Polyphony in Medieval Paris

Catherine A. Bradley is Associate Professor at the Universitetet i Oslo. She has published widely on the earliest motets in journals including Speculum, the Journal of Musicology, Music Analysis, and Early Music History.

• List of figures; List of tables; List of musical examples; Acknowledgements; Manuscript sigla; Abbreviations; A note on transcriptions and numbering systems; Introduction; 1. Plainchant in polyphony: the gradual Propter Veritatem in organa, clausulae and motets; 2. Mini clausulae and the Magnus Liber Organi; 3. Texting clausulae: repetition and regularity on the Regnat tenor; 4. Transcribing motets: vernacular refrain melodies in Magnus Liber clausulae; 5. Framing motets: quoting and crafting refrains against plainchant tenors; 6. Intertextuality, song and female voices in motets on a Saint Elizabeth of Hungary tenor; 7. From Florence to Fauvel: re-reading musical paradigms through a long-lived Iohanne motet; 8. Conclusions; Bibliography; Index.

'Catherine A. Bradley's superb new book takes us back to the world of medieval Paris where musicians and poets were experimenting with the ways in which plainsong, polyphony, rithmus and the conventions of liturgical and paraliturgical celebration could be combined, differentiated and subverted. She does this by returning to the venerable question of the birth of the motet, and cognate genres. On the way, she brilliantly reminds us of the importance of the female voice in some unlikely places and, in a virtuosic side glance at the relationship between organum and clausula, comes close to uncovering an entirely new subgenre. Magisterial in every regard.' Mark Everist, University of Southampton