Finn Mathiassen-The Style of the Early Motet 
(An Investigation of the Old Corpus of the Montpellier 
Manuscript) 

Copenhagen: Dan Fog Musikforlag, 1966 (212 pp.; transl. 
by Johanne M. Stochholm) 

Theodore Karp 

The publication of a dissertation presenting a broad study of the early 
13th-century motet is bound to be greeted with interest by medievalists. As a 
group, we are still working to establish better control over a wide number of 
repertoires and to expose these to scrutiny by means of published editions. 
Professor Mathiassen repays our interest with a wealth of statisticalinformation 
and more than 350 musical.examples, which together illustrate his commen-
tary on those aspects of the subject that he deems to be most noteworthy. The 
study, based on the motets offascicles II-VI of the Montpellier MS H 196, 
is organized into four main sections. The first outlines the reasons for the 
choice of topic, in the· process surveying many earlier views regarding 
medieval polyphony. A consideration of cultural and aesthetic factors 
underlying the 13th-century motet concludes this section. The following 
chapter is devoted to a consideration of the individual upper voice: the 

. relationship between text and music, rhythm, tonality, and form. The third 
chapter treats techniques of part writing and "polyphonic phrasing," while 
the final section takes up questions of harmonic practice. Extremely little 
attention is paid to the motet tenors since the author feels that these offer 
little to explain the immediate appeal of the early motet and since excellent 
coverage of the subject is already available in the commentary volume of the 
Rokseth edition. Nevertheless, the format of that volume did not permit an 
exhaustive inquiry into tenor treatment. Many worthwhile questions remain 
to be answered, and it is a pity that so few of these are investigated in the 
present volume. 

The ultimate value which this monograph may hold for the individual 
reader depends in large part upon the extent to which the reader is able to 
accept the author's orientation towards his subject, together with certain 
premises on which the work is based. Those seeking little more than an 
orderly listing of certain stylistic traits observable in the Old Corpus of the 
Montpellier MS will find greater satisfaction than those looking for pene-
trating interpretation. 

193 



The central question that seems to underlie the present study is whether it 
is possible to discuss the motets of the period 1190-1260 in terms of a single 
style. In one sense we may speak of the style of the early motet just as we may 
speak of the style of the symphony, let us say during the 70-year period, 
1820-90. But if we speak in these terms, it would seem that we imply an 
interest in defining those common characteristics that mark the essential 
bonds of unity among works that may also possess contrasting features. We 
even suggest an interest in the comparison 9f these common traits with their 
counterparts in earlier and later repertoires. Yet in this study, the author 
does not display any particular interest in charting the main channel of a 
diversified repertory. We are given examples of the different ways in which 
phrases may be articulated and of the different fashions in which phrases in 
one voice-part may relate proportionally to those in other voice-parts. But 
the relative importance of the various techniques is never indicated, nor are 
the musical aims and justifications explored. In another sense, experience 
with all later music teaches that significant stylistic change may be observed 
within any major genre during a period of more than a half-century. If we 
are concerned with detail technique, we cannot merely assume the presence 
of a unified style. But while the statistics presented in this study give evidence 
of stylistic diversity, there is practically no interpretation of the meaning of 
this diversity. Questions of stylistic evolution, geographical provenance, etc., 
are left almost untouched. Furthermore, the manner in which the statistics are 
presented will not enable the reader to draw his own conclusions regarding 
these basic questions. The author's attitudes towards scholarship's accom-
plishments and responsibilities with regard to questions of stylistic evolution 
are stated in puzzling fashion. Apparently referring to all polyphony created 
between 1170 and 1250, he first declares (p. 12) that "the chronology of the 
music has been fairly well clarified." But three pages later he finds premature 
earlier efforts "to ascertain-or at worst to postulate-diverse historical and 
sometimes also national relationships of which positive proof is lacking." 
Since the author refers also (p. 12) to the danger of "losing our way in a 
morass of dreams and barren speculations," it would appear that one of the 
attitudes underlying the present work is a quest for security and certainty. 
However, should we reach a state in which specialists in a given field prefer 
not to deal with central problems when solutions for these are problematical, 
to whom shall the average reader turn for guidance? 

