Category: medieval singers

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gender medieval composers medieval singers publications

My review of an edited volume on female-voice song

My review of Female-Voice Song and Women’s Musical Agency in the Middle Ages, edited by Anna Kathryn Grau and Lisa Colton has just appeared in Early Music. This book is part of the series Brill’s Companions to the Musical Culture of Medieval and Early Modern Europe and was published by Brill (Leiden) in 2022 at the somewhat eye-watering price of €215. Although reviewing large edited collections is quite a lot of work, I think it’s important to do so, especially when they’re pricey, as a way of informing potential readers of their contents in the hope that they might get a sense of whether to request their local library acquires the volume or, indeed, whether they fork out the money themselves. I think most universities libraries that teach music before 1500 and/or topics relating to women and music should probably buy this. I used the online version to write the review, which seemed pretty useful.

Early Music sent me a link, so you can see what I said about it in full: Elizabeth Eva Leach, “Female-voice song before 1500”. A review of Female-voice song and women’s musical agency in the Middle Ages, ed. Anna Kathryn Grau and Lisa Colton Brill’s Companions to the Musical Culture of Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Leiden: Brill, 2022), €215. Early Music, 51, no.4 (2023), 616–618.

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Douce 308 project medieval French literature medieval singers speculative musicology

What can we know from ‘unnotated’ estampies?

My essay on the estampies of the Oxford manuscript Douce 308 has just been published in a collection entitled Music and Instruments of the Middle Ages: Essays in Honour of Christopher Page, Edited by Tess Knighton and David Skinner.

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medieval composers medieval singers Teaching materials

Vernacular song (list A) lecture 4

A brief look at another vernacular song tradition.

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medieval composers medieval French literature medieval singers Teaching materials

Vernacular song (list A) lecture 6

This lecture looks at the reception of monophonic medieval vernacular song, from the earliest manuscript copies to modern performances.

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medieval composers medieval French literature medieval singers Teaching materials

Vernacular Song (list A) lecture 2

This podlecture continues a discussion of the troubadours, looking at song themes and genres.

Podlecture 2: The Troubadours 2

Good general reading

  • Cheyette, Fredric L. Ermengard of Narbonne and the World of the Troubadours. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001.
  • Paterson, Linda M. The World of the Troubadours: Medieval Occitan Society, c.1100-c.1300. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
  • Schulman, Nicole M. Where Troubadours Were Bishops: The Occitania of Folc of Marseille (1150-1231). London: Routledge, 2001.

Definitions of courtly love

  • Bloch, R. Howard. Medieval Misogyny and the Invention of Western Romantic Love. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.
  • Kay, Sarah. Subjectivity in Troubadour Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
  • Some history of the term ‘Courtly Love’ via Wikipedia, which has some useful links.
  • Lewis, C. S. The Allegory of Love. 1936. NY: Oxford University Press, 1958.

On the role of music

  • Aubrey, Elizabeth. ‘References to Music in Old Occitan Literature’, Acta Musicologica 61/2 (1989): 110–149.
  • Levitsky, Ann. ‘Song Personified: The Tornadas of Raimon de Miraval’, Mediaevalia 39 (2018): 17–57.
  • McAlpine, Fiona. ‘Authenticity and the “Auteur”: The Songs of Hugues de Berzé’, Plainsong and Medieval Music, 4 (1995), 1-12.
  • Peraino, Judith A. Giving Voice to Love: Song and Self-Expression from the Troubadours to Guillaume De Machaut.  New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

As before (in podlecture 1):

TEST YOURSELF

Check you know who or what the following are:

  1. Fin’ amors or courtly love
  2. Andreas Capellanus and his The Art of Courtly Love
  3. Chrétien de Troyes
  4. vassalage
  5. canso
  6. sirventes
  7. joc-partit / partimen
  8. pastorela
  9. coblas doblas
  10. Ovid on Love

CONTINUE TO LECTURE 3

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Blondel de Nesle medieval composers medieval French literature medieval singers music analysis

Imagining the performance of trouvère song

My article treating a ‘boring’ song by Blondel de Nesle has just been published by Early Music.

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Douce 308 project medieval composers medieval French literature medieval singers

Performance workshop 3: JP30

A third post from the performance workshop with graindelavoix, sponsored by the Leverhulme Trust and held at St Hugh’s College, Oxford in March 2017.

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Douce 308 project medieval composers medieval French literature medieval singers speculative musicology

Performance Workshop 2: JP4

A second post from the performance workshop with graindelavoix, sponsored by the Leverhulme Trust and held at St Hugh’s College, Oxford in March 2017.

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conference reports Douce 308 project medieval singers speculative musicology

Performance Workshop 1: JP27a

A first post from the performance workshop with graindelavoix, sponsored by the Leverhulme Trust and held at St Hugh’s College, Oxford in March 2017.

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Douce 308 project medieval composers medieval French literature medieval singers

Performing jeux-partis with graindelavoix

This second year of my Leverhulme project will involve a workshop with performers designed to help me think about my unnotated manuscript in a more musical way.

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