Interpreting Data, Constructing Performance: Source Study and the Recreation of Medieval Music Practices International Medieval Meeting Lleida 2019 Universitat de Lleida, 26 june 2019 Abstracts Marie-Virginie Cambriels (Le-Puy-en-Velay, France) A Cantiga Like a Motetus? The Case of Cantiga 341, Com’ a gran pesar a Virgen The Cantigas de Santa Maria are a collection of more than four hundred monophonic religious songs composed in the court of Alfonso X of Castile during the second half of the 13th century. Unfortunately, even though the collection presents some of the most interesting and beautiful melodies of the period, the songs are generally considered to be rather simple and even archaic specially when compared to the contemporaneous motet (a type of composition described by Johannes de Grocheio as being highly intellectual). But, could a simple monophonic Cantiga de Santa Maria also hide a subtle kind of polyphony and polytextuality? Is it possible to find some influence of the intellectual game of the motetus in some cantigas? With the use of contrafactum, musical and textual quotations, references, allusions, could a melody ideally become a piece as complex as a four voice motet? Through the analysis of the compositional elements of the Cantiga de Santa Maria 341, I propose to open the door to other ways of considering the Cantigas' monophonic repertoire, and consequently, perhaps also new performance possibilities. Oriol Casadevall i Crespo (Girona, Catalonia) Ben che sia antico è molto buono: La música del trecento segons Simone de’ Prodenzani Des del Decameron de Giovanni Bocaccio de mitjans del segle XIV, són nombroses les fonts literàries toscanes que retraten moments musicals, de les quals podem extreure nombrosa informació, tant del repertori, com de la praxis musical. Especialment interessant són els exemples recollits a Le Novelle de Giovanni Sercambi, Il Paradiso degli Alberti de Giovanni Gherardi da Prato, i el Liber Saporecti de Simone de’ Prodenzani. Tots ells escrits a inicis del segle XV, al mateix temps que es feien les grans complilacions del repertori del trecento, que ens enllacen amb la idea de la recopilació de quelcom que potser estava passant de moda i calia conservar. En aquest sentit és paradigmàtic el Còdex Squarcialupi i la seva concepció com a recull cronològic dels grans compositors del trecento, que inclou un retrat amb trets realistes de cada un d’ells. Aquest fet no és anecdòtic sinó que ens indica el valor testimonial del recull. D’alguna manera, aquesta idea també la trobem al Liber Saporecti de Simone de’ Prodenzani, on en el relat del Mundus placitus, descriu nombroses situacions musicals d’àmbits molt diferents (popular, eclesiàtic, cortesà…) amb l’afegit de les adjectivacions que retraten el moment més enllà de l’imatge, refererint-se també al so i a la recepció d’aquest. A més, l’autor es permet fer una valoració crítica que sobrepassa 1 la descripció i valoració de l’execució (tanto suave fo quel sono e fino, parve se ricordasse de sua manza), i arriba a la valoració del repertori en si (ben che sia antico è molto buono), fet que ens enllaça amb la idea del Còdex Squarcialupi i la seva voluntat «musicològica» de deixar conservat quelcom que està quedant desfasat. Baptiste Chopin (Annecy, France) The Medieval «Pig-Snout» Psaltery in the 14th Century: Iconography, Reconstruction, Musical Possibilities, and Playing Techniques Despite its popularity during the Middle Ages the psaltery is usually missing in modern-day ensembles dedicated to the performance of medieval music. The type of psaltery most commonly portrayed in visual sources produced between the 13th and the 15th centuries is known as the "pig-snout", a term taken from Praetorius' Syntagma Musicum. This Instrument is typically represented as being played in a standing position and held by the hands against the chest. Both holding position and playing techniques are in need of analysis and experimentation with reconstructed instruments. It is possible that during the 14th century the diatonic psaltery was developed to accommodate the more chromatic music of the time. This probably comprised the addition of more strings since the metal strings of the diatonic instrument (the material indicated in historical sources) could not be shortened by pressing them with the thumb in order to sharpen the note (as it is done in harps). In this paper I will propose how the instrument could have been developed to accommodate the performance of 14th century music. This will be conducted through iconographic analysis in conjunction with experimentation conducted on a psaltery recently built by Olivier Féraud (2018). I will also consider a possible way to play the psaltery in an attempt to place it within the modern medieval sound landscape. Live musical examples from the 14th century repertoire will be presented to support the presentation. Sarah Coffman (Cleveland, Ohio, USA) Petrucci’s «Justiniane» as Intabulation: Elaborate Vocalism at the Birth of Music Printing In Ottaviano Petrucci’s sixth book of Frottole (1505), there are four pieces