- Title Pages
- Dedication
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- List of Plates
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- List of Musical Examples
- Notes on the Compact Disc
- Abbreviations
- CHAPTER I Medieval Improvisation
- CHAPTER 2 Written Music and Oral Music: Improvisation in Medieval Performance
- CHAPTER 3 The Vatican Organum Treatise and the Organum of Notre Dame of Paris: Perspectives on the Development of a Literate Music Culture in Europe
- CHAPTER 4 ‘Peripheral’ and ‘Central’
- CHAPTER 5 On the Structure of Alleluia Melisma: A Western Tendency in Western Chant(?)
- CHAPTER 6 Homer and Gregory: The Transmission of Epic Poetry and Plainchant
- CHAPTER 7 ‘Centonate’ Chant: <i>übles Flickwerk or e pluribus unus</i>?
- CHAPTER 8 Lingering Questions about ‘Oral Literature’
- CHAPTER 9 The Politics of Reception: Tailoring the Present as Fulfilment of a Desired Past
- CHAPTER 10 Oral, Written, and Literate Process in the Music of the Middle Ages
- CHAPTER 11 Observations on the Transmission of Some Aquitanian Tropes
- CHAPTER 12 History and the Ontology of the Musical Work
- CHAPTER 13 The Early History of Music Writing in the West
- CHAPTER 14 Reading and Singing: On the Genesis of Occidental Music Writing
- CHAPTER 15 Speaking of Jesus
- CHAPTER 16 Medieval Music and Language
- CHAPTER 17 The Marriage of Poetry and Music in Medieval Song
- Bibliography
- Index
Speaking of Jesus
Speaking of Jesus
- Chapter:
- (p.429) CHAPTER 15 Speaking of Jesus
- Source:
- With Voice and Pen
- Author(s):
Leo Treitler
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
In view of its variability, the written transmission of the early trope tradition has been characterized as ‘local production for local use’. This chapter presents an attempt to interpret differences in a particular case as motivated, intended, reflective of different ideas of the composers or notators about the emphases of the poetic text, and about the exploitation of the expressive and formal resources of the melodic tradition to bring out those ideas. In other words, it attempts to see whether we can identify individuality in medieval song. Such an interpretation posits musicians who read their poetic texts and took upon themselves the task of manifesting their readings the way they intoned them. This supposition runs counter to the opposite idea that has been abroad in the field of medieval music studies.
Keywords: medieval music, medieval song, individuality, written transmission, early tropes tradition
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 .
- Title Pages
- Dedication
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- List of Plates
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- List of Musical Examples
- Notes on the Compact Disc
- Abbreviations
- CHAPTER I Medieval Improvisation
- CHAPTER 2 Written Music and Oral Music: Improvisation in Medieval Performance
- CHAPTER 3 The Vatican Organum Treatise and the Organum of Notre Dame of Paris: Perspectives on the Development of a Literate Music Culture in Europe
- CHAPTER 4 ‘Peripheral’ and ‘Central’
- CHAPTER 5 On the Structure of Alleluia Melisma: A Western Tendency in Western Chant(?)
- CHAPTER 6 Homer and Gregory: The Transmission of Epic Poetry and Plainchant
- CHAPTER 7 ‘Centonate’ Chant: <i>übles Flickwerk or e pluribus unus</i>?
- CHAPTER 8 Lingering Questions about ‘Oral Literature’
- CHAPTER 9 The Politics of Reception: Tailoring the Present as Fulfilment of a Desired Past
- CHAPTER 10 Oral, Written, and Literate Process in the Music of the Middle Ages
- CHAPTER 11 Observations on the Transmission of Some Aquitanian Tropes
- CHAPTER 12 History and the Ontology of the Musical Work
- CHAPTER 13 The Early History of Music Writing in the West
- CHAPTER 14 Reading and Singing: On the Genesis of Occidental Music Writing
- CHAPTER 15 Speaking of Jesus
- CHAPTER 16 Medieval Music and Language
- CHAPTER 17 The Marriage of Poetry and Music in Medieval Song
- Bibliography
- Index