The Renaissance Reform of Medieval Music Theory: Guido of Arezzo between Myth and History
Cambridge University Press, 2/11/2010
EAN 9780521884150, ISBN10: 0521884152
Hardcover, 304 pages, 25 x 17.5 x 2.4 cm
Language: English
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.
Introduction
Guido's hexachord
old facts and new questions
Part I. Guidonian Solmization in Music Theory and Practice
1. Guido's musical syllables
conflicting views from modern historiography
2. Inside the gamut
Guido of Arezzo and Hermannus Contractus on the major sixth
3. Hands off! Singing without syllables in the Middle Ages
4. The making of a system
medieval music semiotics in transition
Interlude
All hexachords are 'soft'
Part II. Reforming the Music Curriculum in the Age of Humanism
5. Back to the monochord
church reform and music theory in the 15th century
6. Normalizing the humanist
Johannes Gallicus as a 'Follower of Guido'
7. Gafori's hand
forging a new Guido for a new humanist culture
8. Hexachordal theory and deductive method in Gioseffo Zarlino's Dimostrationi harmoniche (1571)
Epilogue
Discarding the Guidonian image of early music
Bibliography.