Since the author's purpose is to explore "the style of the motet" of the 
first half of the 13th century, one must next question whether the Mont-
pellier repertoire provides a fit vehicle for this purpose. Although Professor 
Mathiassen does not go into this problem in any detail-there is only a 
remark that Mo lacks examples of the three-voice motet with a single text 
for the upper voices-he apparently assumes a much· higher degree of 
representativity than seems justifiable without further documentation on 
his part. Consider just one small item. In a penetrating study of the motets 
preserved in the Notre Dame MSS, Hans Tischler found that among motets 

194 



employing different modal patterns for tenor statements, changes 
from faster to slower rhythms are about as numerous as changes in the 
opposite direction. In the Montpellier repertoire, however, the balance is 
clearly weighted in favor of changes to quicker rhythms and the incidence 
of occurrence is smaller. Either a freak of chance entered into the later 
selection process, or, what seems more likely, there was a change in taste. 

Related to this issue is a misleading statement (p. 28) that "relatively few 
of the motets in. Mo are unique, most of them can also be found in other 
collections." According to Rokseth, half of the motets contained in the fifth 
and sixth fascicles are unica in the sense that they are not preserved elsewhere 
in polyphonic form; indeed there is a noticeably increased concentration of 
unica towards the later portion of each fascicle. Together the two fascicles 
account for more than three-quarters of the repertory being considered. At 
no point does the author indicate the extent to which these unica are stylistic-
ally similar or different from remaining motets preserved in other polyphonic 
sources, even though his use of unica as examples often seems to raise the 
question. 

Despite the author's seeming desire to avoid the uncertain and unprovable, 
there is much in the study that is c.ontroversial. Professor Mathiassen correctly 
points out that a 13th-century motet, once composed, was not unchangeable; 
but in so doing, he reaches an unwise balance. 

By Virtue of its recreative function, the motet is more closely related to, 
for instance, chess or cricket than to the art of music when considered 
from a modern point of view .... A thirteenth-century motet is not a 
work of art in the modern absolute sense of the word, but a fluid 
esthetic phenomenon, a series of more or less diverging, but fully 
equivalent versions of a model, which, in so far as it can be distinguished 
as such at all, in itself cannot be considered more than one of the 
versions (p. 37). 

There is also an extreme emphasis on the importance of linear forces in the 
13th-century motet and on the independence and self-sufficiency of the 
individual upper voice-part. We are told (p. 77) that "a medieval motet 
should not be read vertically like a modern score," and that (p. 63) "the 
effect of the pitch of any note in a given context depends primarily on which 
of the ... two tertian series it belongs to---but not on its vertical relations 
and only in special cases on its relation to a single tonic." Further, it is 
claimed (p. 91) that "the composers were given a completely free hand with 
regard to the form of the motet upper voice." This nearly total disregard for 
the formative of consonance and dissonance and for the structural 
influence of the tenor on the upper voices is at odds both with occasional 
admissions of the author and with his statistics which demonstrate how 
keenly aware the composers were of harmonic forces. The influence of the 
author's orientation is apparent on many levels. It is suggested (p. 58) that 
there are "cases in which written chromatic alterations tend to avoid a 

195 



leading note." The two examples furnished show a bj, proceeding to an a 
and then to a c'. If we analyze only the individual voice-part (all that is 
given by the author), it is quite possible to arrive at the conclusion that the 
essential cadential movement in each instance consists of the progression 
bj,-c', and that the a is merely an escape tone. But if we take the polyphonic 
complex into consideration, we find that the bj,'s are dissonances that resolve 
to a and that the essential cadential movement is a-c', a fifth opening to an 
octave, the lower voice moving down a whole step. The relevance of such a 
cadence to a discussion of the leading tone is doubtful whether the cadence 
is adorned by a non-essential tone or not. 

