This 2004 book traces the changing interpretation of troubadour and trouvere music, a repertoire of songs which have successfully maintained public interest for eight centuries, from the medieval chansonniers to contemporary rap renditions. A study of their reception therefore serves to illustrate the development of the modern concept of 'medieval music'. Important stages include sixteenth-century antiquarianism, the Enlightenment synthesis of scholarly and popular traditions and the infusion of archaeology and philology in the nineteenth century, leading to more recent theories on medieval rhythm. More often than now, writers and performers have negotiated a compromise between historical research and a more imaginative approach to envisioning the music of troubadours and trouveres. This book points not so much to a resurrection of medieval music in modern times as to a continuous tradition of interpreting these songs over eight centuries.

First Published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Jennifer Bain contextualizes the revival of Hildegard's music, engaging with intersections amongst local devotion and political, religious, and intellectual activity.

Although it seemed in the mid-1970s that the study of the troubadours and of Occitan literature had reached a sort of zenith, it has since become apparent that this moment was merely a plateau from which an intensive renewal was being launched. In this new bibliographic guide to Occitan and troubadour literature, Robert Taylor provides a definitive survey of the field of Occitan literary studies - from the earliest enigmatic texts to the fifteenth-century works of Occitano-Catalan poet Jordi de Sant Jordi - and treats over two thousand recent books and articles with full annotations. Taylor includes articles on related topics such as practical approaches to the language of the troubadours and the musicology of select troubadour songs, as well as articles situated within sociology, religious history, critical methodology, and psychoanalytical analysis. Each listing offers descriptive comments on the scholarly contribution of each source to Occitan literature, with remarks on striking or controversial content, and numerous cross-references that identify complementary studies and differing opinions. Taylor's painstaking attention to detail and broad knowledge of the field ensure that this guide will become the essential source for Occitan literary studies worldwide.

From the emergence of plainsong to the end of the fourteenth century, this Companion covers all the key aspects of medieval music. Divided into three main sections, the book first of all discusses repertory, styles and techniques - the key areas of traditional music histories; next taking a topographical view of the subject - from Italy, German-speaking lands, and the Iberian Peninsula; and concludes with chapters on such issues as liturgy, vernacular poetry and reception. Rather than presenting merely a chronological view of the history of medieval music, the volume instead focuses on technical and cultural aspects of the subject. Over nineteen informative chapters, fifteen world-leading scholars give a perspective on the music of the Middle Ages that will serve as a point of orientation for the informed listener and reader, and is a must-have guide for anyone with an interest in listening to and understanding medieval music.

French Vocal Literature: Repertoire in Context introduces singers to the history and performance concerns of a vast body of French songs from the twelfth century to the present, focusing on works for solo voice or small vocal ensembles with piano or organ accompaniment, suitable for recitals, concerts, and church performances. Georgine Resick presents vocal repertoire within the context of trends and movements of other artistic disciplines, such as poetry, literature, dance, painting, and decorative arts, as well as political and social currents pertinent to musical evolution. Developments in French style and genre—and comparisons among individual composers and national styles—are traced through a network of musical influence. French Vocal Literature is ideally suited for voice teachers and coaches as well as student and professional performers. The companion website, frenchvocalliterature.com, provides publication information, a discography, links to online recordings and scores, a chronology of events pertinent to music, a genealogy of royal dynasties, and a list of governmental regimes.

Spanning a millennium of musical history, this monumental volume brings together nearly forty leading authorities to survey the music of Western Europe in the Middle Ages. All of the major aspects of medieval music are considered, making use of the latest research and thinking to discuss everything from the earliest genres of chant, through the music of the liturgy, to the riches of the vernacular song of the trouvères and troubadours. Alongside this account of the core repertory of monophony, The Cambridge History of Medieval Music tells the story of the birth of polyphonic music, and studies the genres of organum, conductus, motet and polyphonic song. Key composers of the period are introduced, such as Leoninus, Perotinus, Adam de la Halle, Philippe de Vitry and Guillaume de Machaut, and other chapters examine topics ranging from musical theory and performance to institutions, culture and collections.

The lyrics of medieval "courtly love" songs are characteristically self-conscious. Giving Voice to Love investigates similar self-consciousness in the musical settings. Moments and examples where voice, melody, rhythm, form, and genre seem to comment on music itself tell us about musical responses to the courtly chanson tradition, and musical reflections on the complexity of self-expression.

Sexuality is one of the most influential factors in human life. The responses to and reflections upon the manifestations of sexuality provide fascinating insights into fundamental aspects of medieval and early-modern culture. This interdisciplinary volume with articles written by social historians, literary historians, musicologists, art historians, and historians of religion and mental-ity demonstrates how fruitful collaborative efforts can be in the exploration of essential features of human society. Practically every aspect of culture both in the Middle Ages and the early modern age was influenced and determined by sexuality, which hardly ever surfaces simply characterized by prurient interests. The treatment of sexuality in literature, chronicles, music, art, legal documents, and in scientific texts illuminates central concerns, anxieties, tensions, needs, fears, and problems in human society throughout times.

Polyphony and the Modern asks one fundamental question: what does it mean to be modern in one’s own time? To answer that question, this volume focuses on polyphony as an index of modernity. In The Principle of Hope, Ernst Bloch showed that each moment in time is potentially fractured: people living in the same country can effectively live in different centuries – some making their alliances with the past and others betting on the future – but all of them, at least technically, enclosed in the temporal moment. But can a claim of modernity also mean something more ambitious? Can an artist, by accident or design, escape the limits of his or her own time, and somehow precociously embody the outlook of a subsequent age? This book sees polyphony as a bridge providing a terminology and a stylistic practice by which the period barrier between Medieval and Early Modern can be breached. Chapter 1 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/9781003129837