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- Title
Text and motif c.1500: a new approach to text underlay.
- Authors
Schubert, Peter; Cumming, Julie E.
- Abstract
In this article we bring together historical research and the experience of performance to untangle problems regarding text underlay in the period around 1500. Although much has been written on the subject of underlay, the principal criterion we use for making decisions has not been discussed. We rely on internal musical evidence, principally motivic repetition. Our case study is Pierre de la Rue’s Salve Regina II, performed by Peter Schubert’s choir VivaVoce on their 2007 Naxos recording. We discuss how particular decisions about text underlay were taken, and their consequences. The new imitative style that developed in the late 15th century is characterized by an emphasis on obvious, literal repetition of musical material. Many pieces with relatively little text for extended sections of music feature extensive repetition of musical motifs after the opening of the point of imitation. In later sources we would expect to find these motifs texted. Based on comparison of sources and a study of developments in musical style, we propose that around 1500 singers were already repeating words and phrases of text in order to bring out the repetition of musical motifs--that, seeing musical repetition, they improvised an appropriate underlay ‘on the fly’. Our approach to text underlay reveals the connection between imitative style c.1500 and the expanded points of imitation with multiple entries of the soggetto typical of mid- and late 16th-century music.
- Subjects
16TH century music; PERFORMANCE practice (Music performance); MOTIF (Music composition); SONG lyrics; REPETITION in music; IMITATION in music; LA Rue, Pierre de, d. 1518; SALVE Regina (Musical form); VIVAVOCE (Performer); MUSICAL style; SIXTEENTH century; MUSIC history
- Publication
Early Music, 2012, Vol 40, Issue 1, p3
- ISSN
0306-1078
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1093/em/cas019