Contrafacta and Musical Imitation
in Medieval Europe
International conference
27-28 June 2024
University of Tübingen
Programme
The art of Medieval inventio is attuned to processes of reassembling, interpolation, and translation, as poets engage with the work of their predecessors to negotiate their place in the larger context of European lyric. Contrafacta constitute one the most pervasive forms of lyric re-creation and show how songs, authors, and performers formed a vital network that spread across Europe, crossing linguistic borders, and overcoming large chronological and geographical distances. Similarly, the borrowing of short melodic phrases, the use of recurring formulas, or the reordering and readapting of music and text are more subtle traces of a distinctly medieval aesthetics, whereby remolding existing material is, in itself, a process of artistic innovation.
By devoting an international conference to the wide spectrum of techniques of musical reuse, we aim at bringing together interdisciplinary and interlinguistic perspectives to tackle a range of questions, involving:
- ❖ Intertextuality and melodic borrowing
- ❖ Praxis of song-making
- ❖ The role of memory in composition and performance
- ❖ Perception of authoriality and ideas of intellectual property
- ❖ Parody, citation, and plagiarism
- ◈ Poets and their public
- ◈ Music and cultural networks
- ◈ The interconnections of places of cultural production
- ◈ Music and linguistic boundaries
- ◈ The osmosis of lay and liturgical spheres
- ◈ The intersection of monodic and polyphonic works (Motets, Clausule…)
- ◈ Musical reuse and lyric genres
- ✤ Perceptions of identity and similarity in music performance
- ✤ Identification, definition, and taxonomy of melodic reuse
- ✤ The role (and interference) of written and oral transmission
- ✤ Polygenesis and common practices in monodic composition
- ✧ Intermelodicities and where to find them
- ✧ Tools and methodologies for music analysis
- ✧ Digital approaches to the study of musical borrowing
Programme
27 June
9.30-10.00 - Institutional greetings
10.00-11.00
11.30-12.30
14.00-15.00 - Keynote
15.30-17.00
28 June
9.30-11.00
11.30-12.30
14.00-15.30
The conference will be hosted at the Musikwissenschaftliches Institut of the Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen (Pleghofsaal, Schulberg 2, 72070 Tübingen, Germany).
The event is generously co-funded by the Universitätsbund e. V.