Synopses & Reviews
This volume addresses the problem of music and composition in an anonymous creative milieuthe Middle Ages. Other examples of this include the
Glossa ordinaria, whose Biblical commentators have remained maddeningly obscured. The problem is especially crucial for medieval music, having to do with a medieval concept of fame, as well as the basic concept of what a composer is and does, as well as creative originality and inspiration. The medieval idea of the creative process differs totally from our own today.
Most books on medieval music are incomprehensible for students and medievalists alike, not to mention the interested lay reader. This volume brings the medieval priorities with respect to music into focus. Music in the Middle Ages (broadly interpreted to the late 18th century), rather than existing solely for its educative or entertainment value, or as sefl-expression of the individual artist and composer, had the serious challenge of exemplifying the basic concepts that underlie the universe as well as everyday life in the world around us. These basic principles include the concepts of particularity within general, unlimited, inchoate mass, relationship, and movement. Far more than a luxury or entertainment, music as a discipline was utterly necessary within the medieval educational system, as well as within the mental universe of thinking individuals in the Middle Ages.
Review
"This is an excellent and in many ways important, much-needed book. . . . One of the author's best accomplishments in this book is the reestablishment of the idea of medieval music qua music and not just as theoretical parlor game, as it is so often portrayed. Summing Up: Highly recommended." - Choice
Synopsis
Nancy van Deusen's The Cultural Context of Medieval Music addresses the mental landscape surrounding music that, especially, was sung and experienced in the Middle Ages. Largely anonymous in its composition, and apparently lacking the motivation of fame and commerce, music within a well thought-out system of education served a purpose that goes far beyond casual entertainment or personal professional advancement. Offering experience through performance, music exemplified the basic principles not only of the material and possible measurements of the visible world—such as of objects, relationships, and movement—but also of the invisible materials of sound and time, making it an ideal medium for working with unseen substances such as concepts, imaginations, and ideas. St. Augustine in the late fourth century reinforced the importance of music for the process of learning when he wrote that nothing could be truly understood without music. This book shows how this, in fact, is the case—a message of great relevance today.
Synopsis
An urgently needed guide to understanding medieval music to be used as a text for the university undergraduate, graduate students in music and interdisciplinary medieval studies, and for the professional musicologist and medievalist. This book will also be appreciated by everyone interested in early music.