Medieval Song from Aristotle to Opera

Review

by Bradford Lee Eden
published on 26 September 2024

This book is an interdisciplinary exploration of music and sound with a focus on medieval songs. In the introduction, the author explains how the new interdisciplinary field of sound studies along with her view of song as anachronic (something from a later time period that is transferred back to an earlier one) has led to the interesting title of the book. Its intended audience is scholars in the areas of musicology, sound studies, medieval music, and philosophy.

Sarah Kay is a prolific writer on medieval European literature and the arts. The concept of song as logos and phone (text plus music) is most apparent in medieval song, where not only the performance of the song but its presentation in the manuscript along with the specific musical notation and performance venues all intertwine to go beyond song into how imaginary animals and real animals presented in the songs might have sounded. Given that modern-day scholars can only guess at what and how medieval song may have actually sounded like in performance and how that performance would have been internalized or analyzed by those who heard it, the author explores many interesting threads in the book such as singing as the paradoxical conjunction of touch and thought, song’s association with animal breath and soul, and the specific example of the siren and siren song as presented in medieval song manuscripts. The anachronic exploration of reading medieval song operatically becomes a focus throughout the book as well. The section in the introduction called “Reading Medieval Song Operatically” is an example of this anachronic analysis.

Chapter One looks at the concept of touch and thought in Guillaume de Machaut’s "Remede de Fortune" and its description through music, text, and manuscript illustration, including how the concept of touch is exemplified in Boethius’s On the Consolation of Philosophy to the touch of the Muse in late antique society up to Hope’s touch and the touch of love in the songs of the troubadours and trouveres. Chapter Two examines the concept of the voice as light in such songs and texts as the alba “Reis glorios” by Giraut de Bornelh and the Marian hymn “Domna dels angels regina” of Peire de Corbian.

Chapter Three focuses on the breath of beasts and the ecologies of inspiration in troubadour lyrics and songs such as Nicole de Margival’s "Dit de la Panthere" and Machaut’s "Dit dou Lyon," where the panther and the lion and the concept of the pneuma in medieval philosophy are discussed. The author brings her expertise in ancient and medieval philosophy, depictions of these concepts in medieval illuminated manuscripts, and concepts of air and breath along with colored plates and charts to illustrate her train of thought on these interesting threads, tangents, and trails which bring all these concepts and examples together. Chapter Five discusses a specific imaginary creature, the siren, and its death-luring song, using Machaut’s "Jugement dou roy de Navarre" as an introduction, moving to sirens in medieval singing and operatic representations, up to their depictions in medieval illuminated manuscripts such as the Queen Mary Psalter, Troubadour Book M, and various other medieval songs. In Chapter Six, on imagining hearing song, there is more examination of various troubadour and trouvere medieval songs related to sound and its performance, reception, sensing, and imagining. A short essay on the loss, retrieval, and future of medieval song in scholarship today closes the book.

Kay is Emerita Professor of French Literature, Thought, and Culture at New York University. Some of her previous books include Animal Skins and the Reading Self in Medieval Latin and French Bestiaries (2017) and Parrots and Nightingales: Troubadour Quotations and the Development of European Poetry (2013). One of the most exciting additions to Medieval Song from Aristotle to Opera is its companion website, which contains audio and some video recordings of the songs in the book with complete texts and translations, performance scores, and chapter-by-chapter performance reflections. It is a must for readers to go through this companion website in order to hear and see how the author’s concepts and impressions of these medieval songs are imagined and performed. This book is definitely aimed at experienced scholars; readers unfamiliar with this topic would benefit from learning some fundamental knowledge about this field before preceding.

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