Madrigals in the Sixteenth Century

The period from around 1480 to 1560 saw a creative explosion in Europe in the composition of religious music for unusually large ensembles: works such as Antoine Brumel's 12-part ‘Earthquake Mass’ (Ferrara, 1506-10) and Robert Carver's 19-part motet O Bone Jesu (Scotland, 1513) testify to a new desire to push the boundaries of composition. This ‘many-voiced’ polyphony continues to inspire and excite contemporary audiences: it is regularly recorded and loved by concertgoers. Its monumental scale often invites comparisons with other ambitious early modern works in the visual arts and architecture. But while we are relatively familiar with the techniques underlying paintings, sculptures, or cathedrals, we know little about how such polyphony for (very) many voices was achieved. Through a combination of musical analysis and archival research, this project fills this gap by investigating the skills and institutional resources necessary for the creation of ‘many-voiced’ polyphony in 16th-century Europe. The focus is on Scotland, a marginalized region in traditional music historiography. Understanding the creative process behind ‘many-voiced’ music in 16th-century Scotland not only reveals the relationships between the surviving sources and the culture that produced them, but also provides new insights into compositional techniques in early modern Europe.

Keywords:musicologie

Disciplines:Musicology and ethnomusicology