Musicology, medieval to modern

About me
I am both a music theorist and musicologist, with wide-ranging interests in everything from the minutiae of musical structures and manuscripts to the broadest cultural, historical, and philosophical contexts for music. My principal focus has been on music and poetry of the fourteenth century, although I have also written about songs from both earlier and later periods. My forthcoming interdisciplinary book titled, Guillaume de Machaut: Secretary, Poet, Musician, will be published by Cornell University Press in March 2011. I have published articles on the counterpoint of the French fourteenth-century composer Guillaume de Machaut in the Journal of Music Theory (2000), Music Analysis, (2000) and Plainsong and Medieval Music (2001). My interest in the musico-poetic aspects of Machaut’s songs resulted in articles on his Fortune balades (Early Music History, 2000), the opening five songs of the notated balade section (Journal of Musicology, 2002), and those on the themes of hope and merci (French Forum, 2003). My earlier book Sung Birds: Music, Nature, and Poetry in the Later Middle Ages (Cornell University Press, 2007), deals with the ontology and ethics of musical sound through the lens of the earliest composed pieces that imitate birdsong. This book’s chapter on the problematic figure of…
Blog
- Blog caveat
  About my research blog This blog is designed to give easy access to abstracts and descriptions of my published and forthcoming work. It also include brief notices of ongoing research projects and reflections on academic life. I blog in a personal capacity. Copyright: all images have been downloaded from open access sources. Any copyright holders who believe their rights to be infringed are invited to contact me immediately!
Publications
Books Guillaume de Machaut: Secretary, Poet, Musician (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2011). Sung Birds: Music, Nature, and Poetry in the Later Middle Ages. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007). Citation in Medieval and Renaissance Musical Culture: Learning from the Learned. In Honour of Margaret Bent’s 65th Birthday. Co-edited with Suzannah Clark (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2005). Machaut’s Music: New Interpretations. Edited (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2003). Articles “Reading and Theorizing Medieval Music Theory: Interpretation and its Contexts” Music Theory Spectrum, 33/1 (2011): 90-98. doi: 10.1525/mts.2011.33.1.90 “Music and Verbal Meaning: Machaut’s Polytextual Songs” Speculum 85 (2010): 567-91. doi: 10.1017/S0038713410001302 “Guillaume de Machaut, Royal Almoner: Honte, paour (B25) and Donnez, signeurs (B26) in Context,” Early Music, 38 (2010): 21-42.doi: 10.1093/em/caq006 “Grammar in the Medieval Song-School,” New Medieval Literatures 11 (2009): 195-211. doi: 10.1484/J.NML.1.00590 “Machaut’s Peer, Thomas Paien,” Plainsong and Medieval Music 19 (2009): 1-22. doi:10.1017/S0961137109990027 “Gendering the Semitone, Sexing the Leading Tone: Fourteenth-Century Music Theory and the Directed Progression,” Music Theory Spectrum 28 (2006): 1-21. View abstract. [Winner of Outstanding Publication Award 2007 from the Society for Music Theory (US); Honorable Mention for the Pauline Alderman Award for outstanding research in Women and Music in the category Outstanding Scholarly Article, 2007]. doi: 10.1525/mts.2006.28.1.1 “‘The Little Pipe Sings Sweetly as the Fowler Deceives the Bird’: Sirens in the Middle Ages,” Music & Letters 87 (2006): 187-211.View abstract. [Winner of the Pauline Alderman Award for outstanding research in Women…
- Books
- Articles and book chapters
Undergraduate applications
St Hugh’s College Admissions Exeter College Admissions Faculty of Music Admissions University of Oxford Admissions Your application consists of the UCAS form, your submitted work, a short performance on your chosen instrument, and an interview at your chosen college. (You will also have at least one other college interview at a college your did not choose). This page tells you what to expect in the St Hugh’s and Exeter interview. NB: This only applies to St Hugh’s and Exeter Colleges. Oxford is a collegiate university, so admission is to a College in the first instance. Interviews and decision-making processes vary from college to college. What to expect If you apply to St Hugh’s or Exeter Colleges to read for a BA in Music, you will be interviewed by me (Dr Leach) and one other person, usually the College Lecturer. We will give you two tasks. Prose summary and commentary Music analysis 1. We will ask you to arrive 30 mins before your interview time to read a prose text–usually a short article by a musicologist. In the interview we will ask you to summarize the text and will then ask you one question about the way in which it presents…
Graduate study and postdoc mentoring
Teaching resources

