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Bakhtin and the discourse of late medieval music theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2008

Susan Fast
Susan Fast*
Affiliation:
McMaster University
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Extract

In his lucid discussion of genre in medieval treatises on music, Lawrence Gushee states that: The main part of Gushee's discussion is taken up with documents written up to the thirteenth century; for that reason he pays only a brief visit to treatises written thereafter, recognizing, however, a generic category in ‘works of the later thirteenth and fourteenth centuries which can be classed together merely by virtue of their size and synthetic character’. Among these he counts the treatises of Jacques de Liège, Walter Odington, Engelbert of Admont, Marchettus of Padua and Jerome of Moravia. One could add a few others to this list, such as the Tractatus de musica of Magister Lambertus and the work largely derived from that one, the Quatuor principalia musicae. These are ‘synthetic’, to use Gushee's word, in that they attempt a comprehensive treatment of their subject – they cover both theoretical and practical aspects of pitch and rhythm, and usually begin with a mythic/historic overview of music and a classification scheme that situates it within the sphere of other disciplines.

Type
Research Article
Information
Plainsong & Medieval Music , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , October 1996 , pp. 175 - 191
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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Footnotes

*

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the International Medievalist Congress, University of Leeds, 7 July 1994.

References

1 Gushee, Lawrence, ‘Questions of Genre in Medieval Treatises on Music’, in Gattungen der Musik in Einzeldarstellungen: Gedenkschrift Leo Schrade (Bern, 1973), 366.Google Scholar

2 Ibid., 432.

3 Jacques de Liège, Speculum musicae, ed. Roger Bragard, Corpus sciptorum de musica [hereafterCSM] 3 (American Institute of Musicology, 1955–73); Walter Odington, Summa de speculatione musicae, ed. F. F. Hammond, CSM 14 (1970); Engelbert of Admont, ed. M. Gerbert, Scriptores ecclesiastici de musica sacra (St Blasien, 1784; rpt. 1963), II, 287–369; Marchettus of Padua, Pomerium, ed. G. Vecchi, CSM 6 (1961); S. M. Cserba, ed., Hieronymus de Moravia O.P. Tractatus de musica (Regensburg, 1935); Cuiusdam Aristotelis tractatus de musica [Lambertus], ed. de Coussemaker, E., Scriptorum de musica medii aevi nova series (Paris, 1864–76; rpt. Hildesheim, 1963), I, 251–81Google Scholar; Quatuor principalia musicae, ibid., TV, 200–98.

4 In texts such as the late medieval Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas, for example, a formal scheme is followed in which the text is divided into ‘distinctions‘, each of which is argued proand con and in which a reconciliation of conflicting points of view is the desired outcome, aliterary genre that reflects scholastic method. The summa musica was more of a summary of thevarious aspects of the discipline of music. For further discussion on the forms of medievalscholastic literature see Hastings Rashdall, The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, new edn,3 vols., ed. F. M. Powicke and A. B. Emden (Oxford, 1936), I, 490–6.

5 M. M. Bakhtin, ‘The Problem of Speech Genres’, in Speech Genres and Other Late Essays, trans.Vern W. McGee (Austin, 1986), 60–102: quotation pp. 61–2.

6 The following discussion is based on Bakhtin's essays collected in The Dialogic Imagination, ed.Michael Holquist (Austin, 1981), and Speech Genres’ and Other Late Essays (Austin, 1986). For a good summary of Bakhtin's writings and ideas see Gary Saul Morson and Caryl Emerson, Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation of a Prosaics (Stanford, 1990), or Tzvetan Todorov, Mikhail Bakhtin: The Dialogical Principle (Minneapolis, 1990).

7 The Dialogic Imagination, 426–7.

8 From Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics, ed. and trans. Emerson, Caryl (Minneapolis, 1984) as quoted in Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation of a Prosaics, 60 Google Scholar.

9 Creation of a Prosaics, 239.

10 Ibid., 236.

11 It is especially for this last reason that Bakhtin has been embraced by so many recent writers who may be called ‘post-structuralist’. In this respect he is in sympathy with, among others, Michel Foucault (see, for example, The Archeology of Knowledge, trans. A. M. Sheridan Smith(London, 1972); The Order of Things (New York, 1971); or Language, Countermemory, Practice, trans.D. F. Bouchard (Ithaca, N.Y., 1977)).

12 ‘Discourse in the Novel’, The Dialogic Imagination, 343, 345.

13 Personal correspondence with Madeleine Jeay; see her article ‘Le texte médiéVal: mode d'emploi’, Texte 5/6 (1986–87), 279–300, for further discussion on this point.

