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Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/dsp017d278x427
Title: The Masses of Fremin le Caron and the Development of Contrapuntal Style in the Mid-Fifteenth Century
Authors: Ahern, John Richard
Advisors: Reuland, Jamie
Contributors: Music Department
Keywords: cantus firmus
Caron
counterpoint
cyclic mass
fifteenth-century music
schema theory
Subjects: Music history
Music theory
Music
Issue Date: 2024
Publisher: Princeton, NJ : Princeton University
Abstract: This dissertation studies the masses of Fremin le Caron, using his distinctive style to challenge the historiography of the mid-fifteenth-century mass cycle. The dichotomy, first established in the scholarship of Edgar Sparks, between schematically transformed tenors, typified in the works of Busnoys, and the heavily elaborated or modified tenors, typified in the works of Ockeghem, is undermined by Caron’s cycles. Drawing on recent studies, this dissertation argues that composers of masses in Caron’s generation were interested in notational fixity for exactly the same reasons they were interested in heavily elaborated tenors: in both cases, composers desired to demonstrate compositional virtuosity in response to a series of similar cantus firmus prompts. Caron’s style is a demonstration that these two distinct approaches to cantus firmus are motivated by a single aesthetic. The first chapter provides a brief overview of the scant biographical information scholars have managed to discover about Caron, adding one potential new point regarding his death. In the second chapter, I propose a chant model for Missa Clemens et benigna, and argue that the cycle as a whole demonstrates Caron’s distinctive techniques of cantus firmus elaboration and his debt to the English composer John Bedyngham. The third chapter, devoted to Missa Sanguis sanctorum, prompts a broad reconsideration of the notion of “head motto” in the early-to-mid-fifteenth century. The fourth chapter is devoted to Missa L’homme armé and Caron’s unusual approach to that well-known melody. The fifth chapter discusses the anonymous Naples L’homme armé masses, suggesting that, while Caron and Busnoys are both plausible candidates for attribution, we ought also to consider Robert Morton. The final chapter is devoted to the remaining two masses, Missa Accueilly m’a la belle and Jesus autem transiens, which illustrate how Caron both challenges and creates musical unity between the movements. Caron’s five masses put the fifteenth century into fresh perspective, presenting new analytical techniques and furthering scholarly trends that seek to emphasize the note-to-note contrapuntal decisions, in addition to the more traditional emphasis on structural and formal means of musical organization.
URI: http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/dsp017d278x427
Type of Material: Academic dissertations (Ph.D.)
Language: en
Appears in Collections:Music

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