Music and the moderni, 1300–1350: The ars nova in Theory and Practice
- Author: Desmond, Karen
Karen Desmond's excellent new book ... proposes a new way of thinking about the ars nova of fourteenth-century French music ... her account will prove an essential contribution to thinking about...
Music and the moderni, 1300–1350: The ars nova in Theory and Practice
- Author: Desmond, Karen
Purchase product
Karen Desmond's excellent new book ... proposes a new way of thinking about the ars nova of fourteenth-century French music ... her account will prove an essential contribution to thinking about...
About
Music theorists labelled the musical art of the 1330s and 1340s as 'new' and 'modern'. A close reading of writings on music theory and the polyphonic repertory from the first half of the fourteenth century reveals a modern musical art that arose due to specific innovations in music notation. The French ars nova employed as its theoretical fundament a new system for arranging musical time proposed by the astronomer and mathematician Jean des Murs. Challenging prevailing accounts of the ars nova, this book presents the 'new art' within the intellectual context of its time, revises the datings of Jean des Murs's writings on music theory, and presents the intersection of theory and practice for a crucial era in the history of music. Through contemporaneous accounts, Desmond explores how individuals were involved in 'changing' music in early fourteenth-century France, and the technical developments they pursued that precipitated this stylistic change.
Contents
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Subtilitas and the ars nova
- 3. Jean des Murs, Quadrivial Scientist
- 4. Arts old and new
- 5. From trees to degrees
- 6. Notational dots and the line of musical time
- Epilogue
- Appendix 1: list of transitional ars nova motets and concordances
- Appendix 2: key dates in the biography of Jean des Murs
- Appendix 3: key dates in the biography of Philippe de Vitry
- Appendix 4: sources of Jean des Murs's notitia and conclusiones
- Appendix 5: edition of Apta/Flos
- Appendix 6: works list for Jean des Murs.
Awards and reviews
Revue de musicologie
Karen Desmond's excellent new book ... proposes a new way of thinking about the ars nova of fourteenth-century French music ... her account will prove an essential contribution to thinking about the period ... Thanks to Karen Desmond's book, we can better see how the ars nova helped create a modern world in the fourteenth century and how it may still be part of that modern world today
