAL-RELIGION November 2014

Options

Subscribe or Unsubscribe

Subscribe or Unsubscribe

Log In

Log In

Get Password

Get Password

Subject:

Review

From:

Revd Gordon Plumb <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

medieval-religion - Scholarly discussions of medieval religious culture <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Mon, 24 Nov 2014 14:41:32 -0500

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (269 lines)

medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Apologies for a wrong link:here is the review that people may be
interested in:


Gordon Plumb


Nosow, Robert. <i>Ritual Meanings in the Fifteenth-Century Motet</i>.
Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2012. Pp. 292. £64.99. ISBN: 9780521193474.

Reviewed by Elizabeth Randell Upton
University of California, Los Angeles
[log in to unmask]


This book is a wonderful contribution to musicological scholarship that
has the
potential to move the discourse on late medieval music forward in
interesting
and productive ways. Nosow frames his study to facilitate understanding
seemingly dissimilar motets written for different performance contexts
as a
coherent genre in functional (that is, how they were used) rather than
structural (that is, how they were put together) terms. Drawing on
several
decades' worth of scholarship on individual composers and particular
works,
Nosow demonstrates how fifteenth-century motets were written to be
performed in
ritual contexts, whether sponsored by religious or civic organizations.
This
book provides a welcome challenge to musicology's tendency to sort late
medieval
musical works into separate categories based on an anachronistic divide
between
"sacred" and "secular," as understood in our own post-Reformation
period.

By focusing primarily on the compositional activities of their creators
(composers), musicological study of motets followed general practice in
twentieth-century musicological scholarship. In such an investigation
historical
details are chiefly valuable for establishing chronologies of musical
works,
both within one composer's output and among the compositions of
composers who
worked in different times and places. But even as scholars searched
archives for
historical information on composers and patrons, the explicit focus of
their
analysis remained the comprehension of structural and contrapuntal
details of
the works themselves, as well as the creation of taxonomies by which
surviving
works could be sorted. For the late medieval motet the culmination of
this
approach was Julie Cumming's book <i>The Motet in the Age of Du Fay</i>
(Cambridge, 1999), based on her dissertation "Concord Out of Discord:
Occasional
Motets of the Early Quattrocento" (Berkeley, 1987). Nosow's own
dissertation,
"The Florid and Equal Discantus Motet Styles of Fifteenth-Century
Italy"
(UNC-Chapel Hill, 1992) was itself this sort of study. As Nosow points
out,
since the 1990s musicologists such as Julie Cumming, Craig Wright, Rob
Wegman,
Philip Weller, Catherine Saucier, and Nosow himself have broadened
their inquiry
to consider the cultural context of individual motets or repertoires.
But the
lack of direct historical evidence documenting the performance of many
motets
has thwarted modern knowledge of the contexts in which these works were
written
and performed. It is difficult to discuss musical works in their
historical
context if it is not possible to determine what those contexts were.

To address this problem, Nosow focused his work by asking the question:
Why did
people write motets? His answer, the thesis of his book, is that "all
motets of
the fifteenth century originated as ceremonial vehicles, and cannot
easily be
separated from the rituals of which they formed part" (2). (My answer
to Nosow's
question would be, "because they got paid to do so"; I would rephrase
his
central question to ask "What were motets used for?") By focusing on
ceremony
and ritual Nosow has found a way to comprehend fifteenth-century motets
as a
coherent group, even though "[t]he specificity of use for the
fifteenth-century
motet meant that each was fashioned and voiced with particular ends in
mind, to
meet the exigencies of the moment" (234).

Reflecting its subject matter--musical works famous for their tight
structural
designs--Nosow's book has a clear and coherent formal plan. There are
eight
chapters, conceived as two pairs. The first chapter of each pair
discusses motet
composition and performance in a particular place for particular
patrons: the
Chapel Royal of Henry V of England, the Veneto cathedrals of Padua,
Vicenza, and
Treviso, churches and confraternities in Bruges, and the cathedral at
Cambrai.
The second chapter of each pair discusses theoretical concerns: the
motet as
religious ritual, the motet as ritual embassy (that is, one particular
rhetoric
used in many motet texts), motets as the vehicle of contemplation, and
motets'
role in creating community for the choir and for the observers and
other
participants in ritual. Overall Nosow discusses a large number of
polyphonic
musical works (I counted eighty motets, eleven settings of the Mass
Ordinary,
and four songs) by composers such as John Dunstaple, Johannes Ciconia,
and
Guillaume Du Fay, among others. He also provides useful overviews of
the
different kinds of ceremonies for which motets were written, describing
civic
and ecclesiastic processions, memorials, motets used to end the service
of Mass
or the offices of Matins and Vespers, and the Flemish <i>lof</i>
service. These
descriptions provide the reader with a fuller understanding of the
range of
opportunities and venues in which polyphonic music could be performed,
an
element often difficult for non-specialists to perceive.

