MHST 570D Topics in the Renaissance: Secular Music in Europe, 1380-1520
The ‘long’ fifteenth century in Europe (ca. 1380-1520) sees the turbulent transition from the late middle ages to the early phases of the renaissance. Secular music of the period encompasses an extraordinarily wide range of works and practices: not only courtly songs of love and loss, but also music for civic festivities, instrumental music for dancing, entertainments provided by minstrels, the unwritten traditions of solo singing, and much else. This course, while addressing many of these topics, focuses on one of the central genres of the period: the polyphonic setting of lyric poetry (mainly in French and Italian). We will examine a range of issues relating to these works—their historical, social, and stylistic contexts; their notation and transmission; the advent of music printing; questions of performance practice (both then and now); composers’ approaches to text setting—in order to situate secular music within a broad complex of cultural practices in the cities and courts of Europe. There will be regular analytical and transcription assignments, quizzes on readings, and a final research project.