Contains articles previously published in various musicology journals between 1981 and 1998. Articles are in sections on Tinctoris and the art of composition, Petrucci and his sources, and Luigi Zenobi and his letter on the perfect musician. Specific topics include compositional process in the 15th century, Obrecht's Missa Je ne demande and Busnoys' Chanson, Tinctoris' teaching recovered, Johannes Ockeghem, Lorenzo de' Medici, and Petrucci's Venetian editor. Author information is not given. Original pagination has been retained. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
The first articles here focus on Johannes Tinctoris, the prominent late 15th-century music theorist. They deal with the discovery of his lost pedagogical motet, and his treatise on counterpoint; this forms the basis of a wide-ranging investigation of contemporary practices of improvisation and composition (singing super librum and writing res facta), in which the question of successive and simultaneous composition is reconsidered. Tinctoris's sometimes sharp rebukes to famous composers are also investigated in the context of works by Ockeghem. Ottaviano Petrucci's first publication of music, the Odhecaton of 1501, is the subject of another three articles. These identify the editor of the work, and make new proposals on the provenance and editing of this repertory. The last article presents an edition of a treatise of ca. 1600 in the form of a letter from the virtuoso cornettist Luigi Zenobi to an unknown prince, which offers new insights on the change in performance practice at the end of the Renaissance.