Rhythm and reception in the age of Dante

Abstract

Almost every genre of polyphonic music from the period c1150 to c1250 was subject to renotation around 1300. Far from providing evidence of how the rhythm and metre of the originals were structured, these sources from c1300 reveal a culture of careful reworking that constitutes a site of reception for organum, conductus and other genres. While some renotations simply update without changing rhythmic profile, others have a profound effect on the metrical profile of the work. Furthermore, in some cases the process of renotating also involved recomposition: mostly the additional third voices to two-voice textures. Generic boundaries were consequently blurred, and the profile of organum and conductus as a mixed form was largely erased, as these updated works co-existed with music that was pathbreaking and innovative c1300.