14 The essay is contained in the volume Speaking Two Languages: Traditional Disciplines and Contemporary Theory in Medieval Studies, ed. A. Frantzen (New York, 1991), 181–210: quotation p. 187.

15 The Quatuor principalia is of English origin; I include examples from it here because it is largely based on the Tractatus by Lambertus.

16 Meyer, Christian, ‘Lecture(s) de Jérôme de Moravie: Jérôme de Moravie, lecteur de Boece’, in Jerome de Moravie: un théoricien de la musique dans le milieu intellectuel parisien du XIIIe siècle (Paris, 1989), 58 Google Scholar. The name ‘Afflighemensis’ applied to Johannes by J. Smits van Waesberghe in hisedition (Rome, 1950 = CSM 1) is now widely regarded as untenable, but is retained here for purposes of identification.

17 Ibid.

18 Jacques de Liège, who does, as Meyer points out, quote a large number of the older music theorists, has a different purpose from Jerome.

19 Christopher Page, Voices and Instruments in the Middle Ages (London and Berkeley, 1987), 50.

20 Ibid., 57.

21 Hieronymus de Moravia, 7–10.

22 This has been pointed out by Cserba, Hieronymus de Moravia, 7 and again by Meyer, ‘Lecture(s)de Jerome de Moravie’, 60.

23 Johannes Aegidius de Zamora, Ars musica, ed. M. Robert-Tissot, CSM 20 (1974), 54: ‘Musica secundum Boetium est motus vocum inter se consonantium congrua vocum proportione’.

24 Meyer, ‘Lecture(s) de Jerome de Moravia’, 61, also points this out.

25 Hieronymus de Moravia, 7: ‘…musica facultas harmonica est differentias acutorum et graviumsonorum sensu ac ratione perpendens’.

26 G. Friedlein, ed., Anicii Manlii Torquati Severini Boetii de institutione arithmetica libri duo de institutione musica libri quinque accedit geometria quae fertur Boetii (Leipzig, 1867), 352: ‘Armonica est facultas differentias acutorum et gravium sonorum sensu ac ratione perpendens’.

27 Boethius, The Fundamentals of Music, trans. Calvin M. Bower (New Haven, 1990), 163n.

28 Al-Farabi, De scientiis, as found in Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum doctrinale, Book XVII, chapterXV, transcribed in Henry George Farmer, Al-Farabi's Arabic-Latin Writings on Music (New York,1934; rpt. I960), 21–3: ‘Musica comprehendit cognitionem specierum armonie, et illud ex quocomponitur et quibus modis. Musica quoque dividitur in activam et speculativam …’

29 Richard of St Victor, Liber exceptionum I. 8, ed. Jean Chatillon (Paris, 1958), 107: Musica est plurium dissimilium in unum redactorum concordia’.

30 Boethius, ed. Friedlein (see n. 26), 191: ‘Est enim consonantia dissimilium inter se vocum in unum redacta concordia’.

31 Boethius, The Fundamentals of Music, I. 9, trans. Bower, 17: ‘… the sense of hearing … servesas an exhortation; the ultimate perfection and the faculty of recognition consists of reason, which … does not falter by any error’. ‘… there is no certain judgment, no comprehension of truth, in [the senses] if the arbitration of reason is lacking.’ And I. 10: ‘This, then, was primarily thereason why Pythagoras, having abandoned the judgment of hearing, had turned to the weight of rules’.

32 Isidore of Seville, Liber Etymologiarum sive originum libri xx, ed. W. M. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911), III. 15: ‘Musica est periria modulationis sono cantuque consistens’.

33 Jerome's Latin reads, ‘Musica est sonorum divisio et vocum modulata varietas’, but in the standard modern edition of Hugh of St Victor's Didascalicon, the phrase is ‘Musica est sonorum et vocumvarietas’. Hugonis de Sancto Victore Didascalicon de Studio Legendi, ed. Charles Henry Buttimer, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Latin 10 (Washington, 1939), II. 15, p. 34.

34 Augustine, De musica, I. 2, ed. Migne, Patrologiæ latinæ, xxxii, 1083a.

35 Johannes Afflighemensis, De musica, Chapter 4. The passage in Jerome reads: ‘Musica est congrua vocum modulatio’. Interestingly, the wording differs in Johannes's text, which reads: ‘Est enimmusica nihil aliud, quam vocum motio congrua’, not ‘modulatio’ (CSM 1, p. 58).

36 This text has not been identified. As quoted in Jerome (Hieronymus de Moravia, 10) the passage reads: ‘Musica est scientia de numero relato ad sonos. Aliter practice: Musica est scientia demultitudine sonorum, aliter: Musica est veraciter canendi scientia et facilis ad canendi perfectionem via.’

