Music and Digital Scholarship: Lessons from the Renaissance

The allusiveness of musical discourse is so fundamental to the Western tradition that it is hard to imagine a work that does not in some way make reference to some other composition, type or topic. Citations: The Renaissance Imitation Mass (CRIM) (https://crimproject.org) focuses on one important but neglected part of this tradition: Imitation (or Parody) Mass of the sixteenth century, in which a composer transformed a short sacred or secular piece into a long five-movement cyclic setting of the Ordinary of the Catholic Mass. The resulting works are far more than collections of quotations, for if counterpoint is a craft of combinations, then the Imitation Mass involves the art of recombination on a massive scale.

In this short talk we will explore the art of Renaissance counterpoint, revealing its complex beauty. We will also learn how new digital tools for the study are opening new opportunities for collaboration among musicologists and specialists in the information sciences.