trouble me the bourdon

Tuesday 10 March 2015

Further inventions

Another (in)famous case of 'discovery' of early music from Scotland hidden in the architecture is the 'Rosslyn Motet', based on stone carvings in Rosslyn chapel. As for the Stirling heads, a irregularly repeating pattern was taken to indicate music, this time by a claimed analogy to 'Chladni' vibration patterns. This was used as the basis of a 'reconstruction' widely hailed in the media as a rediscovery of a 15th century piece of music.

I can recommend reading the debunks posted here and here.

Note I have no problem with any musician or composer taking any route they like from the inspiration of some existing medieval art and architecture to the development of a new musical piece or performance. But the general (or even the musically educated) public's understanding of medieval music is fuzzy enough, without muddying the waters with these kinds of inflated claims of 'discovery'.

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