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Notes 57.2 (2000) 378-379



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Book Review

Papal Music and Musicians in Late Medieval and Renaissance Rome


Papal Music and Musicians in Late Medieval and Renaissance Rome. Edited by Richard Sherr. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998. [xxviii, 339 p. ISBN 0-19-816417-3. $95.]

This volume contains a selection of papers presented at a conference held in 1993 at the Library of Congress in conjunction with an exhibition of treasures from the Vatican Library, including materials of musical interest. The authors are bound together by enviable records of past success in unearthing and interpreting documents that have significantly increased our understanding of how musicians functioned in papal culture. As they now bring into even sharper focus the uses of music and occasions for musical activity, it comes as no surprise that their papers are methodologically interconnected and richly contextual.

Part 1, "Music for the Pope and His Chapel," opens with Margaret Bent's multifaceted investigation of early papal motets, in which she repeatedly suggests caution in applying the "default assumption that a commemorative motet is likely to be inaugural" (p. 39). A case in point is Per grama protho paret (for Pope John XXII), which she redates to ca. 1330 on the basis of its advanced construction and notation. Upholding the notion of multiple uses for certain occasional motets, she proposes that "we should perhaps entertain the idea of their use as edifying and politically charged chamber music in private and semiprivate contexts" (ibid.). Giuliano Di Bacco and John NĂ¡das bring forward a wealth of new evidence to support the hypothesis that Rome in the 1390s was the initial scene of compositional activity for both Johannes Ciconia and Antonio Zacara. Through meticulous codicological analysis of sources and using texts of compositions associated with efforts to end the Great Schism, they argue persuasively that some works of these composers--along with others by native and foreign musicians in the service of papal and cardinalate chapels--constitute a vital repertory disseminated throughout the peninsula from Rome and central Italy, bringing about an internationalization of musical styles.

The remaining studies in part 1 focus on music composed specifically for the papal chapel. Alejandro Planchart finds three types of music by Guillaume Du Fay in this category--proses, Kyries, and hymns--but not elaborate polyphony, which Adalbert Roth then demonstrates entered the repertory [End Page 378] near the end of the reign of Sixtus IV, shortly after a conspicuous increase in the number of singers and the construction of a large new chapel in the Vatican palace. But, he warns, polyphonic liturgical music for Mass and Vespers was normally reserved for special occasions requiring the "display of maiestas pontificalis" (p. 130). Jeffrey Dean addresses compositions that achieved canonical status, such as Du Fay's hymn cycle (recopied in the 1490s) and an anonymous setting of Lumen ad revelationem, composed in the early fifteenth century yet sung until the 1530s. Mitchell Brauner concentrates on music connected to papal traditions and ceremonies, much of which is substitution polyphony normally not copied into Sistine choirbooks, such as Magnificat cycles and Lamentations. As editor Richard Sherr states in his preface, "The conclusion that can be drawn from these studies is a paradoxical one for modern scholars, namely that the music the papal choir valued most, that is, the music that became a long-standing part of the repertory, is the music we value least" (p. xi).

Part 2, "The Papal Choir as Institution," offers rare glimpses into a past that provides examples of every possible type of human conduct, from which one may select "what to imitate and also what to avoid" (Titus Livius, The History of Rome, 6 vols., trans. Canon Roberts, Everyman's Library [New York: E. P. Dutton, 1912-24), 1:2]). Pamela Starr's exploration of per obitum supplications exposes details of a process whereby greedy clerics "circle like buzzards around the figure of a dying colleague" (p. 185) in order to acquire the benefice left vacant by the deceased. This example of human frailty is nonetheless a boon to music...

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