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Elizabeth Eva Leach

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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Categories

academic life (19)
blog reports (4)
blog-only publications (3)
conference reports (4)
digital humanities (24)
Douce 308 project (9)
Elizabethan England (1)
gender (3)
Guillaume de Machaut (21)
medieval composers (42)
medieval French literature (17)
medieval motets (1)
medieval music theory (2)
medieval singers (19)
music analysis (2)
public talks (1)
publications (37)
speculative musicology (4)
Teaching materials (8)
Uncategorized (1)

Recent Posts

Review of edition of medieval motets in a songbook
A medieval music blog recommendation
Resonance in Richard de Fournival

Earlier blogposts

Earlier blogposts

Links

The Plainsong and Medieval Music Society
DIAMM
International Machaut Society

Medieval Studies blogs

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

Musicology blogs

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

Other academic blogs

Renaissance art and music
medieval song and sundries

Twitter

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RT @Huddlington: Funded PhD studentships @Hudds_Uni_Music in contemporary music studies, musicology, musical multimedia, creative coding, m… 6 days 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

Tag: book review

Review of Helen Deeming’s edition of Songs in British Sources (with link to full text)

My review of Helen Deeming’s edition of Songs in British Sources (Musica Britannica, vol. 95), has just become available via the advance access section of Early Music. Continue reading Review of Helen Deeming’s edition of Songs in British Sources (with link to full text)

Posted on July 9, 2014November 25, 2014Categories publicationsTags 12thC, 13thC, book review, British Sources, Helen Deeming, medieval, medieval song, Middle Ages, Musica Britannica, musicology, song tradition, SongsLeave a comment on Review of Helen Deeming’s edition of Songs in British Sources (with link to full text)

Review of Jennifer Saltzstein’s new book on refrains (with link to full text)

My review of Jennifer Saltzstein’s stimulating new book on thirteenth-century refrains has just appeared in the Cambridge University Press journal, Plainsong and Medieval Music. Continue reading Review of Jennifer Saltzstein’s new book on refrains (with link to full text)

Posted on February 27, 2014March 10, 2014Categories medieval composers, medieval French literature, publicationsTags 13thC, book review, intertextuality, medieval, medieval song, Middle Ages, motet, musicology, song1 Comment on Review of Jennifer Saltzstein’s new book on refrains (with link to full text)

Review of new translation of Johannes de Grocheio on music (with link to full text)

My review of the new translation and edition of Johannes de Grocheio‘s music treatise has been published in the journal Speculum. Continue reading Review of new translation of Johannes de Grocheio on music (with link to full text)

Posted on September 17, 2013January 7, 2014Categories medieval music theory, publicationsTags 13th, book review, medieval, Middle Ages, motet, music theory, musicologyLeave a comment on Review of new translation of Johannes de Grocheio on music (with link to full text)

The Tournament at Chauvency

My review of the proceedings of a conference on Le Tournoi de Chauvency in the Douce 308 MS in the Bodleian Library, Oxford was just published in French Studies. Continue reading The Tournament at Chauvency

Posted on April 8, 2013May 9, 2013Categories medieval French literature, publicationsTags 13thC, 14thC, book review, Jacques Bretel, Le tournoi de Chauvency, medieval, medieval song, Middle Ages, song4 Comments on The Tournament at Chauvency

The vows of the peacock

Privat vs. Margue on the significance of the peacock in a 14thC poem. Continue reading The vows of the peacock

Posted on March 1, 2013June 20, 2016Categories medieval French literature, publicationsTags 14thC, Alexander the Great, bestiaries, book review, intertextuality, medieval, Middle Ages, peacock2 Comments on The vows of the peacock

Medieval song and subjectivity

My review of Judith Peraino’s book on subjectivity in late trouvère song has appeared in Early Music. Continue reading Medieval song and subjectivity

Posted on December 15, 2012January 1, 2013Categories medieval composers, medieval singers, publicationsTags 13thC, 14thC, book review, Judith Peraino, medieval, medieval song, Middle Ages, musicologyLeave a comment on Medieval song and subjectivity

Open-access links to full content (includes link to my review of Kirkman’s book on the Cyclic Mass)

Generous Links from Early Music. Continue reading Open-access links to full content (includes link to my review of Kirkman’s book on the Cyclic Mass)

Posted on January 29, 2011October 16, 2012Categories academic life, digital humanities, publicationsTags book review, online access, open accessLeave a comment on Open-access links to full content (includes link to my review of Kirkman’s book on the Cyclic Mass)

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