Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Contributors
- Abbreviations and Library sigla
- Introduction
- Traces of Lost Late Medieval Offices? The Sanctilogium Angliae, Walliae, Scotiae, et Hiberniae of John of Tynemouth (fl.1350)
- The Saints Venerated in Medieval Peterborough as Reflected in the Antiphoner Cambridge, Magdalene College, f.4.10
- Interactions between Brittany and Christ Church, Canterbury in the Tenth Century: The Linenthal leaf
- A New Source of Late Seventeenth- and Early Eighteenth-Century English Harpsichord Music by Barrett, Blow, Clarke, Croft, Purcell and Others
- The Earliest Fifteenth-Century Transmission of English Music to the Continent
- ‘Phantasy mania’: Quest for a National Style
- Purcell's 1694 Te Deum and Jubilate: Its Successors, and Its Performance History
- Imitative Counterpoint in Mid-Fifteenth-Century English Mass Settings
- Double cantus firmus Compositions in the Eton Choirbook
- Englishness in a Kyrie (Mis)attributed to Du Fay
- Continuity, Discontinuity, Fragments and Connections: The Organ in Church, c. 1500–1640
- ‘As the sand on the sea shore’: Women Violinists in London's Concert Life around 1900
- The Carol in Anglo-Saxon Canterbury?
- Luisa de Carvajal y Mendoza and Music in an English Catholic House in 1605
- Music in Oxford, 1945–1960: The Years of Change
- Three Anglican Church Historians on Liturgy and Psalmody in the Ancient Synagogue and the Early Church
- Histories of British Music and the Land Without Music: National Identity and the Idea of the Hero
- John Caldwell (b 1938): Scholar, Composer, Teacher, Musician
- Index
- Tabula Gratulatoria
Imitative Counterpoint in Mid-Fifteenth-Century English Mass Settings
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 March 2023
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Contributors
- Abbreviations and Library sigla
- Introduction
- Traces of Lost Late Medieval Offices? The Sanctilogium Angliae, Walliae, Scotiae, et Hiberniae of John of Tynemouth (fl.1350)
- The Saints Venerated in Medieval Peterborough as Reflected in the Antiphoner Cambridge, Magdalene College, f.4.10
- Interactions between Brittany and Christ Church, Canterbury in the Tenth Century: The Linenthal leaf
- A New Source of Late Seventeenth- and Early Eighteenth-Century English Harpsichord Music by Barrett, Blow, Clarke, Croft, Purcell and Others
- The Earliest Fifteenth-Century Transmission of English Music to the Continent
- ‘Phantasy mania’: Quest for a National Style
- Purcell's 1694 Te Deum and Jubilate: Its Successors, and Its Performance History
- Imitative Counterpoint in Mid-Fifteenth-Century English Mass Settings
- Double cantus firmus Compositions in the Eton Choirbook
- Englishness in a Kyrie (Mis)attributed to Du Fay
- Continuity, Discontinuity, Fragments and Connections: The Organ in Church, c. 1500–1640
- ‘As the sand on the sea shore’: Women Violinists in London's Concert Life around 1900
- The Carol in Anglo-Saxon Canterbury?
- Luisa de Carvajal y Mendoza and Music in an English Catholic House in 1605
- Music in Oxford, 1945–1960: The Years of Change
- Three Anglican Church Historians on Liturgy and Psalmody in the Ancient Synagogue and the Early Church
- Histories of British Music and the Land Without Music: National Identity and the Idea of the Hero
- John Caldwell (b 1938): Scholar, Composer, Teacher, Musician
- Index
- Tabula Gratulatoria
Summary
THE VAST REPERTORY of English fifteenth-century settings of the Mass Ordinary is now available in critical editions to such an extent that general overviews seem possible. Particular progress has recently been made with editing compositions of the post-Dunstaple generation, datable approximately between 1435 and 1465; it is on this repertory that the present study will focus. The historical and critical interpretation of this music faces questions of cultural context, of dating and transmission, of performance practice, of ritual function, of sonority and aesthetics, allegorical meaning and structural innovation. Previous research has largely been inclined towards named authors – Dunstaple, Power, Benet, Bedyngham, Frye, Plummer – usually in the context of the editions themselves. Typically, discussion of styles has been stimulated by contested composer attributions or hypothetical new ascriptions. The numerous anonymous works have attracted less attention, although there are studies of stylistic layers in the earliest part of the repertory, of the authorship of the anonymous M. Caput (m7), and of a few mid-century cycles. The following short contribution attempts to throw some light on a relatively neglected aspect of compositional style and aesthetics: imitative counterpoint. In the mid-fifteenth century this technique seems to have been relatively infrequent (at least in England), so that its occurrences may offer all the more useful clues towards attribution, dating and general stylistic classification. One observation to be elaborated here is that the uses of imitative counterpoint in English masses of this period are drastically differentiated. There is neither a simple stylistic progression in time (for example, from less to more imitation), nor can it easily be explained why certain compositions should be full of the device, others bare. The fascinating possibility emerges that imitative composition depended on the whim of composers, and in some – although not all – cases may have functioned as a personal fingerprint.
This essay will first survey some contrapuntal characteristics of imitative writing in this repertory, paying attention to stricter and freer forms, and to rhythmic and textural implications. Special kinds of imitative counterpoint and its highlighting will be observed. Then it will consider the significance of the technique for text-setting, text underlay, textual meaning and general form.
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- Essays on the History of English Music in Honour of John CaldwellSources, Style, Performance, Historiography, pp. 143 - 161Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2010
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