In his understanding of the ceremonial function of processions Nosow
makes good
use of the model provided by Gordon Kipling's important book <i>Enter
The King:
Theatre, Liturgy, and Ritual in the Medieval Civic Triumph</i> (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1998). Like Nosow, Kipling set out to find the
historical
context within which to understand surviving artistic texts, and in
doing so
uncovered (and demonstrated the significance of) extensive social
practice, the
processions through which royalty and nobility formally enacted their
relationships with their subjects in cities and towns. In his monograph
Nosow
shows how fifteenth-century motets were not (or, were not only)
liturgical
vehicles, but rather formed part of civic ceremonial practices
involving
important and powerful patrons. Like Kipling's processions, these
ceremonial
practices have been uncovered due to scholarly desire to contextualize
surviving
musical works.

Two discussions stand out as particularly significant: "The Daily
Memorials of
Henry V" in chapter one, and "The Motet as Ritual Embassy" in chapter
four.
These discussions deepen our understanding of three of the most famous
(in
modern times) motets of the period: Dunstaple's beautiful <i>Veni
Sancte
Spiritus/ Veni Sancte Spiritus et infunde/ Veni Creator/Mentes tuorum
and Preco
preheminencie/ Precursor premittitur/ Inter natos</i>; and Guillaume Du
Fay's
motet for Florence cathedral, <i>Nuper Rosarum Flores</i>. Following
Margaret
Bent and drawing on chronicles including the <i>Gesta Henrici
Quinti</i> and
<i>Vita & gesta Henrici Quinti, Anglorum regis</i>, Nosow shows the
genesis of
Dunstaple's motets (and others) as part of daily memorials established
in
response to vows sworn by Henry V. But the highlight of the book for me
is
Nosow's chapter four. Following a suggestion of Michael Long's, Nosow
examines
the medieval <i>ars dictaminis</i>, the art of letter writing, to
discover
conceptual models for the newly composed texts of ceremonial motets.
Motets are
works of formal communication, and Nosow shows how many of them follow
the
theoretical model precisely, exposing the cultural work that the texts,
and by
extension the motets, accomplish. That the words of <i>Nuper Rosarum
Flores</i>
explicitly connect the motet with Santa Maria del Fiore, the cathedral
of
Florence, and with ceremonial acts involving the pope and the people of
Florence
has long been known. But recognizing this motet's character as one of
ritual
embassy allows us to perceive its ceremonial function more clearly: the
motet
speaks to the Virgin on behalf of the people of Florence, while
honoring Pope
Eugenius IV as the intercessor between the two. The pope had promised
indulgences to everyone attending the consecration, and the motet is
the formal
vehicle by which the Virgin is asked to intercede with her Son to
deliver the
promised benefits. The beauty of the music is the vehicle by which the
request
is demonstrated for the people of Florence who witnessed its
performance. In
uncovering the rhetorical basis of so many late motet texts, Nosow
gives us new
means of understanding what the experience of musical performance could
have
meant in the past.

One problem with this book is its surprisingly thin engagement with
scholarship
on ritual. Nosow cites two book-length studies to support his
definition of
ritual: communication scholar Eric Rothenbuhler's <i>Ritual
Communication: From
Everyday Conversation to Mediated Ceremony</i> (Thousand Oaks: Sage,
2000) and
religious-studies scholar Catherine Bell's <i>Ritual: Perspectives and
Dimensions</i> (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).
There is
room for a far greater engagement with theories of ritual from
anthropology,
sociology and religious studies in the musicological study of medieval
music.

While some musicologists might object to Nosow's providing little newly
discovered historical material himself, such a complaint would miss an
important
point: thanks to the work of scholars in the past few decades it is now
possible
to compare and analyze the mass of documentation concerning musical
practice,
composers' lives and works, and the social contexts of music making in
ways that
bring new understanding to the study of surviving musical texts.
Nosow's book is
more than a mere summary of existing historical discoveries; rather its
synthesis of information and analysis provides a new, useful, and
coherent
framework within which to understand the late medieval motet.