The author also investigates whether a sixth between upper voices was 
treated as consonant or not. Although he mentions testimony by Anonymous 
IV and Odington to the contrary, Professor Mathiassen concludes that such 
sixths were regarded as dissonances since the lower note of the interval 
"resolves" downward (normally by leap rather than by step, as is claimed). 
Most of the examples mentioned, however, are derived from motets that 
exist also in versions for one voice less. If the examples are to be employed as 
evidence for the above conclusion, it is necessary to show first that the 
versions for the greater number of voices came into being first and then to 
establish that the upper voices were composed simultaneously rather than in 
seriate fashion, as indicated by the theorists. Otherwise, we perceive that 
the so-called resolutions were in existence before the sixths came into being 
and that these motions therefore originated independently of the sixths. 

One further troublesome area remains to be considered: certain choices of 
terminology will make many uncomfortable. While it is useful to distinguish 
between melismatic sections of two-part organa that are in irregular notation 
and others that display strict modal patterns, it is questionable whether the 
best way to do this is to restrict the meaning of organum purum to the former 
and to create a new Latin term, organum mensuratum, for the latter. This 
reviewer is uneasy about such terms as single beat (employed in connection 
with the modi recti) and double beat (for the modi per ultra mensuram), and 
simultaneous imitation (designating paraHel motion). The propriety of the 
terms fugato, canon, and double counterpoint in their particular contexts 
seems dubious. The use of a terminology for phrase structure that is primarily 
dependent upon criteria of structure and the presence or absence of 
rests creates several problems .. Is it meaningful to speak of a "whole phrase" 
when such a term may encompass structures as diverse as a two-note motive 
and an entire voice part? Further difficulties arise from the practice of 
employing the adjective "structural" in a musical context but with the 
meaning corresponding to a division point the poetic structure (i.e., the 
rhyme). Thus, if one were to compare the statistics regarding finals of mas-
culine whole phrases with those regarding the "finals" of feminine whole 
phrases, one would not be comparing points that are equivalent from the 
musical standpoint: the latter may refer to the penultimate interval of the 
passage or even a still earlier point. 

196 



While we may acknowledge the diligence shown in this monograph, the 
usefulness of some of the information, and the provocative quality of certain 

" suggestions, this reviewer would caution the prospective reader to employ 
his critical faculties to their fullest when using this study. He would also urge 
a more adventurous attitude towards the further exploration of this vital 
body of music. 

Leon Crickmore-C.P.E. Bach: Six Harpsichord 
Concertos [Wq. 43i 

Birmingham: unpubl. thesis for the Master of Arts degree, 
University of Birmingham (England), 1956 

Jane R. Steveris-The Keyboard Concertos of 
Carl Phillipp Emanuel Bach 

Ann Arbor: University Microfilms (UM order No. 65-9718), 
1965 (viii+301 pp., Yale University diss.) " 

Chester Fanning Smith 

The master's thesis of Leon Crickmore appears slightly revised in Music & 
Letters (39/4: 227-41 [July 1958]). Here the title is altered from that of the 
original thesis to simply, '''C. P. E. Bach's Harpsichord. Concertos." That 
such a change in title is possible may give some conception of the nature of 
the thesis. Miss Stevens, on the other hand, sets out to discuss all 52 of the 
concertos and dutifully proceeds from the first to the last. The emphasis of 
both authors is on the form of the concertos. 

About to embark upon an analysis of the form of C. P. E. Bach's harpsi-
chord concertos, the student who is well aware of the chronology of music 
history will expect these works to stand somewhere between the Baroque 
concerto and the Classical concerto. Of course, in a literal sense they do. 
Both authors use this point of view as a basis for their discussions. To what 
extent, then, is C. P. E. Bach, whose father was his only teacher of composi-
tion, influenced by the Baroque concerto? And to what extent" does his 
originality, to which Haydn and Mozart both paid tribute, lead toward the 
establishment of the Classical Concerto? 

The two authors center their interest on the first movements of the 
harpsichord concertos. Each feels that the form of these movements is similar 
to the form' of the fast movements of a Baroque concerto. The ritornello 
principle, upon which the discussions hinge, should perhaps be briefly 
stated. Torelli presents this principle very clearly in his concertos. The quick 

7-C·M. 197