The Virgin Mary forms the focus of the poetry of the conducti Porta salutis and Stella serena. Sacred subjects predominate, however, with no fewer than five conducti on this recording being based on themes from the Incarnation of Christ ( Genitus divinitus Quod promisit ab eterno Relegentur ab area Ista dies celebrari Beate virginis). Only slightly less abstract is the poetry of Quo vadis, quo progrederis?, which embodies a dialogue between the body and the soul. The corruption of the Church is a popular theme, represented here by Heu quo progreditur, while Artium dignitas laments the decay of learning. Qui servare puberem is a sustained attack on the oldest profession which comes close-if the last four lines of the third stanza have been interpreted correctly-to claiming that succumbing to the lures of prostitution is tantamount to a funeral preceding death itself. The poetry of the conductus reflects a kaleidoscope of preoccupations that range from sacred texts that come close to the liturgical, and in some cases are settings of texts from the liturgy, to exhortations to rulers via condemnations of harlots. There is a good case to be made that the type of poetry that appears in the conductus repertory-called rithmus by those who wrote about it-may well have been written especially with song in mind, and this quality may at least in part have conditioned its structure. There are only a tiny handful of settings of quantitative texts in the entire repertory this recording includes one of them ( Porta salutis), and a very strange piece it is indeed. Unlike classical quantitative verse, there is not necessarily control over the foot, and the poetry is organized according to number of syllables in a line, rhyme and end accent (either paroxytonic or proparoxytonic). The poems that form the basis of the conductus repertory are little known and even less well understood. Others, for example, have taken the term conductus to have a meaning associated with вЂconductвЂ™, and this fits well with the homiletic and moralizing tone of some of the poems. Some have taken the term conductus to indicate some sort of processional context for the genre, and while it is just about conceivable that when the medieval procession stopped and made a station, singers might have sung a conductus, the more common idea that the works were sung while processing fits ill with the complexity of both their words and music.

Certainly there are difficulties with the rhythm of parts of the conductus that have led to a position where until relatively recently there has been no consensus as to how they would have been performed (more below), and even the function of the conductus-what itвЂ™s for-has been the subject of debate. Perhaps it is a number of uncertainties around the conductus that have resulted in its eclipse by other genres. Manuscripts preserving the repertory are found from Scotland to the southern Rhineland, and from Spain to southern Poland. This is an immense repertory, and one that was spread far and wide. Three works have a doubtful generic profile, and 122 survive as texts or incipits alone. Of these poems, 675 are set to music, and of these 377 are monophonic 184 are in two parts 111 in three parts 3 in four parts. For the conductus is every bit as ambitious as its other family members whether in terms of the complexity or sophistication of its poetry, or of the technical wizardry of some of its musical techniques, it is a genre to be reckoned with.Д®ven in terms of simple numbers, the conductus occupies an important place on the medieval musical landscape: there are slightly over 800 Latin poems with music copied between around 12, preserving a repertory composed between the 1180s and 1230s.

Unlike its well-known siblings, the flamboyant organum and occasionally smutty motets, the conductus has remained in the shadows for much longer than its musical and poetic ambitions deserve. The conductus has always seemed like the poor relation in the history of music between the twelfth and the fourteenth centuries.

Types de strophes poesie