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Tinctoris on the great composers

1996; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 5; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1017/s0961137100001157

1474-0087

Leofranc Holford‐Strevens,

Renaissance and Early Modern Studies

Johannes Tinctoris, in the prologue to his Liber de arte contrapuncti of 1477, having demonstrated his wide literary and philosophical culture, and declared that, to his astonishment, no music over forty years old is deemed worthy by the learned of a hearing, praises five living composers and three recently deceased, whose works are of such sweet savour that he judges them worthy even of the immortal gods; in so elegant a context only the pagan phrase will serve. He continues (§18): ‘Ea quoque profecto numquam audio, numquam considero quin laetior ac doctior evadam, unde quemadmodum Virgilius in illo opere divino Eneidos Homero, ita iis hercule in meis opusculis utor archetypis’.