that don’t belong. Identified as «Justiniane» by Walter Rubsammen in his 1957 study, these four songs exhibit a style that comes off as bizarre when compared to the other popular frottola pieces in the volume. Among other strange features, the four pieces all contain a superius line with fast, rambling semiminims and fusae, to which a compiler carefully set dialectal Venetian texts, implying that these uniquely virtuosic pieces are indeed songs, with superius lines meant to be sung. The fact that the pieces are named for the poet-composer Leonardo Giustinian (1383-1446) makes it tempting for scholars to conclude that the pieces are directly connected to him. Could Petrucci’s «Justiniane» be some of the only written evidence of what Giustinian’s music actually sounded like? Since he and the other Improvvisatore of his time belonged to what Nino Pirrotta calls «The Unwritten Tradition» of 15th-century Italian song, we may never know the answer to that question. But a concordant source for an unelaborated version of one of the «Justiniane» in the earlier chansonnier Escorial B points to an exciting possibility for practitioners of historical performance. In this paper, I argue that some professional 2 singers such as Serafino dall’Aquila (1466-1500) and Pietrobono de Burzellis (1417- 1497) might have participated in a tradition of intabulating popular songs in the manner of the Petrucci’s «Justiniane», and that what they produced might have resembled instrumental intabulations by the lutenist Spinacino and the compilers of the Buxheimer Orgelbuch. By texting some intabulations from the Buxheimer Orgelbuch, I attempt to recreate, in some sense, what some of the greatest hits of the day (Se la face ay pale, O rosa bella, etc.) would have sounded like in the voices of the legendary Improvvisatore. Jasmina Crnč ič ̌ (Maribor, Slovenia) Three Times Three Are the Modes of Which All Chant Is Woven…: Developing Learning Tools for a Historically-Informed Medieval Vocal Practice In an early 13th century manuscript from St. Georg im Schwarzwald, Germany: München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek 8°Cod. 375 (Cim.13) we find a combination of theoretical and practical music materials that were most probably used for educational purposes in the monastery. The theoretical portion consists of writings by theoreticians such as Guido d’Arezzo and Johannes Affligemensis, whereas the musical section comprises a collection of multi-purpose voice «exercises» including the popular «Latin- verse formulas», some syllable-less exercises, and a few didactic songs. Cim.13 covers a variety of topics that can be beneficial to anyone interested in the reconstruction of medieval vocal practices: it introduces the singer to the theory of modality and provides examples for practical interval learning. Thus, the materials included in the manuscript can be used to design a study manual adaptable to the needs and special interest of a modern performer/musicologist. In this paper I will analyze the musical examples from the manuscript and propose a way of using them in the development of historically-informed vocal techniques and performance practices. The content of the exercises will be placed in the context of the music theory contained in manuscript and some of Cim.13’s graphic features will be explored as visual tools that can be used in the learning processes of any type of medieval vocal monophonic music. Giacomo Ferraris (Milan, Italy) Dissonance Treatment as a Means of Determining Tempo Relations in the Music of the Italian Trecento This paper explores the possibility of using the analysis of dissonance treatment to help clarify one of the thorniest problems in the performance practice of the Italian Trecento repertoire, namely the question of the tempo relations between the various mensural divisiones. In particular, it seems noteworthy that the novenaria and senaria gallica divisiones occasionally feature dissonances at the level of the perfect semibreve, whereas semibreve dissonances are very rare in octonaria and duodenaria. This circumstance, which would be more easily explainable assuming a practice founded on minim equivalence, as in the French ars nova repertoire (for in that case the semibreve of the novenaria and senaria gallica would be faster by one quarter than that of the duodenaria and octonaria, and therefore arguably more apt to tolerating dissonance) 3 is, however, extremely puzzling in light of the usual interpretation of the Italian system as being based strictly on semibreve equivalence. We will, then, try to show how a thorough reading of the Rubricae Breves, dating around 1350, can suggest a more flexible way of looking at tempo relationships on the basis of the values prevalent in the tenor of each composition; in this perspective, de facto minim equivalence between divisiones can become possible in many situations. This complex matter needs, however, to be clarified on a case- by- case basis: I will try to show how a careful assessment of the consonance- dissonance relationship can greatly assist in this task.