| Contents |
The first great dead white male composer -- The construction of the memorial archive. Tonaries : a tool for memorizing chant -- Basic theory treatises -- The memorization of organum, discant, and counterpoint treatises -- Compositional process in polyphonic music. Compositional process and transmission of Notre Dame polyphony -- Visualization and the composition of polyphonic music. |
| Review |
This challenge to conventional notions about medieval music disputes the assumption of pure literacy and replaces it with a more complex picture of a world in which literacy and orality interacted. Asking such fundamental questions as how singers managed to memorize such an enormous amount of music and how music composed in the mind rather than in writing affected musical style, the author explores the impact of the art of memory on the composition and transmission of medieval music. Her fresh, innovative study shows that although writing allowed composers to work out pieces in the mind, it did not make memorization redundant but allowed for new ways to commit material to memory. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references (pages 255-279) and index. |
| LCCN | 2004016542 |
| ISBN | 0520240286 (cloth : alk. paper) |