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Earlier blogposts

Medieval Studies blogs

Musicology in the Making (Henry Hope)
ars musicae
Multimodal Machaut (Kate Maxwell)
Jason Stoessel
Medieval Motet (Catherine A. Bradley)
Manuscript Egerton 1500 (Catherine Léglu)
Trecento (Michael Scott Cuthbert)
medieval song and sundries

Musicology blogs

Early Music
Medieval Motet (Catherine A. Bradley)
medieval song and sundries
ars musicae
Early Modern English Music (Katherine Butler)
Luís C. F. Henriques
Note Against Note (Melanie Marshall)
Musicology in the Making (Henry Hope)
Trecento (Michael Scott Cuthbert)
Jason Stoessel

Other academic blogs

Renaissance art and music
medieval song and sundries

Twitter

RT @NHSMillion: We agree with this 100% and can’t believe it is still going on Please RT if you think it should change ASAP https://t.co/R… 1 day ago
The replies to this are really excellent; his comment entirely indicative of wilful tory ignorance of facts/law/stu… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 1 day ago
Thought I’d watch source film for upcoming Donmar production of Berberian Sound Studio. Luckily I like theatre a lo… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 1 day ago

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Contact details

Prof. Elizabeth Eva Leach
Faculty of Music
St Aldate's
Oxford OX1 1DB
Great Britain
Email: Elizabeth Eva Leach

College Appointments

Tutorial Fellow in Music
St Hugh’s College, Oxford

Stipendiary Lecturer in Music
Exeter College, Oxford

Most viewed

Category: academic life

A medieval music blog recommendation

Another blog on medieval music! Continue reading A medieval music blog recommendation

Posted on July 30, 2018October 22, 2018Categories academic life, digital humanities, medieval composersLeave a comment on A medieval music blog recommendation

One of Douce 308’s grands chants

At the end of the first full week of my project, I offer a working edition of one of Douce 308’s unique songs in the grand chant section. Continue reading One of Douce 308’s grands chants

Posted on October 9, 2015October 23, 2015Categories academic life, Douce 308 project, medieval composersTags 13thC, 14thC, digital images, medieval, medieval french literature, medieval song, Middle Ages, songLeave a comment on One of Douce 308’s grands chants

At the Medieval Academy of America Annual Conference 2015

I was honoured to be invited to give the opening Plenary lecture at the MAA annual meeting, this year held at the University of Notre Dame in the US. Continue reading At the Medieval Academy of America Annual Conference 2015

Posted on March 14, 2015May 26, 2015Categories academic life, conference reports, medieval composers, medieval French literature, medieval singersTags 13thC, bestiaries, digital images, intertextuality, manuscripts, medieval, medieval song, Middle Ages, musicology, Peter Konieczny, Richard de Fournival, University of Notre DameLeave a comment on At the Medieval Academy of America Annual Conference 2015

Leach en France, Leach en français

Texte et présentation Powerpoint sur le contrepoint chez Machaut. Continue reading Leach en France, Leach en français

Posted on November 25, 2014March 10, 2015Categories academic life, Guillaume de Machaut, medieval composers, medieval music theory, medieval singers, music analysis, Teaching materialsTags 14thC, CNSMD, Conservatoire National Supérieur Musique et Danse de Lyon, Contrepoint, distributed cognition, Guillaume de Machaut, Machaut, medieval, medieval song, Middle Ages, musicology, Pierre Hamon, songLeave a comment on Leach en France, Leach en français

Zoltán Rihmer answers some of my questions about Machaut

More information on the heraldry of MS A. Continue reading Zoltán Rihmer answers some of my questions about Machaut

Posted on January 17, 2014March 10, 2014Categories academic life, blog-only publications, digital humanities, Guillaume de Machaut, medieval composersTags 14thC, Machaut, manuscripts, medieval, Middle Ages1 Comment on Zoltán Rihmer answers some of my questions about Machaut

2013 in review

The 2013 annual report for this blog, as prepared by Word Press. Continue reading 2013 in review

Posted on January 7, 2014March 10, 2014Categories academic life, blog reports, digital humanitiesTags bloggingLeave a comment on 2013 in review

Money speaks louder than knowledge in the thirteenth-century university

Worries that university learning is suffering because it’s not what you know but whether you can pay that counts go back to the medieval universities. Continue reading Money speaks louder than knowledge in the thirteenth-century university

Posted on July 31, 2013September 12, 2013Categories academic life, medieval composersTags 13thC, education, medieval, Middle Ages1 Comment on Money speaks louder than knowledge in the thirteenth-century university

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