Is it Polyphony?

Authors

  • Manuel Pedro Ferreira

Abstract

This paper addresses a central question underlying modern research into medieval musical sources: how to recognize early polyphony. Taking as its subject the versus for Saint-Martial written at the Aquitanian monastery of Saint-Martial de Limoges by Ademar of Chabannes in the early eleventh century (Paris, B. N. lat. 909, fols. 202-205) it is shown that the criteria that have been invoked in the past to deny a polyphonic character to this composition are seriously flawed. Nevertheless, an alternative interpretation is by no means easy to accept: musical expectations and reliance on extant theoretical sources limit the horizon of recognition. A discussion of the issues raised by this composition leads, if not to a revision of received opinion concerning the role of Saint-Martial de Limoges in the development of early polyphony (identification of a polyphonic work certainly written there, half a century earlier than the pieces hitherto recognized), then at least to a new epistemological awareness of current musicological assumptions.

Author Biography

Manuel Pedro Ferreira

MANUEL PEDRO FERREIRA bom in 1959. He holds a diploma in transverse flute from the Conservatório Nacional de Lisboa, has a degree in Philosophy from the University of Lisbon and gained the degrees of Master and Doctor in Musicology from the University of Princeton (U.S.A.). He is currently Associate Professor of the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa. Chairman of the Juventude Musical Portuguesa from 1985 to 1987, he has also devoted himself to musical criticism, composition and interpretation (since 1995 he has directed the group Vozes Alfonsinas, with whom he has recorded a number of compact discs). He was a professor at the Academia Nacional Superior de Orquestra, Lisbon (1995-1997) and at the School of Arts of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa, in Oporto (1997­ 2000). He has published more than forty musicological articles, on themes ranging from mediaeval monody to contemporary composers; he has also contributed to various specialized dictionaries, including the new edition of the encyclopedias New Grove and MGG. He was responsible for the publication of the facsimile edition of the Elvas Songbook (1989) and of Manuscript 714 of the Biblioteca Pública Municipal, Oporto (2001); he received the Prize for Musical Essay of the Conselho Português da Música for his book O Som de Martin Codax (Lisbon, 1986). Since 1998 he has been Chairman of the General Assembly of the Associação Portuguesa de Ciências Musicais.

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Published

2014-12-20

How to Cite

Ferreira, M. P. (2014). Is it Polyphony?. Portuguese Journal of Musicology, 12, 9–34. Retrieved from https://rpm-ns.pt/index.php/rpm/article/view/108

Issue

Vol. 12 (2002)

Section

Articles (peer-reviewed)