4 research outputs found
Fortune and desire in Guillaume de Machaut
No full textThere is a pervasive tendency, in Machaut scholarship, to read his poetry as having
value only insofar as it speaks to our postmodern age: either it is fragmented and
riven with ambiguities, or it celebrates eroticism and the things of this world for their
own sake; in any case, it resists religious and moral orthodoxy. Such readings, while
often valuable in themselves, fail to take sufficient account of the influence which
Boethian and Neoplatonic ideas had upon Machaut, and thus misunderstand his work
on a fundamental level. By paying attention to the Boethian content in the narrative
dits, and by analysing Machaut's verse more thoroughly than has been done before,
my thesis demonstrates not only this author's moral orthodoxy, but also his extremely
sophisticated didactic methods. I begin with the Confort d'ami, Machaut's most
overtly moral work. The Confort engages with the supposed 'worldly' perspective of
its imprisoned addressee, adapting biblical and classical exempla in order to coax
Charles of Navarre towards a deeper understanding of worldly fortune. In Chapter 2 I
show how, in the Prologue and the Dit du vergier, the ambiguity so beloved of critics
can serve as a moral commentary on the carnality and self-absorption of the erotic
and artistic points of view. Having established, in the preceding chapters, that this
author's approach to his subject is ambiguous and critical, in Chapter 3 I explore the
extremes of his pessimism, and show how his love poetry can incorporate
sophisticated philosophical ideas, through my analysis of the Jugement du roy de
Behaigne. The thesis culminates in a detailed reading of the Remede de Fortune.
Through his deliberately idealised statements about education, through his application
of these views to the art of courtly love, through his composition (and setting to
music) of a sequence of virtuoso lyrics, and through his explicit invocations of and
borrowings from Boethius, Machaut develops an empathic but ultimately, as I argue,
deeply sceptical vision of earthly love
The National song folio. Volume I
No full textTitre uniforme : Händel, Georg Friedrich (1685-1759). Compositeur. [Theodora. HWV 68
The aesthetics of Pierre Boulez
No full textTo enable the reader to find references as quickly and easily as possible, I have grouped all references together in the bibliography in alphabetical order. Texts by the same author are distinguished first by year and second, if there are several texts from the same year, by letter. Interviews and writing collaborations (including published correspondence) involving Boulez are also ordered alphabetically. The year given at the beginning of each bibliographical entry is, in the majority of cases, the year in which the text was first published (not necessarily the year of the edition cited). For all writings written by Boulez, I have provided the original title under which the text in question was first published (usually in French). Many articles have subsequently been translated into English and therefore I have decided to provide page references for both versions. For all texts by writers other than Boulez, I have cited the version of the text I have used. Wherever possible, I have cited the existing English translations of texts originally written in French. However, on many occasions I have considered it necessary to make alterations to the published translations. This is particularly applicable to Boulez on Music Today (1971) and Orientations (1986), both of which display an often heavy-handed and rather inaccurate approach to the task of translating specific concepts employed by Boulez. In contrast. Stocktakings of an Apprenticeship (1991) has required only occasional minor amendments. All changes to the published English translations are acknowledged in the corresponding footnote. None of the material m this thesis has previously been submitted for a degree in this or any other University. The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without prior written consent and information from it should be acknowledged. I have received permission to exceed the word limit from the Graduate School Committee at the University of Durham
Anthony Poole (c.1629-1692), the viol and exiled English Catholics
No full textThe bass violist and composer Anthony Poole was educated in the network of Catholic Colleges that the English Jesuits kept in Europe. He went on to be ordained a Jesuit priest and to make an outstanding contribution to the musical
life of the institutions he lived and taught in, notably the English College at Saint-Omer, in Spanish Flanders. Poole’s output will be shown to be of importance in the history of seventeenth-century instrumental music, especially in the context of the development of the sonata in England and division-viol music in Europe. His music has not been collected, catalogued or studied before,
and this thesis presents it against the backdrop of several generations of English musicians who spent all or part of their working lives abroad. The significance of migrant musicians is often neglected by comparison with that of native musicians, perhaps because the latter fit our perceptions of national styles better, and this thesis goes some way towards appraising that contribution.
The bass viol, or the ‘Brittanica Chelys’ in the words of the expatriate Latin poet Dr John Alban Gibbes, was an instrument with strong Catholic and Royalist resonances in England, and extemporising divisions on it became in post-Thirty-Years-War Europe a quintessentially English art, as will be shown in chapter one. Chapter two presents as full a biographical account as is possible at present, and chapter three considers all extant sources of Poole’s music, exploring how his works made their way to the exiled court at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, the library of Phillip Falle, the viol-playing circle of William Noble in Oxford, and elsewhere in England. This thesis contains therefore a significant contribution to our understanding of the history of English Jesuit music, the court of James II,
and the circulation of Continental music in Restoration England. Chapter four is a stylistic discussion of the music, its influences and reception, and the appendix
consists of a thematic index of Poole’s works
