Ars nova: French and Italian Music in the Fourteenth Century (Music in Medieval Europe)

In the early fourteenth century, musicians in France and later Italy established new traditions of secular and sacred polyphony. This ars nova, or "new art," popularized by theorists such as Philippe de Vitry and Johannes de Muris was the among the first of many later movements to establish the music of the present as a clean break from the past. The rich music of this period, by composers such as Guillaume de Machaut and Francesco Landini, is not only beautiful, but also rewards deep study and analysis. Yet contradictions and gaps abound in the ars nova of the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries-how do we read this music? how do we perform this music? what was the cultural context of these performances? These problems are well met by the ingenuity of approaches and solutions found by scholars in this volume. The twenty-seven articles brought together reflect the broad methodological and chronological range of scholarly inquiry on the ars nova. pt. 1. Periodization and boundaries. Novelty and renewal in Italy : 1300-1600 / Nino Pirrotta ; Ars nova and stil novo / Nino Pirrotta ; Magister Egardus and other Italo-Flemish contacts / Reinhard Strohm ; Problems of dating in Ars nova and Ars subtilior / Ursula Günther pt. 2. Sources. The ars nova fragments of Gent / Reinhard Strohm pt. 3 Music theory. A phantom treatise of the 14th century? : the Ars nova / Sarah Fuller pt. 4. Composers. Francesco Landini and the Florentine cultural élite / Michael P. Long ; Gratiosus, Ciconia, and other musicians at Padua cathedral : some footnotes to present knowledge / Anne Hallmark ; Further notes on Magister Antonius dictus Zacharias de Teramo / John Nádas ; Musicology, archives, and historiography / Andrew Wathey pt. 5. Literary studies. ''Un leggiadretto velo'' ed altre cose petrarchesche / Pierluigi Petrobelli ; Lyrics for reading and lyrics for singing in late medieval France : the development of the dance lyric from Adam de la Halle to Guillaume de Machaut / Lawrence Earp ; On text forms from Ciconia to Dufay / Nino Pirrotta ; Leonardo Giustinian and quattrocento polyphonic song / David Fallows pt. 6. Secular song. New glimpses of an unwritten tradition / Nino Pirrotta ; Improvisation in the madrigals of the Rossi codex / Brooks Toliver ; Landini's musical patrimony : a reassessment of some compositional conventions in trecento polyphony / Michael Long ; Machaut's balades with 4 voices / Elizabeth Eva Leach ; Playing the citation game in the late 14th-century chanson / Yolanda Plumley pt. 7. Sacred music. The sacred polyphony of the Italian trecento / Kurt von Fischer ; Zacara's D'amor languire and strategies for borrowing in the early 15th-century Italian mass / Michael Scott Cuthbert pt. 8. Motets. The emergence of ars nova / Daniel Leech-Wilkinson ; Myth and mythography in the motets of Philippe de Vitry / Andrew Wathey ; Imitation in the Ars nova and Ars subtilior / Virginia Ervin Newes ; Deception, exegesis and sounding number in Machaut's motet 15 / Margaret Bent pt. 9. Performance practice. Machaut's ''pupil'' Deschamps on the performance of music : voices or instruments in the 14th-century chanson / Christopher Page ; Texting in 15th-century French chansons : a look ahead from the 14th century / Lawrence Earp. The French polyphonic tradition of the fourteenth century blossomed earlier than the Italian, perhaps because of its long tradition of polyphony in previous centuries, many sources of which were being copied in the early 1300s. The contemporary view that a 'new art' was being forged was formed by the theorists of the time such as Philippe de Vitry. He, along with Johannes de Muris, and the more conservative Jacques de Liege, popularized the idea of an ars nova, thereby being among the first musical thinkers to establish the music of the present as a clean break from that of the past.Contradictions and gaps in understanding abound in the ars nova of the fourteenth century (a period we usually expand until approximately 1420 when new ideas of song and Mass composition dominate post-Schism Europe), although these are well met by the ingenuity of the approaches and solutions found by scholars. The 27 articles brought together in this volume reflect a broad methodological and chronological span of analysis on the ars nova. The French polyphonic tradition of the fourteenth century blossomed earlier than the Italian, perhaps because of its long tradition of polyphony in previous centuries, many sources of which were being copied in the 1300s. This work brings together 27 articles that reflect a broad methodological and chronological span of analysis on the ars nova More so than for any other period in Western music of the past millennium, our collected knowledge of 14th-century music is contained in, and advanced through, scholarly articles. As yet, no monograph gathers the received opinions on style, composers and works of this period. This book attempts to redress the balance Offers an overview of the best scholarship in the study of medieval music. This series introduces readers to an enormous swathe of musical history. It is suitable for scholars and students.