**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: subscribe medieval-religion YOUR NAME
to: [log in to unmask]
To send a message to the list, address it to:
[log in to unmask]
To leave the list, send the message: unsubscribe medieval-religion
to: [log in to unmask]
In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to:
[log in to unmask]
For further information, visit our web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/medieval-religion

Top of Message | Previous Page | Permalink

JiscMail Tools


RSS Feeds and Sharing


Advanced Options


Archives

March 2024
February 2024
January 2024
December 2023
November 2023
October 2023
September 2023
August 2023
July 2023
June 2023
May 2023
April 2023
March 2023
February 2023
January 2023
December 2022
November 2022
October 2022
September 2022
August 2022
July 2022
June 2022
May 2022
April 2022
March 2022
February 2022
January 2022
December 2021
November 2021
October 2021
September 2021
August 2021
July 2021
June 2021
May 2021
April 2021
March 2021
February 2021
January 2021
December 2020
November 2020
October 2020
September 2020
August 2020
July 2020
June 2020
May 2020
April 2020
March 2020
February 2020
January 2020
December 2019
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
June 2019
May 2019
April 2019
March 2019
February 2019
January 2019
December 2018
November 2018
October 2018
September 2018
August 2018
July 2018
June 2018
May 2018
April 2018
March 2018
February 2018
January 2018
December 2017
November 2017
October 2017
September 2017
August 2017
July 2017
June 2017
May 2017
April 2017
March 2017
February 2017
January 2017
December 2016
November 2016
October 2016
September 2016
August 2016
July 2016
June 2016
May 2016
April 2016
March 2016
February 2016
January 2016
December 2015
November 2015
October 2015
September 2015
August 2015
July 2015
June 2015
May 2015
April 2015
March 2015
February 2015
January 2015
December 2014
November 2014
October 2014
September 2014
August 2014
July 2014
June 2014
May 2014
April 2014
March 2014
February 2014
January 2014
December 2013
November 2013
October 2013
September 2013
August 2013
July 2013
June 2013
May 2013
April 2013
March 2013
February 2013
January 2013
December 2012
November 2012
October 2012
September 2012
August 2012
July 2012
June 2012
May 2012
April 2012
March 2012
February 2012
January 2012
December 2011
November 2011
October 2011
September 2011
August 2011
July 2011
June 2011
May 2011
April 2011
March 2011
February 2011
January 2011
December 2010
November 2010
October 2010
September 2010
August 2010
July 2010
June 2010
May 2010
April 2010
March 2010
February 2010
January 2010
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
December 2005
November 2005
October 2005
September 2005
August 2005
July 2005
June 2005
May 2005
April 2005
March 2005
February 2005
January 2005
December 2004
November 2004
October 2004
September 2004
August 2004
July 2004
June 2004
May 2004
April 2004
March 2004
February 2004
January 2004
December 2003
November 2003
October 2003
September 2003
August 2003
July 2003
June 2003
May 2003
April 2003
March 2003
February 2003
January 2003
December 2002
November 2002
October 2002
September 2002
August 2002
July 2002
June 2002
May 2002
April 2002
March 2002
February 2002
January 2002
December 2001
November 2001
October 2001
September 2001
August 2001
July 2001
June 2001
May 2001
April 2001
March 2001
February 2001
January 2001
December 2000
November 2000
October 2000
September 2000
August 2000
July 2000
June 2000
May 2000
April 2000
March 2000
February 2000
January 2000
December 1999
November 1999
October 1999
September 1999
August 1999
July 1999
June 1999
May 1999
April 1999
March 1999
February 1999
January 1999
December 1998
November 1998
October 1998
September 1998
August 1998
July 1998
June 1998
May 1998
April 1998
March 1998
February 1998
January 1998
December 1997
November 1997
October 1997
September 1997
August 1997
July 1997
June 1997
May 1997
April 1997
March 1997
February 1997
January 1997
December 1996
November 1996
October 1996
September 1996
August 1996
July 1996
June 1996
May 1996
April 1996


JiscMail is a Jisc service.

View our service policies at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/policyandsecurity/ and Jisc's privacy policy at https://www.jisc.ac.uk/website/privacy-notice

For help and support help@jisc.ac.uk

Secured by F-Secure Anti-Virus CataList Email List Search Powered by the LISTSERV Email List Manager