Artes Novae’

Adhuc sum de numero Antiquorum quos horum aliqui rudes vocant. Sum senex, illi acuti et iuvenes. ...etsi in hoc opere dicturus aliqua sum contra dicta Modernorum ubi obviant dictis Antiquorum, diligo tamen personas illorum. I am now one of the ancients who are called backward-looking by some. I am old. They are clever and young. ...although in this work some things will be said against the opinions of the moderni, where they oppose the views of the antiqui, I still hold them dear personally. Jacobus, Speculum musicae, book 7, chapter 1 Periods of rapid and conspicuous change in music history have repeatedly been hailed as new: the ars nova of the early fourteenth century, the seconda prattica of c.1600, many different currents of music from about 1910 to the present, especially the 'new music' following the Second World War. The term 'new music' continued through several waves of change for nearly the whole twentieth century; something similar may be true of the fourteenth. Karen Desmond's recent book Music and the moderni, 1300-1350 (henceforth Desmond, Moderni), 1 together with her 2009 dissertation and a series of ground-breaking studies published since then, 2 moves the mapping of newness in fourteenth-century music theory to a new level. Desmond's work shows a deep knowledge of the sources

Art · Historical Art and Culture Studies