At 1:32 AM -0400 3/28/08, David W. Fenton wrote:
On 27 Mar 2008 at 13:19, John Howell wrote:
The problem (not a problem for them, but a
problem for us in learning to interpret late 13th
century Franconian notation) is that Franco used
the same note shape to indicate both a perfect
longa (worth 3 breves) and an imperfect longa
(worth only 2 breves), while a single breve could
have its normal value of 1 breve or could be
altered to represent the value of 2
breves--EXACTLY the same value of an imperfect
longa! Everything depended on context, but we
can actually learn to read--even sightread--good
clear Franconian notation based on Franco's own
rules of interpretation. After all, THEY did!
I believe the description above applies to *Garlandian* notation, not
Franconian. After all, Franco of Cologne's whole innovation was the
introduction of symbols that had absolute meaning, regardless of
context (though not all the symbols still in use were free of
contextual meanings).
Hi, David. The situation is anything but crystal clear, but in
regard to Johannes de Garlandia, who has not actually been identified
with a known person, and whose "De musica mensurabili" was apparently
added by Jerome of Moravia to his collection of anonymous treatises
including "Discantus positio vulgaris" of about 1230, was included
because Jerome considered the latter to be deficient since it did not
include examples of how the ligatures were to be interpreted.
But these writers were talking about the rhythmic modes, and writing
well before Franco's innovations were written. And in the rhythmic
modes the problems I mentioned above simply didn't occur because NO
symbol had absolute meaning. But of course Franco didn't actually
invent a new system, but one based on the symbols used for centuries
in chant notation and for at least the past 60 years in modal
notation. And it was the carryover from the modal notation, which
didn't bother him in the least, that is confusing to us. (Example:
We say that the rhythmic modes used only two time values, the breve
and the longa, but in fact they had to stretch that to a third time
value, the perfect longa, to make modes 3, 4, and 5 work, and Franco
included that ambiguity when he assigned values to specific note and
rest shapes.)
[Disclaimer: We've just been through all this in the Strunk "Source
Readings" in my Early Music Literature class, about a month ago. I
wouldn't normally have all this at my fingertips, but I was able to
look back at what both Garlandia and Franco had to say. And it's
Franconian notation I was specifically writing about. It's embodied
in a great deal of the music from the "Roman de Fauvel," which we
also just performed in February.]
John
--
John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music
Virginia Tech Department of Music
College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
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