The Renaissance Reform of Medieval Music Theory: Guido of Arezzo between Myth and History

by Stefano Mengozzi

• ISBN13: 9780521884150
• ISBN10: 0521884152
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-03-22
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Modern scholars have often portrayed the method of hexachordal solmization - the sight-singing method introduced by the 11th-century monk Guido of Arezzo - as the diatonic foundation of early music. Stefano Mengozzi challenges this view by examining a representative sample of the primary sources of solmization theory from Guido of Arezzo to Gioseffo Zarlino. These texts show that six-syllable solmization was only an option for sight-singing that never imposed its operational 'sixth-ness' onto the diatonic system, already grounded on the seven pitch letters. It was primarily through the agency of several 'classicizing' theorists of the humanist era that the six syllables came to be mistakenly conceived as a fundamental diatonic structure - a 'hexachord' built from the 'tetrachord' of the Ancient Greeks. The book will be of particular interest to readers seeking to deepen their knowledge of medieval and Renaissance musical thought with an eye to major intellectual trends of the time.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	p. ix
List of tables	p. xi
List of musical examples	p. xiii
Preface	p. xiv
List of abbreviations	p. xvii
Introduction: Guido's hexachord: old facts and new questions	p. 1
Guidonian Solmization in Music Theory and Practice	p. 17
Guido's musical syllables: conflicting views from modern historiography	p. 19
Inside the gamut: the major sixth in Guido of Arezzo and Hermannus Contractus	p. 30
Hands off! Singing without the syllables in the Middle Ages	p. 44
The making of a system: medieval music semiotics in transition	p. 82
Interlude: All hexachords are ôsoftö	p. 110
Reforming the Music Curriculum in the Age of Humanism	p. 115
Back to the monochord: church reform and music theory in the fifteenth century	p. 117
Normalizing the humanist: Johannes Gallicus as a ôfollower of Guidoö	p. 141
Gafori's Hand: forging a new Guido for a new humanist culture	p. 181
Hexachordal theory and deductive method in Gioseffo Zarlino's Dimostrationi harmoniche (1571)	p. 227
Epilogue: Discarding the Guidonian image of early music	p. 253
Bibliography	p. 258
Index	p. 279
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