Musicology Lecture : "Music Against Reason: Philippe de Vitry's Exceptional Notation," Anna Zayaruznaya

October 14, 2013

4:30 pm - 6:00 pm

Music/Dance Library, 175 W. 18th Ave.

Add to Calendar 2013-10-14 16:30:00 2013-10-14 18:00:00 Musicology Lecture : "Music Against Reason: Philippe de Vitry's Exceptional Notation," Anna Zayaruznaya The Musicology Lecture Series presents guest speaker Anna Zayaruznaya, Yale University, "Music Against Reason: Philippe de Vitry's Exceptional Notation."Musicology lectures are free and open to the public. All lectures are held Mondays at 4:30 p.m. in the Music/Dance Library (2nd floor, room 205) in the 18th Avenue Library at 175 West 18th Ave., unless otherwise noted.The upper-voice texts of the motet Tuba/In arboris pit Faith and Reason against each other, arguing that only the former will lead to eternal life or to any real kind of understanding. That an “isorhythmic” motet—that most rational of constructions—should present an argument about the fallibility of ratio may come as something of a surprise, as may the fact that the well-educated composer Philippe de Vitry (1291–1361) would declare Reason (and Music) to be powerless. This paper situates Vitry’s texts within the relevant contemporary strands of thought about Reason and Faith and explores the contradictions at the heart of the motet’s musical construction. This interpretation of the motet highlights some of the tensions between practice and theory that emerged with the early fourteenth-century revolution in musical notation.Anna Zayaruznaya is the Suzanne Young Murray Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and a Visiting Fellow in the Department of Music at Yale University. She will join the faculty of Yale’s Music Department in August 2014. Her research lies at the intersection of musical and poetic expression in fourteenth-century France and northern Italy. Her articles appear in the Journal of the American Musicological Society, the Journal of Musicology and Early Music History. Her forthcoming book—The Monstrous New Art: Form and Idea in the Late Medieval Motet —explores the roles played by monsters and the monstrous in fourteenth-century musical aesthetics. This year she began research on a second book, which will constitute the first monograph on fourteenth-century poet, composer and public intellectual Philippe de Vitry. Music/Dance Library, 175 W. 18th Ave. OSU ASC Drupal 8 ascwebservices@osu.edu America/New_York public

2013-10-14 16:30:00 2013-10-14 18:00:00 Musicology Lecture : "Music Against Reason: Philippe de Vitry's Exceptional Notation," Anna Zayaruznaya The Musicology Lecture Series presents guest speaker Anna Zayaruznaya, Yale University, "Music Against Reason: Philippe de Vitry's Exceptional Notation."Musicology lectures are free and open to the public. All lectures are held Mondays at 4:30 p.m. in the Music/Dance Library (2nd floor, room 205) in the 18th Avenue Library at 175 West 18th Ave., unless otherwise noted.The upper-voice texts of the motet Tuba/In arboris pit Faith and Reason against each other, arguing that only the former will lead to eternal life or to any real kind of understanding. That an “isorhythmic” motet—that most rational of constructions—should present an argument about the fallibility of ratio may come as something of a surprise, as may the fact that the well-educated composer Philippe de Vitry (1291–1361) would declare Reason (and Music) to be powerless. This paper situates Vitry’s texts within the relevant contemporary strands of thought about Reason and Faith and explores the contradictions at the heart of the motet’s musical construction. This interpretation of the motet highlights some of the tensions between practice and theory that emerged with the early fourteenth-century revolution in musical notation.Anna Zayaruznaya is the Suzanne Young Murray Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and a Visiting Fellow in the Department of Music at Yale University. She will join the faculty of Yale’s Music Department in August 2014. Her research lies at the intersection of musical and poetic expression in fourteenth-century France and northern Italy. Her articles appear in the Journal of the American Musicological Society, the Journal of Musicology and Early Music History. Her forthcoming book—The Monstrous New Art: Form and Idea in the Late Medieval Motet —explores the roles played by monsters and the monstrous in fourteenth-century musical aesthetics. This year she began research on a second book, which will constitute the first monograph on fourteenth-century poet, composer and public intellectual Philippe de Vitry. Music/Dance Library, 175 W. 18th Ave. America/New_York public

The Musicology Lecture Series presents guest speaker Anna Zayaruznaya, Yale University, "Music Against Reason: Philippe de Vitry's Exceptional Notation."

Musicology lectures are free and open to the public. All lectures are held Mondays at 4:30 p.m. in the Music/Dance Library (2nd floor, room 205) in the 18th Avenue Library at 175 West 18th Ave., unless otherwise noted.

The upper-voice texts of the motet Tuba/In arboris pit Faith and Reason against each other, arguing that only the former will lead to eternal life or to any real kind of understanding. That an “isorhythmic” motet—that most rational of constructions—should present an argument about the fallibility of ratio may come as something of a surprise, as may the fact that the well-educated composer Philippe de Vitry (1291–1361) would declare Reason (and Music) to be powerless. This paper situates Vitry’s texts within the relevant contemporary strands of thought about Reason and Faith and explores the contradictions at the heart of the motet’s musical construction. This interpretation of the motet highlights some of the tensions between practice and theory that emerged with the early fourteenth-century revolution in musical notation.

Anna Zayaruznaya is the Suzanne Young Murray Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and a Visiting Fellow in the Department of Music at Yale University. She will join the faculty of Yale’s Music Department in August 2014. Her research lies at the intersection of musical and poetic expression in fourteenth-century France and northern Italy. Her articles appear in the Journal of the American Musicological Society, the Journal of Musicology and Early Music History. Her forthcoming book—The Monstrous New Art: Form and Idea in the Late Medieval Motet —explores the roles played by monsters and the monstrous in fourteenth-century musical aesthetics. This year she began research on a second book, which will constitute the first monograph on fourteenth-century poet, composer and public intellectual Philippe de Vitry.