Discovering Medieval Song
Latin Poetry and Music in the Conductus

Comprehensive survey of the conductus over a period of more than one hundred years, demonstrating how music and poetry interact.

Mark Everist (Author)

9781009074971, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 11 November 2021

409 pages, 23 b/w illus. 22 tables 58 music examples
24.4 x 16.9 x 2.2 cm, 0.696 kg

'… I can only underline the importance of this work which fills an obvious gap in the historiography of medieval music … This book offers more than a 'Discovery' of the conduit, as its title invites us to believe, but in reality offers a deep immersion in medieval creation.' Anne-Zoé Rillon-Marne, Revue de musicologie

The Conductus repertory is the body of monophonic and polyphonic non-liturgical Latin song that dominated European culture from the middle of the twelfth century to the beginning of the fourteenth. In this book, Mark Everist demonstrates how the poetry and music interact, explores how musical structures are created, and discusses the geographical and temporal reach of the genre, including its significance for performance today. The volume studies what medieval society thought of the Conductus, its function in medieval society - whether paraliturgical or in other contexts - and how it fitted into patristic and secular Latin cultures. The Conductus emerges as a genre of great poetic and musical sophistication that brought the skills of poets and musicians into alignment. This book provides an all-encompassing view of an important but unexplored repertory of medieval music, engaging with both poetry and music even-handedly to present new and up-to-date perspectives on the genre.

Introduction: repositioning the Conductus
Note to the text
Acknowledgements
1. Repertories, chronology and style
2. Poetic and lyric types: words and music
3. Rhythm and metre: editing and performance
4. Cadential functions: gesture and closure
5. The mixed form: architecture and structure
6. The Conductus and the liturgy
7. Conductus and motet
8. The Conductus: intratexts and intertexts
9. Towards 1300
Conclusion
Appendices
Bibliography
Index codicum
General index.

Subject Areas: European history [HBJD], Literary studies: poetry & poets [DSC], Medieval & Renaissance music [c 1000 to c 1600 AVGC2]