Stability and change in the composition of a ‘Plague Mass’ in the wake of the Black Death

Abstract

In the mid-fourteenth century the Black Death inflicted one of the most devastating losses of life in human history. This was met by exercises of collective piety such as the singing of psalms and the celebration of special votive masses, which encouraged social cohesion in the face of the tragedy. This article presents results from an analysis of fifty-seven manuscripts containing copies of the monophonic ‘Recordare domine’ Mass, reportedly created at the behest of Clement VI at Avignon during his Black Death-spanning pontificate. Of these, seven manuscripts contain fully notated renditions of each of the chants for the Mass Propers, enabling us to decouple questions concerning the organisation and transmission of the melodies from those of the texts set to them. When the different versions of the Mass are compared, two major findings emerge. First, differential patterns of consistency within the texts and melodies suggest that the texts of the ‘Recordare domine’ Mass may have circulated separately from the melodies set to them, with the choice of music left to the discretion of the local performing clergy. Second, the patterns of variation between different versions of the Proper texts and melodies allow us to see how a variety of composition strategies (including mnemonic processes) were used to create new music for the mass. The ‘Recordare domine’ Mass thus sheds light not only on the performance of organised sacred music at a pivotal point in European history, but also more generally on the processes of chant composition as a tool for use in response to social stress.

GOING VIRAL: Music and Emotions during Pandemics (1679–1919)

“…The very few music-related studies that explicitly focus on cholera are primarily limited to Fanny Hensel's Cholera Cantata. 7 More in-depth research exists for music during Plague outbreaks between 1300 and 1600 in Italy, most notably by Christopher Macklin 8 and Remi Chiu, whose PhD thesis Plague and Music in the Renaissance considers a wide range of rich and exciting sources and offers fascinating insights into the role of music in medical and magical contexts as well as into social and musical practices related to the Saint Sebastian cult. 9 Despite providing some fascinating glimpses into praxeological and phenomenological dimensions, both Chiu and Macklin ultimately aim for musical analyses of contemporary "pestilential" music that show intriguing aspects of both the compositions and how they might have been temporally or the mati cally connected to the Plague.…”

Teledescante nº1: polyphony in time of plague

“… See Hanska (2002, p.81-84),Paden (2014) andMacklin (2008, p.64-78, 85-87;2016). Schwarz and Starling describe the order, in October 1918, that all churches in Salvador celebrated this mass after the outburst of the "Spanish flu" in Brazil (2020, p.72-74).…”