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MUS 085 (Fall 2020)

Monday, 28 September 2020

PAPER NO. 2—SCHOLARLY ARTICLE REVIEW


DUE WEEK 11 (November 2, 4, or 6; drafts due 16 October)

Because medieval and Renaissance topics lie outside the experience of most musicians, it is often
necessary to turn to scholarly writings for guidance. In this option, you will select an essay or
article from the list on the following pages, and make a critical evaluation of the material
contained therein. All of the journal articles come from the journal Early Music (or EM) or the
book Medieval Woman’s Song, and all are available via JSTOR; you can see the whole list of
prospective articles below. Each essay will have only one assignee. first come, first served. You
may sign up in the following manner:

1. Select an article from the list below you would like to review.
2. Go to the Google Spreadsheet at this link:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10uCVnAcAsJOEYWfIJR8wgYYcoAr4y-
lIm48aWrKxzAE/
3. If the article is unclaimed, put your name in the “Student claiming this article” box, and
press Return/Enter.
4. If the article is claimed, please select a different article that is not, and follow the
instructions in Step 3.

Remember: only one student per article. Don’t replace someone else’s name with your own.
Your choice is due no later than 9 October; students making their request after that date will
lose 5% of their grade per day for each day it is late.

You will need to read your article several times. First, read for the general flow and structure of
the article. What information is presented, or what argument is put forth, and how? Note
especially any references to unfamiliar terms or concepts (be sure to look at the footnotes or
endnotes, since they may explain unfamiliar material or guide you to sources for explanation). As
you re-read your essay, pay closer attention to the details. What evidence does the author put
forth to support the argument? Is there any real evidence, or just supposition? How does the
author proceed from one point to the next? Is the author’s reasoning flawed, is evidence missing,
or do things just not add up? Does the author assume knowledge on the part of the reader, or does
s/he spell out every detail in careful sequence? In short, read with a critical eye; scholarly writing
makes its point by presenting evidence and drawing conclusions from it.

When you have read and re-read the article to the point that you believe you truly understand it,
you should write your report. In your report you should:
• Summarize the contents of the article and its manner of presentation; i.e., what does the
author say and how? You should be able to do this in a page to a page and a half.
• Provide a general opinion of the article, covering such aspects as (a) how well or poorly
written the piece was, with evidence in support of your assertions, (b) the logic and
structure of the author’s argument, (c) the significance of this article, or (d) any other
general comments that you care to make. (I would recommend that you check out the
third section of the Style Guide I have put on Blackboard for additional guidance.)
• Relate this article back to what you have learned about the history of music so far this
term, if it applies. Does this article confirm what you know from lecture or from the
textbook, or does it change, contradict, or enhance what you thought you learned?

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Please see the syllabus for guides to the grading standards for this paper, which will be worth
15% of your final grade (75 pts). You may, in the course of preparing to write, find it useful to
look at examples of scholarly book reviews in journals like Music and Letters, the Journal of
Musicological Research, or the Journal of the American Musicological Society to get a sense of
how reviewers engage with their subjects. (Some may be quite sophisticated and assume
knowledge on the part of the reader, while others may be written to be accessible to all who come
to it.) Your paper should be about 1000–1500 words, double-spaced, with one-inch margins, and
in 12-point Times New Roman.

Guide to title abbreviations (all are available via JSTOR)


EM—the journal Early Music.
MWS—Klinck, Anne, and Ann Marie Rasmussen, eds. Medieval Woman’s Song: Cross Cultural
Approaches. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002.

Ashbee, Andrew. “Groomed for Service: Musicians in the Privy Chamber at the English Court, c.
1495-1558.” EM 25, no. 2 (May 1997): 185-197.
Bennett, Judith. “Ventriloquisms: When Maidens Speak in English Songs, c. 1300-1550.” In
MWS, 187-204.
Bernstein, Jane. “Publish or Perish? Palestrina and Print Culture in 16th Century Italy.” EM 35,
no. 2 (May 2007): 225-35.
Bloxam, M. Jennifer. “‘I have never seen your equal’: Agricola, the Virgin, and the Creed,” EM
34, no. 3 (August 2006): 391-407.
Busasz, Rogério. “Black guitar-players and early African-Iberian music in Portugal and Brazil.”
EM 35, no. 1 (February 2007): 3–22.
Buckley, Ann. “Music and Musicians in Medieval Irish Society.” EM 28, no. 2 (May 2000): 165-190.
Candelaria, Lorenzo. “Tropes for the Ordinary in a 16th-Century Chantbook from Toledo, Spain.”
EM 34, no. 4 (November 2006): 587-611.
Cyrus, Cynthia. “The Annotator of the Lorraine Chansonnier and His Taste in Accidentals.” EM
30, no. 2 (May 2002): 189-200.
Davies, Drew. “Villancicos from Mexico City for the Virgin of Guadalupe.” EM 39, no. 2 (May
2011): 229–44.
Dixon, Graham. “‘Behold Our Affliction’: Celebration and Supplication in the Gonzaga
Household.” EM 24, no. 2 (May 1996): 250-261.
Duncan, Cheryll. “‘A Debt contracted in Italy: Ferdinando Tenducci in a London court and
prison.” EM 42, no. 2 (May 2014): 219–29.
Fenlon, Iain. “St Mark’s before Willaert.” EM 21, no. 4 (November 1993): 547-563.
Griffiths, John. “Hidalgo, merchant, poet, priest: the vihuela in the urban soundscape.” EM 37,
no. 3 (August 2009): 355-66.
Haines, John. “A musical fragment from Anglo-Saxon England.” EM 36, no. 2 (May 2008): 219-30.
Haines, John. “New Light on the Polyphonic Sequence Ave Virgo, Virga Jesse.” EM 34, no. 1
(February 2006): 55-73.
Hatter, Jane. “Col Tempo: musical time, aging, and sexuality in 16th-century Venetian paintings.”
EM 39, no. 1 (February 2011): 3-14.

