PATTERNS OF EMULATION

Chapter:

CHAPTER 12 Emblems and Dynasties

Source:

MUSIC FROM THE EARLIEST NOTATIONS TO THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

Author(s):

Richard Taruskin

Leading composers of two “Tinctoris generations” of continental musicians—both that of the theorist’s own contemporaries and the younger, up-and-coming genera-tion—wrote Caput Masses in imitation (or rather, in emulation) of the one we have been examining, thereby casting themselves into a sort of three-generation dynasty. That these Masses were in fact responses to the older Mass and not two independently conceived Masses on the same cantus firmus tune is proved by the nature of the cantus firmus itself. It is a very little-used chant (neither from the Mass nor from the regular Office, but from a special service attended only by the clergy) that occurs only in English chant books. Ockeghem and Obrecht, the composers of the subsequent Caput Masses, would have been unlikely to encounter the tune anywhere else but in the tenor of the first Caput Mass, which circulated widely in continental manuscripts (in one of them under a spurious attribution to Du Fay that was long believed by scholars). Even more conclusively, the melody shows up in Ockeghem’s and Obrecht’s tenors in the precisely the same modified and rhythmicized form we have already observed in the first Caput Mass.

Citation (MLA):

Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 12 Emblems and Dynasties." The Oxford History of Western Music. Oxford University Press. New York, USA. n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2023. <https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume1/actrade-9780195384819-div1-012007.xml>.

Citation (APA):

Taruskin, R. (n.d.). Chapter 12 Emblems and Dynasties. In Oxford University Press, Music from the Earliest Notations to the Sixteenth Century. New York, USA. Retrieved 30 Nov. 2023, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume1/actrade-9780195384819-div1-012007.xml

Citation (Chicago):

Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 12 Emblems and Dynasties." In Music from the Earliest Notations to the Sixteenth Century, Oxford University Press. (New York, USA, n.d.). Retrieved 30 Nov. 2023, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume1/actrade-9780195384819-div1-012007.xml