Metadata
- File: Music in the Medieval West by Fassler (2014).pdf
- Zotero: View Item
- Type: Book
- Title: Music in the Medieval West,
- Author: Fassler, Margot Elsbeth;
- Publisher: W. W. Norton and Company,
- Location: New York,
- Series: Western music in context : a Norton history
- Year: 2014
- ISBN: 978-0-393-92915-7
Abstract
Tags and Collections
- Keywords: 01 Unread; Music; Music History
Comments
Annotations
Annotations(10/2/2022, 12:53:57 PM)
“Her music can be viewed as an exploration of the role that praise and song play within communal life” (Fassler, 2014, p. 137)
“carefully heightened notation” (Fassler, 2014, p. 137)
“morality play called Ordo virtutum” (Fassler, 2014, p. 137)
“Scivias, a record of Hildegard’s visions” (Fassler, 2014, p. 137)
“incorporate” “music into theological treatises.” (Fassler, 2014, p. 138)
“she claimed to receive much of her music and her major theological treatises in visions that came directly from God” (Fassler, 2014, p. 138)
“Mathias sanctus, a sequence dedicated to Matthias” (Fassler, 2014, p. 138)
“Scivias unfolds in visions” (Fassler, 2014, p. 138)
“The music Hildegard describes has three aspects: sounds of the saints, laments calling people back to rightful acts of praise, and the music of the Ordo virtutum, in which the personified virtues help secure salvation for those ensnared by the Devil.” (Fassler, 2014, p. 139)
“she likens the virgins to a tree embraced by the divinity that shines in a brilliant sphere not touched by the earth” (Fassler, 2014, p. 139)
“O nobilissima viriditas is a song of joy celebrating the undefiled Church that is powerfully allegorized by the Virgin Mary” (Fassler, 2014, p. 139)
“The virtues, who would have been played by the members of Hildegard’s community, sing to the lost soul of goodness, each allegorizing particular inner states.” (Fassler, 2014, p. 140)
“the Ordo virtutum is about love and the place of the individual within the community” (Fassler, 2014, p. 140)
“Each Virtue has a lover, the bridegroom of the Song of Songs, who is also Christ. The idea is that each soul can relate to him in a special way, becoming a new Eve in the monastic garden of Eden, and embodying a particular virtue that is part of a larger understanding of community life” (Fassler, 2014, p. 140)
“Human sexuality is a metaphor for divine love in this scene” (Fassler, 2014, p. 141)
Notes
See: Ordo Virtutum
- dramatis personae: personified virtues talking to each other about their love of Jesus Christ (???)
- e.g. humility (queen of virtues), the soul, the devil, patriarchs, charity, faith, etc
- Soul cannot be tempted by the demon when in body (soul & body in harmony = both physical and spiritual health).
- Devil only speaks and does not sing, since lack of harmony is evil (harmony = peace = balance, …), which is a Platonic idea.
- Word painting to portray cloud (up & down).
- Melodic analysis in chants
- text setting: melismatic vs syllabic
- melodic range: narrow vs wide
- melodic contour: shape of the melodic line (ascending vs descending vs wave …)
- phrases: open melody vs closed melody (does the melody resolve to the tonic?)
- e.g. musically conveyed claustrophobic through melodic compression (compressing the range of the melody)
- e.g. conveyance of sun & light / brightening through melodic expansion and modulation (dorian to phrygian, first step is not a half step anymore