Auctor incertus: Issues of authorship and anonymity around Missa Inviolata (ca. 1520s)
(2024)
author(s): Isaac Alonso de Molina
published in: KC Research Portal
A six-part polyphonic setting of the ordinary of the Mass survives as a unicum in manuscript 1967 of the Biblioteca Central de Barcelona, Spain. Although it is clearly the most significant piece in the manuscript, it has received considerably less attention from specialized ensembles than the rest of the repertoire contained therein. This may be due to several factors, chief among them being that the manuscript provides no indication of the composer’s identity. Such anonymity is quite common when dealing with early repertoires. This research aims to address this situation critically and offer several practical, performer-oriented strategies to overcome it.
Rewritable Creatures. Correspondence between Daniel Aschwanden, Vera Sebert and Lucie Strecker on Mimesis and Hybridity in Choreography
(2023)
author(s): Lucie Strecker, Vera Sebert
published in: University of Applied Arts Vienna
Lucie Strecker (Angewandte Performance Laboratory and Department of Art and Communication Practices) reveals the artistic working process preceding a production with the contribution "Rewritable Creatures", reflecting on mimesis and hybridity in choreography through an exchange of letters with the late performer Daniel Aschwanden (Angewandte Performance Laboratory and Department of Art and Communication Practices) and the author Vera Sebert. As the three letter-writers search, speculate and ask each other questions, the text becomes a written performance, revealing an immediate, polyphonic approach to the subject that allows readers to become part of the performance. In this way, processes of hybridisation become manifest in writing. The performance, however, cannot be completed; Aschwanden’s sudden death interrupts the text, turning the contribution, in a sense, into a memorial to an artist, friend, and colleague and the readers into witnesses.
Intabulation as process and practice (Master thesis)
(2021)
author(s): Asako Ueda
published in: KC Research Portal
Research Title:
Intabulation as process and practice
Research questions:
When it comes to the manifold surviving solo lute intabulations from around 1500, where is the line between "unwritten" and "written" intabulation?
Intabulating involves the writing out of several parts into tablature, but does this twofold distinction really apply to all pieces?
What was the process of appropriation of vocal polyphony for a lutenist of the early 16th century?
How can we apply this to our own processes?
Abstract:
Intabulation refers to the arrangement of vocal pieces for what Johannes Tinctoris refers to as a “perfect instrument”, amongst which he counts such instruments as keyboards and the lute – and it implies writing out the parts of a polyphonic composition into tablature. However, after playing many surviving intabulations for several years, I had a strong feeling that there must be an “unwritten” solo lute intabulation practice behind the “written” intabulations from the beginning of the 16th century, in contrast to the more “composed” intabulations from the time after the mid-16th century. While surviving sources provide us with much information on what lutenists played, they also hide the “unwritten” practice which they did not record. We can only imagine what was happening. In this thesis, I investigate the process of intabulation by lute players from this time by analysing and comparing different versions of the same song from different sources. Through this research, I trace the transition of the changing style of intabulation, which is in turn related to the transition of lute technique from plectrum to finger-plucked and the change in style of the vocal models. Moreover, the diffusion of printed music changed the manner of the transmission of music. To conclude, I hypothesise that lute players might have listened to and copied each other’s intabulations unconsciously, and when they wanted to preserve their work, they might have made some adjustments to their intabulations. The study also suggests how to apply these ideas to actual intabulation practice, which will be presented in the Research Symposium online as a video format.
Biography:
The Japanese lutenist Asako Ueda studied the lute at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague with Mike Fentross and Joachim Held and completed her Bachelor's with the highest achievable mark, which gives her the opportunity to continue to the Master’s program with the Excellence Scholarship of the Royal Conservatory of the Hague. She won first prize at the Biagio Marini Competition and third prize at the International Van Wassenaer Competition.
She started playing the violin at the age of five. After finishing her Bachelor’s degree with the violin in Tokyo, she continued to study the Baroque violin and composition.
https://asakoueda.com
Discantare Super Planum Cantum : new approaches to vocal polyphonic improvisation 1300-1470
(last edited: 2023)
author(s): Niels Berentsen
connected to: Academy of Creative and Performing Arts
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
Today’s performances of medieval polyphony have a lot in common with those of other ‘classical’ or ‘early’ music. Ensembles perform pieces written by known or lesser known composers, which the listener can revisit by listening to recordings or reading a score. In the middle ages, however, the performance of compositions was only one of the ways available to singers for creating polyphonic music. The ability to improvise a second or third voice above a plainchant melody, called discantare super planum cantum (‘singing above the plainchant’) or cantare super librum (‘singing on the book’), was a crucial skill for a church musician in the middle ages, and singers were trained at this from an early age.
Niels Berentsens’ project aims to expand our knowledge of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century polyphony, through music-historical scholarship as well as practical experiences. An in-depth investigation of the material remains of late medieval musical culture—compositions and theoretical writings about music—forms the basis for experiments with polyphonic improvisation above plainchants together with colleague-singers and students. The project has developed new ways of understanding late medieval polyphony, which are useful not only for teaching and analysis, but which may form a stimulus for contemporary performance practices of early music as well.
Grenzen van het hoorbare: over de meerstemmigheid van het lichaam
(last edited: 2023)
author(s): Mark van Tongeren
connected to: Academy of Creative and Performing Arts
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
In our culture, vocal harmonics fuction as independent musical elements since only a few decades. Thresholds of the audible explores the changing relationship between singers, listeners and harmonics. As a research method a series of compositions (Nulpunten/’Zeropoints’) has been developed, which attempt to make a fresh approach to overtone singing and to the sonic source material of the human body. They spark off further investigations of reality and illusion of our auditory world. Using his experiences with Tibetan monks and Sardinian brotherhoods and the ‘transverbal’ oeuvre of Michael Vetter, Mark van Tongeren develops his notion ‘multiphony of the body’. The last word, according to him, must be given to readers/listeners, who are challenged to shift their thresholds of the audible with the cd It starts here and the performance Incognito ergo sum.
A six-part polyphonic setting of the ordinary of the Mass survives as a unicum in manuscript 1967 of the Biblioteca Central de Barcelona, Spain. Although it is clearly the most significant piece in the manuscript, it has received considerably less attention from specialized ensembles than the rest of the repertoire contained therein. This may be due to several factors, chief among them being that the manuscript provides no indication of the composer’s identity. Such anonymity is quite common when dealing with early repertoires. This research aims to address this situation critically and offer several practical, performer-oriented strategies to overcome it.open exposition comments (1)