Hearing Music of the Middle Ages and Renaissance

Your author, Roger Kamien, discussed listening to music from this time in the Beyond the Classroom section of your reading.

Click Here to access the website you will explore for the reflection: St. Donatian Mass by Jacob Obrecht.

"On 14 October 1487 at seven in the morning the Saint Donatian Mass composed by Jacob Obrecht commissioned by Adriane de Vos in memory of her husband Donaes de Moor was first sung at Mass in the Jacobskerk in Bruges."
 
Consider the following questions and write a Blog comment with your answers to these and/or other questions you might have. Read your classmates comments.

• What are the performing forces? Only voices, only instruments, or a combination of the two?
• What is the texture of the music?
• How would you characterize the rhythm? Does it seem to float, or flow smoothly, or is there a clearly defined beat?
• Do you hear the instances of imitation between the parts?
• Is the text sacred or secular? In what language is it sung? Are there instances of word painting that enhance the meaning of the text?
• Finally, think back to the class discussion on preservation. Would you consider this as preservation or is it only performance?

Manuscript Preservation

During the reading over the Middle Ages, you were asked to take a few moments and think about preservation of information. In today's culture where every Facebook comment or text message is stored on some hard drive, or super computer, somewhere, and will never be completely deleted, is preservation important to us?

Discuss the power of preservation as seen in the current work by HMML and the effect it will have in the future. Should the works of the past be preserved? Should current literature, music, film, and art be preserved?

You may even want to dig deeper into the topic by researching manuscript preservation and the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library.

Use the Comment section to post your thoughts.