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Hogwood, Christopher. “The keyboard sonatas of Leopold Koželuch.” EM 40, no. 4 (November
2012): 621–37.
Irving, David R. M. “Lully in Siam: music and diplomacy in French–Siamese cultural exchanges,
1680–1690.” EM 40, no. 3 (August 2012): 393–420.
Kasten, Ingrid. “The Conception of Female Roles in the Woman’s Song of Reinmar and the
Comtessa de Dia.” In MWS, 152-67.
Kintzel, Robert. “Vivaldi in colonial America: the cases of Francis Hopkinson, Peter Pelham and
Thomas Jefferson.” EM 42, no. 3 (August 2014): 421–33.
Kreitner, Kenneth. “The Cathedral Band of León in 1548, and When It Played.” EM 31, no. 1
(February 2003): 41-62.
McFarland, Alison Sanders. “Within the Circle of Charles V: New Light on the Biography of
Christóbal de Morales.” EM 30, no. 3 (August 2002): 324-338.
McGrattan, Alexander. “Italian Wind Instrumentalists at the Scottish Royal Court During the 16th
Century.” EM 29, no. 4 (November 2001): 534-541.
Minamino, Hiroyuki. “The Spanish plucked viola in Renaissance Italy, 1480-1530.” EM 32 no. 2
(May 2004): 177-192.
Niebrzydowski, Sue. “Asperges me, Domine, hyssops: male voices, female interpretation and the
medieval English purification of women after childbirth ceremony.” EM 39, no. 3
(August 2011): 327–33.
Nelson, Katie: “Love in the music room: Thomas Whythorne and the private affairs of Tudor
music tutors.” EM 40, no. 1 (February 2012): 15–26.
O’Regan, Noel. “Palestrina, A Musician and Composer in the Market-Place.” EM 22, no. 4
(November 1994): 551-572.
O’Regan, Noel. “The Performance of Palestrina: Some Further Observations.” EM 24, no. 1
(February 1996): 145-154.
Page, Christopher. “An English Motet of the 14th Century in Performance: Two Contemporary
Images.” EM 25, no. 1 (February 1997): 7-32.
Page, Christopher. “Listening to the Trouvères.” EM 25, no. 4 (November 1997): 638-656.
Peters, Gretchen. “Urban Musical Culture in Late Medieval Southern France.” EM 25, no. 3
(August 1997): 403-410.
Rice, Stephen. “Reconstructing Tallis’s Latin Magnificat and Nunc dimittis.” EM 33, no. 4
(November 2005), 647-58.
Rooley, Anthony. “1612—John Dowland and the emblem tradition.” EM 41, no. 2 (May 2013):
273–80.
Ros-Fabregas, Emilio. “Music and Ceremony During Charles V’s 1519 Visit to Barcelona.” EM
23, no. 3 (August 1995): 374-391.
Rose, Adrian. “Angel Musicians in the Medieval Stained Glass of Norfolk Churches.” EM 29, no.
2 (May 2001): 186-217.
Sanna, Alberto. “Arcangelo Corelli and friends: kinships and networks in the Papal State.” EM
41, no. 4 (November 2013): 645–55.
Sherr, Richard. “Be careful in your patrons: a few fretful years in the life of Nicola Barone, papal

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singer, composer and murderer.” EM 42, no. 3 (August 2014): 389–408.
Sherr, Richard. “Competence and Incompetence in the Papal Choir in the Age of Palestrina.” EM
22, no. 4 (November 1994): 606-629.
Sherr, Richard. “Thoughts on Ockeghem’s Missa de plus en plus: anxiety and proportion in the
late 15th century.” EM 38, no. 3 (August 2010): 335-46.
Skinner, David. “Discovering the Provenance and History of the Caius and Lambeth
Choirbooks.” EM 25, no. 2 (May 1997): 245-266.
Smith, Jeremy. “‘Unlawful song’: Byrd, the Babington Plot, and the Paget choir.” EM 38, no. 4
(November 2010): 497-508.
Starr, Pamela F. “Musical Entrepreneurship in 15th-century Europe.” EM 32, no. 1 (Feb. 2004):
119-133.
Tröster, Patrick. “More About Renaissance Slide Trumpets: Fact or Fiction?” EM 32, no. 2 (May
2004): 252-268.
Wegman, Rob. “Musical Offerings in the Renaissance.” EM 33, no. 3 (August 2005), 425-37.
Wegman, Rob. “Ockeghem, Brumel, Josquin: new documents in Troyes.” EM 36, no. 2 (May
2008): 203-18.
Williamson, Magnus. “The Early Tudor Court, the Provinces and the Eton Choirbook.” EM 25,
no. 2 (May 1997): 229-243.
Williamson, Magnus. “‘Pictura et Scriptura’: The Eton Choirbook : Its Iconographical Context.”
EM 28, no. 3 (August 2000): 359-380.

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