Verbal Canons and Notational Complexity in Fifteenth-Century Music

The notation of 15th-century music often features curious inscriptions that prescribe transformations of written counterpoint—from simply slowing down a given line to singing it at a different pitch, or even turning it backwards or upside-down. Such intricate notation, which can appear by turns unnecessary and confounding, challenges traditional conceptions of notation itself. My dissertation describes the intellectual underpinnings of late medieval music writing through the lens of this curious notational device. I trace the use of verbal canons from their beginnings in the 14th century through the earliest prints in the 1510s. Over this span, canons go from serving as explanatory notes to being elaborate cryptic literary inscriptions—and an integral part of many compositions. Throughout this study I pay particular attention to the ways preexisting material is presented visually, as it often retains aspects of its original source. 15th-century composers so valued the visual appearance of their music that it informed the act of composition; for them, musical notation assumed a significance that would not be matched until the 20th century.
For a long time, interest in musical notation has extended only as far as practical knowledge demanded. It is not enough to know the content of what is conveyed: understanding how composers and scribes transmitted some of the most complicated polyphonic music of the period stands to change our ontological conception of this repertory. By regarding musical notation as a complex technology that did more than record sound, my dissertation offers a new approach to the literate traditions of music in the early Renaissance.