The later Trecento repertoire contains many short, monostrophic ballatas with philosophical or moralising texts. Why should the poets and composers, mostly Florentine, have preferred the ballata over the madrigal when exploring serious subjects, and why did they employ the monostrophic form?

It turns out that the text structure of the monostrophic ballata is, in its essentials, comparable to the pattern of the geometric demonstration from Euclid's Elements, comprising premise, argumentation and return to the enhanced, proved premise (quod erat demonstrandum). Considered in light of Florentine Humanism's engagement with philosophy, including Ockham methods of demonstration, this article examines the possibility that Francesco Landini and other composers were sufficiently influenced by philosophy to view the structure of the monostrophic ballata as a means of logical demonstrations of refined arguments.

The Chantilly manuscript, probably compiled in the 1410s, is thought to have lost an original first sestern early in its history, as the folio numbers start at 13. Because the table of contents matches the order of pieces in the manuscript and starts with the present first item and at fol. 13, it has been assumed that it post-dates the sestern's loss. But the folio numbers were added to that table not by its original hand, but by a later (Italian) one, and that same hand wrote the foliation for the manuscript; table and foliation were therefore almost certainly provided in the same operation. If the table of contents was post factum, why is its foliation in a hand different from the incipits? This article argues that the table of contents was in fact prescriptive, drawn up by a different (French) person before the contents were copied, and that the foliation was added both to the index and the body of the manuscript after copying, allowing for a new planned gathering to be added at the beginning, perhaps including the two Cordier rondeaux. This was never completed; what we have is what there was, and nothing was lost. This hypothesis raises further questions about the codicological and chronological relation of the Cordier songs to the index, to that planned gathering, and to the early history of the manuscript, questions to which provisional answers are suggested.

The foundation of the solmisation system, attributed to Guido d'Arezzo, is based upon the application of the syllables ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, to the musical notes C D E F G A. Later, this system was expanded to incorporate a series of overlapping hexachords made up of these six syllables. These overlapping hexachords could allow a singer to move seamlessly across the regular musical space (the gamut) using only the six syllables (voces) via ‘mutations’. Even though the extent to which this system underpinned diatonic conceptions of musical space is being reconsidered, it seems clear that, at least for some musicians, it played an integral part in music education.

Although many theorists discussed the process of hexachordal mutation in their treatises, the approaches towards its exemplification and demonstration were far from uniform, given its conceptual rather than notated function. Johannes Tinctoris's Expositio manus (c.1472) includes a number of musical examples showing hexachordal mutation. His examples, rather unusually, include syllabic annotations to label the points of mutation within the musical notation, a practice that is almost without precedent. This article takes Tinctoris's treatise as a point of departure and compares the approaches taken towards the exemplification of hexachordal mutation in some theoretical texts from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, tracking the influence of their approaches forward into the sixteenth century. It considers what some different approaches can tell us about the conceptual function of the hexachord in pedagogy, and what the motives might have been for adopting specific exemplification practices.

The Editorial Committee extends its heartfelt thanks and warmest wishes to Rev. Jerome F. Weber, who is retiring as PMM's Audio Review Editor effective this issue. For a quarter century, Father Weber has regularly contributed reviews of hundreds of plainchant recordings to this journal, casting his net widely to capture Gregorian and post-Gregorian repertoires, monastic and regional traditions including Byzantine Chant, and chants on recordings devoted mainly to polyphony. Having published A Gregorian Chant Discography in 1990, addenda et corrigenda in PMM 19/1 (2010), he launched the website chantdiscography.com in November 2010, a relational database of sound recordings in formats ranging from shellac 78s and vinyl LPs to cassette tapes and compact discs. An enormously useful resource for scholars and music lovers alike, the online discography analyses well over a thousand new and re-issued CD recordings produced since 1990 along with data from the 1990 discography. We wish our colleague the very best in his well-earned retirement!