MUS 5263: Topics in Music History:

Music of the Middle Ages and Renaissance

Fall 2015
Class Times: M 6:00-8:45 PM
Room: AR 2.03.14

Instructor: Mark Brill

Office: AR 03.02.06
Email: mark.brill@utsa.edu

Course Description: This seminar will conduct an in-depth examination of the music of the Middle
Ages and the Renaissance, as well as relevant historical, cultural and aesthetic issues.

Required Materials:
Music in the Medieval West, by Margot Fassler, with accompanying anthology (W. W.
Norton, 2014)

Music in the Renaissance, by Richard Freedman, with accompanying anthology (W. W.

Norton, 2013)

Additional readings will be required throughout the course. All additional readings are
available through Jstor unless otherwise noted.

Listening: Listening assignments from the anthology are embedded in the readings for each chapter.
The UTSA library has arranged a playlist of all the pieces in the anthology via Naxos. All students can
access the playlist through the UTSA library portal. Click on the following link:
http://utsa.naxosmusiclibrary.com.libweb.lib.utsa.edu/playlists/playlist.asp

Alternatively, you can go to the Naxos Homepage Playlists University of Texas, San Antonio
Playlists Brill Fall 2015 Medieval West.

Class Discussions: All students are expected to read and listen to all the assigned material in depth.
Each student will lead at least four class discussions over the course of the semester, on the assigned
reading and listening assignments. Discussion leaders must come prepared with several questions for
extensive discussion, be ready to extend the discussion in new directions, and present scores and play
examples of the musical pieces discussed. Discussions should also include performance of some of the
repertoire covered in class, as appropriate.

Term Paper: You willl write a 2500-word term paper on a subject of your choice, provided it
addresses some aspect of Medieval or Renaissance music. You will provide a short abstract and
preliminary bibliography on your chosen subject on Monday October 5. The paper is due at the time of
your presentation.

Presentations: Student will prepare and give a 30-45 minute presentation on their project.

Grading: Participation/Leading Class Discussion: 33%

Paper: 33%
Presentation: 33%
Providing snacks for the class: 1%
 Calendar

Week 1 (Monday, August 24): Introduction

Week 2 (Monday August 31)

Reading:
o Fassler: Start with all the Appendices, then chs. 1, 2
o Mark Everist: The Millers Mule: Writing the History of Medieval Music, Music &
Letters 74 (1993): 44-53.
o Georgia Frank: Taste and See: The Eucharist and the Eyes of Faith in the Fourth
Century, Church History, Vol. 70, No. 4 (Dec., 2001): 619-643.
o Sam Barrett: Performing Medieval Music. Journal of the Royal Music Association
130, no. 1 (2005): 11935.

Week 3 (Monday September 7): Labor Day: No Class

Week 4 (Monday September 14)

Reading:
o Fassler, chs. 3, 4
o Barbara Haggh: Foundations or Institutions? On Bringing the Middle Ages into the
History of Medieval Music, Acta Musicologica, Vol. 68, Fasc. 2 (Jul. - Dec., 1996):
87-128.
o Kenneth Levy: Gregorian Chant and the Romans, Journal of the American
Musicological Society 56, no. 1 (Spring 2003): 541.

Week 5 (Monday September 21)

Reading:
o Fassler, Intro. to part II, chs. 5, 6, 7
o Giles Constable: The Place of the Crusader in Medieval Society, Viator 29 (Jan 1,
1998): 377. [Note: access directly from the library portal, not Jstor.]
o Richard Crocker: Early Crusade Songs, in The Holy War, ed. Thomas Patrick
Murphy, 7898. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1976. [Note: access TBA]
o Peter Jeffery: Popular Culture on the Periphery of the Medieval Liturgy. Worship 55
(1981): 41927. [Note: access TBA]

Week 6 (Monday September 28)