37 Lambertus (see n. 3), 252; Johannes de Muris, Notitia artis musicsæ, ed. U. Michels, CSM 17, 49.Musica <speculativa>, ed. Susan Fast (Ottawa, 1994), 8.

38 Hieronymus de Moravia, 47–8: ‘… claves similiter nominant, quae clausae claudant apertae aperiuntdulcedinem organicae melodiae’.

39 Lambertus, 254: ‘… A B C D E F G, que etiam claves vocantur, quia sicut per claves reseratur sera, ita per has litteras reseratur musice melodia. Et sicut clavis in sera revolvitur, ita torusannus et torus anni canrus in istis septem litteris replicatur.’.

40 Creation of a Prosaics, 132.

41 T. Todorov, ‘Notes From the Underground’, in Genres in Discourse (Cambridge, 1990), 80.

42 Lambertus (see n. 3), 252.

43 Isidore of Seville, Liber Etymologiarum, III. xviii: ‘Musicae partes sunt tres, id est, harmonica, rhythmica, metrica’. Cf. Cassiodorus, Insitutiones, II. v. 4, ed. R. Mynors (Oxford, 1937), 144.

44 Liber sapientiae, 11. 21: ‘… sed omnia mensura et numero et pondere disposuisti’.

45 Lambertus, 252: ‘… harmonica est illa que consistit in numeris dupliciter et mensuris: una localis secundum proportionem sonorum vocumque, alia temporalis secundum proportionem longarum breviumque figarum’.

46 Isidore of Seville, Liber Etymologiarum, III. xvii.

47 ambertus, 278: ‘Sicut in omne quod est, mensuram ponere prodest, sic sine mensura, deperitomne quod est.’

48 Jacques de Liege, Speculum musice, Book VI, 202: ‘Est enim duplex mensura: quaedam quae respicit vocum extremarum in consonantiis distantiam, ut quod amplius distant voces extremae in diapente quam in diatessaron.… Haec mensura bene pertinet ad cantum planum. Alia est mensura temporalis …’

49 Ibid.: ‘… quaedam quae circa voces et notas attendet certain et determinatam temporis morulam utquod talis vox vel nota unum tempus perfectum valeat, vel imperfectum, ilia duo, alia <tria>; et haec ad cantum pertinet mensuratum’.

50 Ibid.: ‘… alia quae mensuram aliquam supra voces, etiam successive prolatus, inspicit ut quoduna morosius decantetur quam alia; et haec ad cantum pertinere potest planum …’

51 Hieronymus de Moravia, 180: ‘Musica mensurabilis est peritia modulationis sono cantuque consistens harmonico tempore mensurata’.

52 Ibid., 179–80: ‘… ecclesiasticus cantus potest considerari dupliciter, primo scilicet inquanrum per se, id est sine discantu ab uno, duobus aut a pluribus vel etiam a toto choro canitur, secundo, inquantum discantui subjicitur, ideo de primo, id est de modo cantandi et formandi notas etpausas ecclesiastici cantus principaliter hie intendimus’. P. 181: ‘Nota longa in cantu ecclesiastico sumpta habet et habere debet duo tempora modernorum resolvendo vero VI tempora antiquorum’.

53 There is a brief discussion of this passage, and also of Jerome's suggested performance practice of chant, in John Caldwell, ‘Plainsong and Polyphony 1250–1550’, in Plainsong in the Age of Polyphony, ed. Thomas Forrest Kelly (Cambridge, 1992), 10–11.

54 Quatuor principalia musicae, 251: ‘Nam planus cantus modulare debet aequaliter, in modo, et inmensura … sciendum est quod omnes planus cantus pronunriari debet in quinto modo aut in sexto, id est, per longas aut per breves.… Sed causa melodiae et coloris, unus vocis aliquapars auferenda est et alteri concedenda.’

55 Ibid.: ‘Item cum pausatio post tres notas fiat, et quaelibet nota secundum naturam tria temporavalet, tamen pro melodia facienda color eis conceditur, ita ut prima ex tribus temporibus integresine floritura pronuncietur. Penultima autem nota ex quatuor temporibus, de quibus tria temporateneri debent simplicitur inflorata, et quartum ejus tempus ex duabus semibrevibus frangi debet.Ultima autem nota ex duobus temporibus simpliciter et sine floritura teneri debet. Sed dulciturin suo sono situatur ac in gutture duabus semibrevibus duplicatur.’ Figure 1 appears on thispage of the treatise.

