Devotional Refrains in Medieval Latin Song

"Introduction Latin Song and Refrain Within medieval Latin song, the refrain is a unit of text and music that repeats regularly in the course of an individual song. The refrain represents a moment of return, repetition, and remembering, the "re-" prefix signaling its functional and structural identity: the Latin refrain always repeats. The songs in which refrains appear typically feature rhymed, rhythmic, and largely devotional, yet generally non-liturgical, Latin poetry; songs are set to music for one or more voices, copied in manuscript sources beginning in the twelfth century, and transmitted as late as the sixteenth century in printed song anthologies. Identified as conductus, versus, cantilena, cantio, prosa, planctus, and rondellus, among other labels in the Middle Ages and contemporary scholarship, medieval Latin songs easily number over one thousand, transmitted in hundreds of manuscript sources throughout Europe"--

List of contents

Introduction: Latin song and refrain; 1. Latin song and refrain in the medieval year; 2. Refrains and the time of song: Singing religious narratives; 3. Singing the refrain: Shaping performance and community through form; 4. Remembering refrains: Composition, inscription, and performance; 5. Retexting refrains: Latin and vernacular refrains in contact; 6. Conclusion; Appendix; Bibliography; Index.

About the author

Mary Channen Caldwell is Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research, which focuses on medieval song, liturgy, pedagogy, and intertextuality, has been published in the Journal of the American Musicological Society, Music & Letters, the Journal of the Royal Musical Association, Plainsong & Medieval Music, and Early Music History.

Product details

• Authors: Mary Channen Caldwell, Mary Channen (University of Pennsylvania Caldwell, Mary Channen (University of Pennsylvania) Caldwell
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 30.04.2022
• EAN: 9781316517192
• ISBN: 978-1-316-51719-2
• No. of pages: 320
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Music > Music theory; History, Music, HISTORY / General, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Archaeology, MUSIC / Genres & Styles / Classical, CE period up to c 1500, Archaeology, Renaissance style, History and Archaeology, C 500 CE To C 1000 CE, Art music, orchestral and formal music, Medieval & Renaissance music (c 1000 to c 1600), Medieval style, Western "classical" music