The project is currently configured as two chapters in collections of essays [both commisioned]
‘The Conductus and Latin Song: The Legacy of Classical Antiquity’
During the long thirteenth century (c1160 to c1320), Latin song – both monophonic and polyphonic – was based on texts saturated with references to a range of literary traditions and canonic texts: biblical, patristic and classical. Of these three literary trajectories, classical antiquity is both the least studied but also a controllable group of around 40 compositions ranging across the monophonic and polyphonic, the strophic and through-composed, the melismatic and syllabic.
‘The Conductus and Classical Antiquity: Intertextuality and Musical Structure’
The structure of individual conducti – the balance between musica cum littera and musica sine littera; between cauda and punctus organi – is at least in part determined by the placement of intertextual reference in the work. This chapter looks at individual examples of both monophony and polyphony to see how allusions to classical antiquity determine issues of musical structure.