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Cadential Syntax and Mode in the Sixteenth-Century Motet: a Theory of Compositional Process and Structure from Gallus Dressler's Praecepta Musicae Poeticae

Description: Though cadences have long been recognized as an aspect of modality, Gallus Dressler's treatise Praecepta musicae poeticae (1563) offers a new understanding of their relationship to mode and structure. Dressler's comments suggest that the cadences in the exordium and at articulations of the text are "principal" to the mode, shaping the tonal structure of the work. First, it is necessary to determine which cadences indicate which modes. A survey of sixteenth-century theorists uncovered a striking… more
Date: May 1996
Creator: Hamrick, David (David Russell)
open access

The Function of Oral Tradition in Mary Lou's Mass by Mary Lou Williams

Description: The musical and spiritual life of Mary Lou Williams (1910 - 1981) came together in her later years in the writing of Mary Lou's Mass. Being both Roman Catholic and a jazz pianist and composer, it was inevitable that Williams would be the first jazz composer to write a setting of the mass. The degree of success resulting from the combination of jazz and the traditional forms of Western art music has always been controversial. Because of Williams's personal faith and aesthetics of music, however,… more
Date: August 1996
Creator: Fledderus, France
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