Abstracts and Contributors

João Pedro d'Alvarenga

Juan de Anchieta and the Iberian Motet around 1500

This research focuses on the Iberian devotional motet, addressing its technical and stylistic characteristics as a result of the engagement of Iberian composers with a common toolbox first developed by northern composers working at the Sforza court in Milan in the 1470s, eventually spreading throughout Europe around 1500. Particularly through consideration of the earliest extant motets by Juan de Anchieta (1462–1523) contained in the well-known Segovia manuscript, the composition of which cannot postdate the middle 1490s, this article surveys the provenance and nature of the motet texts, and how the genre quickly spread through the Iberian kingdoms and was sustained in subsequent manuscript collections in Spain, Portugal, and the New World; it proposes resolution to long-disputed and conflicting authorial attributions; and examines how the genre evolved in the early decades of the sixteenth century, mostly through the works of Francisco de Peñalosa (ca. 1470–1528) and Pedro de Escobar (documented from 1507–14), placing it within the European motet tradition as the product of a specifically distinct cultural context.

Keywords: Motet texts; Segovia manuscript; Conflicting attributions; Music philology/style

João Pedro d'Alvarenga (jp.alvarenga@fcsh.unl.pt) is a principal researcher, coordinator of the Early Music Studies Research Group, and executive secretary of the Center for the Study of the Sociology and Aesthetics of Music (CESEM) at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa. He was a FCT Investigator affiliated with CESEM (2013–18), and assistant professor at the University of Évora (1997–2011). He was the commissioner for the planning and settling of the National Music Museum in Lisbon from 1993 to 1994, and was also charged with the organization of the music service at the National Library of Portugal, which he headed from 1991 to 1997. He is the principal investigator for the FCT-funded R&D project "The Anatomy of Late 15th- and Early 16th-Century Iberian Polyphonic Music" (PTDC/CPC-MMU/0314/2014).

Federica Marsico

The Libretto of Le Racine: pianobar pour Phèdre (1980) by Sylvano Bussotti: Sources and Dramaturgy

Unlike other works by Sylvano Bussotti, the libretto of the opera Le Racine: pianobar pour Phèdre—which premiered at the Piccola Scala of Milan in 1980—was never published. The score, made available by Ricordi (1980), reproduces the author's manuscript, and it contains the musical text and the sung words exclusively. It does not contain any information about the characters, the setting, and the opera structure. The playbill, the press reviews, and the program notes of the premiere are essential to reconstructing this information. Also, a photostatic copy of a manuscript libretto of Le Racine was found during an archival research at the Centre de documentation de la musique contemporaine in Paris. It was used for staging the work in Strasbourg in 1986, but was probably drawn up during the Milanese staging. It contains some annotations by Bussotti that are valuable for understanding the opera dramaturgy. From the perspective of a new staging of Le Racine, all these sources are vital for preparing a modern edition of the libretto and highlighting the principle of indeterminateness at the basis of the opera.

Keywords: Phaedra; Libretto; Metatheater; Opera; Staging

Federica Marsico (federica.marsico01@universitadipavia.it) is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pavia, where she teaches the history of music. After a master's degree in musicology (University of Pavia, 2012), she has been awarded a diploma in piano performance (Conservatory of Cremona, 2014) and a PhD in musicology (University of Pavia, 2016). She has been a visiting student at the Free University of Berlin (2010–11) and at the Paris 8 University (2014–15). She has presented her research at numerous musicological and interdisciplinary conferences in Europe. She is also the author of several contributions to collective works.

Susan McClary

Lives in Musicology: A Life in Musicology—Stradella and Me

Part of a series that includes autobiographical accounts by Bruno Nettl and Albrecht Riethmüller, this essay traces my professional development as a musicologist. The works of Alessandro Stradella inspired me to move in several important directions, and I...