I explore the scope and nature of accidentals used in Josquin’s period and give good guidelines for musica ficta. I was motivated by modern scholarly theories which would use rules to avoid imperfect intervals to such an extent that pieces would be forced to modulate down a half step through adding lots of unnotated inflections, and I wanted to get to the bottom of how the Renaissance musical system worked. My findings did not support these more extreme theories. This dissertation does provide useful guidelines for performers on how to apply unnotated musical inflections in an authentic way. It also clears up some scholarly misconceptions about the nature and scope of accidental usage during the Renaissance period.
Also puzzling to me is how some scholars do not want to recognize the value of inflections given in lute intabulations of vocal music, which generally confirm the practice one would expect from the rules of the period (they do not confirm the more extravagant modern theories, however). There is one source, songbooks by Bossinensis (published by Petrucci) which have vocal lines over lute intabulations of other vocal lines from frottole. The accidentals used in the lute part thus represent a direct transfer of vocal practice into the lute, and the kinds of accidentals that one would expect to be implied for a vocal line are indeed found explicitly notated in the lute tablature.
Topics covered include:
The gamut and hexachord system
Musica ficta defined
The scope of accidentals used in Josquin’s period
Examination of the use of notated accidentals in specific vocal and lute sources
Renaissance uses of accidentals for specific musical situations
Practical guidelines for applying unnotated accidentals in Josquin’s period.
(“Scholarly Abstractions” is a feature highlighting brief abstracts from recent graduate projects in choral music. To share your thesis abstract, contact Scott Dorsey at )
Kathleen Keenan-Takagi says