On the relationship of imitation and text treatment? The Motet around 1500
International Musicological Conference, Bangor University
School of Music/Institute for Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Thursday 29 March – Sunday 1 April 2007
There is general agreement in musical scholarship that the years around 1500 are characterized by momentous changes in musical history, musical style and attitudes towards music – changes that have recently led Rob Wegman to designate this period as the era of "Music in Crisis". In this, the motet has always received special attention as one of the genres in which the the shift from "15th-century styles" to "16th-century styles" is perceived to be particularly marked.
In an article published in 1979 with the title "On the relationship of imitation and text treatment in the Age of Josquin", Ludwig Finscher has defined the parameters of this stylistic shift and focused them around two musical techniques – text declamation and imitation – and around one composer: Josquin Desprez. This focus has informed the study of motets around 1500 ever since; it has helped to define the issues, but it has possibly diverted attention from other (equally or more important) questions and other composers.
The aim of this conference is twofold: For one, to review the various directions of enquiry within the vast amount of scholarship on the motet around 1500 that has accumulated since Finscher's article appeared; for another, in doing so, to scrutinize and possibly to question the focus of motet scholarship on the issues of imitation and text declamation as well as its focus on Josquin as the centre of discourse.
The keynote speaker for the conference will be:-
Professor Joshua Rifkin (Boston University), A Black Hole? The Problem of the Motet Around 1500
Invited speakers are Bonnie Blackburn (Oxford), Warwick Edwards (Glasgow), David Fallows (Manchester), Sean Gallagher (Harvard), Leofranc Holford-Strevens (Oxford), Christian Thomas Leitmeir (Bangor) and Rob Wegman (Princeton); there will be a total of 32 papers over three days.
The full programme can be viewed here.
The conference will also feature a concert by the internationally acclaimed Ensemble Brabant (dir. Stephen Rice), to take place on Friday 30 March at 8pm in St Mary's Church, Caernarfon.
Please feel free to download registration forms for the conference and for accommodation (from the Bangor University Conference Office)
For further information please contact:
Professor Thomas Schmidt-Beste
School of Music, Bangor University
Bangor Gwynedd LL57 2DG
United Kingdom
+44 (0) 1248 382181
Email: mus205@bangor.ac.uk