56 Johannes de Garlandia, De mensurabili musica, ed. Erich Reimer, Beihefte zum archiv für Musikwissenschaft, vol. 10 (Wiesbaden, 1972), 34: ‘Habito de ipsa plana musica, quae immensurabilis dicitur, nunc est praesens intentio de ipsa mensurabili ’.

57 The Anonymous of St Emmeram, De musica mensurata, ed. and trans. Jeremy Yudkin (Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1990), 71: ‘… ista musica in duas partes dividitur principales, scilicet in immensurabilem et mensurabilem. Et nota, quod immensurabilis est ilia, ubi non sunt longae vel breves vel aliqua quantitas temporum sub certo numero distributa. Mensurabilis est illa, in quasua quantitas temporum reperitur.’

58 Gushee, ‘Questions of Genre’, 426–7.

59 Jacques de Liège, Speculum musicae, Book VII, chapter 4, p. 10: ‘Guido sub nomine diaphoniae, discantum sic describit: Diaphonia est vocum disiunctio’. Book VI, p. 202: ‘Cantus planus est debita vocum et consonantiarum coniunctarum prolatio’.

60 Lambertus (see n. 3), 255–6: ‘Proprietas, ut hic sumitur, nihil aliud est quam differentia; et sunttres species differentiarum, scilicet b durum, b molle, et natura … natura dicitur cantus sumptus sine aliquod b, id est sine differentia, et hoc proprie’.

61 Jacques de Liège, Speculum musice, Book VI, p. 178: ‘Tres igitur sunt proprietas cantuum vel modicantandi iam dicti, quorum unus a natura denominatur, non quia alii duo naturales non sint … sed quia continet tetrachordum finalium in quo naturalius principalius saepius et regularius cantus finiuntur’.

62 Quatuor principalia musicae, 222: ‘Et est sciendum quod duplex est proprietas, videlicet monochordi et cantus mensurabilis. … Unde proprietas nil aliud est quam differentia plani cantus. Et sunttres differentiae, a quibus omnis cantus habet denominari. Scilicet - durum sive quadratum; bmolle et natura …’

63 Lambertus, 269: ‘… sex tantummodo figure sunt adinvente quarum bine et bine semper suntaffines, etiam in forma et quantitate consimiles; sed in potestate, arte, regula differunt et natura’.

64 Garlandia's classification of consonance and dissonance occurs in De plana musica; rhythm in De mensurabili musica. See the discussion in Rebecca A. Baltzer, ‘Johannes de Garlandia’, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie (London, 1980), IX, 662–4.

65 Lambertus, 257: ‘Tonus autem est perfectum spatium duarum vocum, duo semitonio continens non equalia. Est enim tonus quaedam percussio aeris indissoluta usque ad auditum … et dicitura tono, tonas, eo quod perfecte tonat, id est perfect ostendit distantiam inter duas voces…. Semitonium est imperfectum spatium duarum vocum …’

66 Boethius, Fundamentals, trans. Bower, I. 3, p. 11.

67 A more usual rendering of this etymology is ‘tonus dicitur a tonando, id est, sonando, qui nisisonaret nullatenus audiretur’. Johannes de Muris <Musica speculativa>, ed. Fast, 54. See Fritz Reckow, ‘Diapason, diocto, octava’, in Handwörterbuch der musicalischen Terminologie, ed. H. H.Eggebrecht (Weisbaden, 1972-), I, for a plethora of further examples.

68 Lambertus, 258: ‘Et ideo falsa musica quandoque necessaria est, etiam et ut omnis consonantiaseu melodia in quolibet signo perficiatur’.

69 See Jeremy Yudkin, ‘The Anonymous of St. Emmeram, and the Anonymous IV on the Copula', The Musical Quarterly, 70/1 (Winter 1984), 1–22, on the relationship between some Aristotelian terminology and music theory. A more far-reaching analysis can be found in Dorit Tanay, Musicin the Age of Ockham: The Interrelations Between Music, Mathematics and Philosophy in the Fourteenth Century, Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley (1989), University Microfilms No.9006532.

70 Robert W. Harming, “I Shall Finde it in a Maner Glose': Versions of Textual Harassment in Medieval Literature, in Medieval Texts and Contemporary Readers, ed. Laurie A. Finke et al. (Ithaca, NY, 1987), 27–50.

71 Julia Kristeva, ‘Word Dialogue, and Novel’, in Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literatureand Art, trans. T. Gora, et al. (New York, 1980), 64–91.

72 Ibid., 73.

73 Ibid., 78.

74 Ibid., 71.

75 Kristeva, ‘From One Identity to Another’, in Desire in Language, 12