Ars subtilior

I would like to suggest a project: An online database which lists ALL Ars subtilior composers, works, sources - with transcriptions of the works and links to scanned sources. Every work should be analysed very precisely (harmonically, rhythmically, melodically) and described stylistically. All original texts of compositions should be translated into English and supplied with explanatory comments where necessary. All informations about sources, composers etc. which can be gathered from secondary literature should be included. A complete bibliography for Ars subtilior should also be included. Furthermore the cultural context in which the music was placed should be described extensively - with excerpts from contemporaneous textual sources and many illustrations from contemporaneous sources, paintings etc.. Very important would be to include informations about performance practice(s). Such a database would give us a good overview over the Ars subtilior, different styles etc. and perhaps lead to new ascriptions, datings etc.. Later a series of new recordings (which should be IN KEEPING with what we know or deem LIKELY as good performance practice) could be made and maybe even be linked online with the transcriptions.

Other groups of musicologists could do the same thing for Ars antiqua, Ars nova and Trecento.

The great advantage of online databases is of course that they can always be updated (so new discoveries can always be included) and corrected: Once a certain degree of completeness has been reached these databases could be printed as exhaustive monographs.

Festina lente!

Christoph Dohrmann

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Replies

  • Please be patient since plans are already afoot for a community-base project. In the meanwhile, I'm sure you know of the Medieval Music Database.

    http://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/MMDB/

    And Je chante ung chant

    http://jechante.exeter.ac.uk/archive/

    And the good work of Gilles Dulong and Oliver Huck.

    JS

  • A starting point could be Uri Smilansky's dissertation, which gives a comprehensive overview of styles and sources in Ars Subtilior music: Uri Smilansy: Rethinking Ars Subtilior: Context, Language, Study and Performance, PhD Diss. University of Exeter 2010.

  • Sounds like a good idea. How do you envisage it beginning?
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