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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

DIAMM
The Plainsong and Medieval Music Society
International Machaut Society

Medieval Studies blogs

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

Musicology blogs

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

Other academic blogs

medieval song and sundries
Renaissance art and music

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

Tag: digital images

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

New Book: Manuscripts and Medieval Song

Copies of my new co-edited book now received! Continue reading New Book: Manuscripts and Medieval Song

Posted on May 26, 2015September 9, 2015Categories Guillaume de Machaut, medieval composers, medieval singers, publicationsTags 10thC, 11thC, 12thC, 13thC, 14thC, Anglo-French, digital images, Machaut, manuscripts, medieval, medieval song, Middle Ages, motet, musicology, publishing, song3 Comments on New Book: Manuscripts and Medieval Song

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

Sources for Cantigas

Links to online images of manuscripts of containing the medieval Galego-Portuguese song repertory. Continue reading Sources for Cantigas

Posted on May 28, 2014May 16, 2016Categories digital humanities, medieval composers, Teaching materialsTags 13thC, 14thC, digital images, manuscripts, medieval, medieval song, Middle Ages, song6 Comments on Sources for Cantigas

Thibaut’s Romance of the Pear

Links to the sources of Thibaut’s Roman de la poire. Continue reading Thibaut’s Romance of the Pear

Posted on March 10, 2014May 28, 2014Categories digital humanities, medieval composers, medieval French literature, Teaching materialsTags 13thC, Ardis Butterfield, digital images, manuscripts, medieval song, Middle Ages, Richard de Fournival, Roman de la Poire, song, ThibautLeave a comment on Thibaut’s Romance of the Pear

Richard de Fournival’s Bestiary of Love

Links to some of the manuscript sources for Richard de Fournival’s Bestiaire d’amours. Continue reading Richard de Fournival’s Bestiary of Love

Posted on September 12, 2013January 31, 2019Categories digital humanities, medieval composers, Teaching materialsTags 13thC, bestiaries, digital images, facsimiles, gender, medieval, medieval song, Middle Ages4 Comments on Richard de Fournival’s Bestiary of Love

Renart le Nouvel

Beast satire with songs. Continue reading Renart le Nouvel

Posted on May 6, 2013March 9, 2017Categories medieval French literature, Teaching materialsTags 13thC, digital images, manuscripts, medieval, medieval song, Middle Ages, motet, musicology, songLeave a comment on Renart le Nouvel

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