Montag, 24. März 2025 – 15:00–18:00 Uhr – Seminarraum 1

Herzliche Einladung zur Common Hour für Alte Musik mit Gast Anne Walters Robertson (University of Chicago). Wenn Sie nicht ohnehin auf dem Verteiler für die Common Hour stehen, bitten wir um Anmeldung bei Sonja Tröster.

Abstract

No song in the fifteenth century was more popular than Fortuna desperata. Its many incarnations include settings of the tune, ensemble derivations, keyboard compositions, and six masses, representing the work of more than fifteen composers from Flanders, Germany, and Italy. For all its renown, however, we still do not understand what the song means in these pieces. My talk will show: 1) how Jacob Obrecht drew on the most cherished and influential philosophical treatise of the middle ages and beyond, Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy, as read through its late medieval commentaries in his Missa Fortuna; and 2) how Josquin des Prez’s mass on Fortuna was inspired by another landmark work, Guillelmus Durandus’ famous Rationale divinorum officiorum.