The seminar covers the history of mensural notation from about 1250 to 1350. This includes motet notation up to the 1310s, and the notation of the moderni up to the 1350s. There are weekly transcription exercises. Composers include Philippe de Vitry, Guillaume de Machaut, as well as countless anonymous figures. There is a special focus on three theorists: Anonymous IV (c.1280), Franco (c.1280), and the enigmatic Jacobus (c.1320). Since music theory in this period was steeped in the philosophy of Aristotle, we engage with the latter’s teachings on measurement, time, form, matter, classification, and other things.