Reading:
o Fassler, Intro. to part III, chs. 8, 9
o Anna Maria Busse Berger: Mnemotechnics and Notre Dame Polyphony, The Journal
of Musicology 14/3 (Summer 1996): 263-98.
o John Haines: Anonymous IV as an Informant on the Craft of Music Writing, The
Journal of Musicology, Vol. 23, No. 3 (Summer 2006): 375-425.
o Paul Bracken: The Myth of the Medieval Minstrel: An Interdisciplinary Approach to
Performers and the Chansonnier Repertory. Viator 33, no. 1 (2002): 10016. [Note:
access TBA]
Week 7 (Monday October 5)
Reading:
o Fassler, Intro. to part IV, chs. 10, 11, 12
o Christopher Page: The Performance of Ars antiqua motets, Early Music, 16/2 (1988):
147, 149-64.
o Blake M. Wilson, Madrigal, Lauda, and Local Style in Trecento Florence, The
Journal of Musicology, 15/2 (1997): 137-77
Writing: Abstract and Bibliography due

Week 8 (Monday October 12)

Reading:
o Freedman, Intro. to part I, chs. 1, 2, 3
o Jessie Ann Owens: Music Historiography and the Definition of Renaissance, Notes,
Second Series, Vol. 47, No. 2 (Dec., 1990): 305-330.
o Anne Walters Robertson: The Savior, the Woman, and the Head of the Dragon in the
Caput Masses and Motet. Journal of the American Musicological Society 59 (2006):
537630.

Week 9 (Monday October 19)

Reading:
o Freedman, chs. 4, 5
o Craig Wright: Dufays Nuper Rosarum Flores, King Solomons Temple and the
Veneration of the Virgin, Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 47, No.
3 (Autumn, 1994): 395-441.
o Marvin Trachtenberg: Architecture and Music Reunited: A New Reading of Dufays
Nuper Rosarum Flores and the Cathedral of Florence, Renaissance Quarterly, Vol.
54, No. 3 (Autumn, 2001): 740-775.
o Bonnie J Blackburn: For Whom Do the Singers Sing? Early Music 25 (1997): 593
609.

Week 10 (Monday October 26)

Reading:
o Freedman, Intro. to part III, chs. 6, 7
o Joan Kelly: Did Women Have a Renaissance? In Women, History & Theory: The
Essays of Joan Kelly, 1950. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. [Available
online:
http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic205827.files/October_22/Kelly_Did_Women_
Have_a_Renaissanace.pdf ]
o Anthony Newcomb: Courtesans, Muses or Musicians? Professional Women Musicians
in Sixteenth-Century Italy. In Women Making Music: the Western Art Tradition,
11501950, Jane Bowers and Judith Tick, eds., 90115. Champaign, IL: University of
Illinois Press, 1986. [Note: access TBA]
o Kristine Forney: Nymphes gayes en abry du Laurier: Music Instruction for the
Bourgeois Woman. Musica Disciplina 49 (1995): 15187.
Week 11 (Monday November 2)
Reading:
o Freedman, chs. 8, 9
o Paula Higgins: The Apotheosis of Josquin Des Prez and Other Mythologies of Musical
Genius. Journal of the American Musicological Society 57 (2004): 443510.
o Jane A. Bernstein: Financial Arrangements and the Role of Printer and Composer in
Sixteenth-Century Italian Music Printing. Acta Musicologica 63 (1991): 3956.

Week 12 (Monday November 9)

Reading:
o Freedman, chs. Intro. to part IV, 10, 11, 12
o Laura Macy: Speaking of Sex: Metaphor and Performance in the Italian Madrigal.
Journal of Musicology 14 (1996): 134.
o Patrick Macey: Savonarola and the Sixteenth-Century Motet. Journal of the
American Musicological Society 36 (1983): 42252.

Week 13 (Monday November 16)

Reading:
o Freedman, chs. 13, 14
o Elizabeth Eva Leach, David Fallows, and Kate Van Orden: Recent Trends in the Study
of Music of the Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and Sixteenth Centuries, Renaissance
Quarterly, Vol. 68, No. 1 (Spring 2015): 187-227
o Egberto Bermudez: Urban Musical Life in the European Colonies: Examples from
Spanish America, 15301650. In Music and Musicians in Renaissance Cities and
Towns, Fiona Kisby, ed., 16780. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press,
2001. [Note: access TBA]
o Craig A. Monson: Byrd, the Catholics, and the Motet: The Hearing Reopened.
Hearing the Motet, Dolores Pesce, ed. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1997, 34874. [Note: access TBA]

Week 14 (Monday November 23): Student Presentations

Week 15 (Monday November 30): Student Presentations

Final Exam Time (Monday December 7): Student Presentations