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  • The Flower of Paradise: Marian Devotion and Secular Song in Medieval and Renaissance Music by David J. Rothenberg
  • Matthew Steel
The Flower of Paradise: Marian Devotion and Secular Song in Medieval and Renaissance Music. By David J. Rothenberg. (New York: Oxford University Press. 2011. Pp. xviii, 264. $35.00. ISBN 978-0-19-539971-4.)

David J. Rothenberg, associate professor of music at Case Western Reserve University, based his book substantially on his 2004 Yale dissertation and subsequent articles published in the Journal of Musicology (2004) and the Journal of the American Musicological Society (2006). His thesis, that courtly love song traditions and Marian devotions became symbolically linked in polyphonic motets from the thirteenth century up to the Reformation, is persuasively defended through analyses of select examples. Although Rothenberg’s thesis leans heavily on the research of eminent music and liturgical scholars, his primary contribution is his thoughtful synthesis of existing scholarship presented in a cogent and cohesive narrative.

The book is divided into seven chapters. The first is an informative overview of medieval secular song traditions, the early motet, and the developing Marian liturgy and devotions. Chapter 2 focuses on thirteenth-century French motets, specifically those set to tenors (chant fragments) borrowed from the Marian Feast of the Assumption as practiced at Notre Dame of Paris. In the French texts sung simultaneously above the motet’s liturgical Latin tenor, Rothenberg discerns what he calls “secular/sacred signification” (p. 48) that transforms their earthly and often “earthy” love texts into Marian allegory. Chapter 3 remains in the thirteenth century, sampling a few of many French motets set to the tenor “In seculum” from the Easter gradual Haec dies. Here, Rothenberg extends the connection between the French springtime motives and the Resurrection liturgy to include the pastourelle characters Robin and Marion, found in such motets, as representations of Christ and the Virgin Mary.

The fourteenth century receives little attention except to acknowledge that the imagery of Guillaume de Machaut’s famous rondeau “Rose, liz, print-emps, verdure” exhibits strong Marian overtones. This creates a bridge to the fifteenth century as chapter 4 examines Guillaume Dufay’s setting of Petrarch’s canzona “Vergene bella,” pursuing a circuitous discussion that includes John Dunstable’s cantilena-motet “Quam pulchra es”; Dante Alighieri’s Commedia, Vita nuova, and De vulgari eloquentia; as well as Giovanni di Paolo’s manuscript illumination in the Paradiso, which Rothenberg interprets as a reference to the Marian chant “Ave maris stella.” Here, Rothenberg missed an opportunity to acknowledge that Dufay’s music [End Page 99] opens with the same interval as the chant. Walter Frye’s mid-century cantilena-motet “Ave regina caelorum” is the focal point of chapter 5. Despite its Latin text throughout, Rothenberg agrees with scholars who find it more akin to a chanson than a motet because of its flower imagery and appearance in chansonniers. Emphasizing this “crossover,” he refers to contemporaneous paintings such as Hans Memling’s Madonna and Child showing angel choirs and instrumentalists reminiscent of the realm of courtly music.

The final chapters examine motets that borrowed from popular chansons for their cantus firmi, a reverse process to that of the thirteenth-century motet. Rothenberg attributes the widespread use of Hayne van Ghizeghem’s popular rondeau “De tous bien plaine” as a motet cantus firmus to an undeniable likeness of the poem’s beloved mistress to the Virgin Mary and the likeness of the poem itself to the popular Marian prayer Ave Maria. Also, he sees the popularity of the lamenting rondeau “Comme femme desconfortée,” perhaps by Gilles Binchois, as a by-product of the increased interest in the liturgy of Mary’s Sorrows, Dormition, and Assumption, comparing its imagery to that of the Stabat mater prayer and Michelangelo’s Pietà sculpture.

Musicologists will benefit greatly from the wealth of information provided by the book on medieval liturgy, and its copious bibliography and footnotes make it a valuable reference source for all medieval scholars. More than fifty score examples illustrate the musical discussions, and the fourteen figures—although poorly reproduced—accompany Rothenberg’s discussions of medieval art.

Matthew Steel
Western Michigan University

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