Jump to ContentJump to Main Navigation
With Voice and PenComing to Know Medieval Song and How it Was Made$
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content.
With Voice and Pen: Coming to Know Medieval Song and How it Was Made

Leo Treitler

Print publication date: 2007

Print ISBN-13: 9780199214761

Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: May 2008

DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199214761.001.0001

Show Summary Details
Page of

PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (oxford.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2021. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use. date: 17 May 2021

Medieval Improvisation

Medieval Improvisation

Chapter:
(p.1) CHAPTER I Medieval Improvisation
Source:
With Voice and Pen
Author(s):

Leo Treitler

Publisher:
Oxford University Press
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199214761.003.0001

This chapter discusses improvisation in medieval music-making. It argues that the etymological roots of the word ‘improvisation’ and that its wide usage in the 19th and 20th centuries could have negative and even pejorative connotations when it is held up against the value-norm of through-composed, well-structured, unified music. Bruno Nettl's reflections on the cultural meaning of those connotations are considered. Examples of medieval music are presented.

Keywords:   medieval music, Bruno Nettl, chants, etymological roots, pejorative connotations

Oxford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.

Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.

If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.

To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .