Although the motet Nigra sum in the Libro primo de la fortuna (Rome, c. 1526) has long been attributed to Adrian Willaert, he is not its composer. No sixteenth-century source ascribes the piece to him. Rather, the attribution stems from a modern practice that this study terms the tacit attribution fallacy: the construal of apparent groupings of pieces in tables of contents as evidence of attributions. Two concordances for Nigra sum are found in manuscripts from the Veneto: the choirbook Verona 760, and the tenor partbook Bologna R142. Together, these indicate that the motet was originally composed for three voices, with two si placet voices added later. Implausible attributions for pieces such as Nigra sum illustrate the need for more careful attention to sixteenth-century composers’ work-lists. Avoiding the tacit attribution fallacy reveals how central sources such as the Libro primo evince a robust musical transmission.
Gaps, Galleys, Gombert: The Biography and Reputation of a Sixteenth-Century Composer
In Music of the Josquin Era: Essays in Honour of Joshua Rifkin , 2024
2022
The Origins of a Sixteenth-Century "In-Between" Generation and the Long Shadow of Early Twentieth-Century German Historiography
This dissertation takes as its point of departure a problematic historiographical tradition. Even while recognizing that the death of the famous composer Josquin des Prez (1450–1521) marked a stylistic turning point, scholars working in Germany in the early twentieth century characterized the decades that followed, ca. 1520–50, as an aesthetic retrenchment, overstating Josquin’s influence and unwittingly lumping into the same generation sixteenth-century musicians who in fact worked at different times and in different stylistic idioms. Relying on research in approximately thirty archives, this study reveals how a problematic narrative arose owing to nationalism, religious politics, interpersonal politics, the state of the field at the time, and the inaccessibility of primary source materials. The dissertation revisits composer biographies and the datings of central musical sources. And it uses comparative stylistic analyses of sacred polyphony to pinpoint how, when, and where a new style emerged ca. 1520. Placing writings that launched the modern historiographical tradition in dialogue with musical repertories central to the early history of musicology, the dissertation aims to give appropriate weight to a decisive shift in the history of music while also revealing the enduring influence of early German scholarship on the discipline as a whole.
Alfred Einstein’s Scholarship, the Italian Madrigal, and The Italian Madrigal
Troja Jahrbuch für Renaissancemusik, 2022
2021
Auf dem Weg zu einer neuen Josquin-Gesamtausgabe? Edward Lowinsky und die Josquin Festival-Konferenz 1971
Gaps, Galleys, Gombert: The Biography and Reputation of a Sixteenth-Century ComposerIn Music of the Josquin Era: Essays in Honour of Joshua Rifkin , 2024
Alfred Einstein’s Scholarship, the Italian Madrigal, and The Italian MadrigalTroja Jahrbuch für Renaissancemusik, 2022
