2. 职称英语
  3. Until Josquin des Prez, 1440-1521, Western music was liturgical, designed as

Until Josquin des Prez, 1440-1521, Western music was liturgical, designed as

游客2023-12-18  25
问题    Until Josquin des Prez, 1440-1521, Western music was liturgical, designed as an accompaniment to worship. Like the intricately carved gargoyles perched atop medieval cathedrals beyond sight of any human, music was composed to please God before anybody else; its dominant theme was reverence. Emotion was there, but it was the grief of Mary standing at the foot of the Cross, the joy of the faithful hailing Christ’s resurrection. Even the secular music of the Middle Ages was tied to predetermined patterns that sometimes seemed to stand in the way of individual expression.
   While keeping one foot firmly planted in the divine world, Josquin stepped with the other into the human. He scored magnificent masses, but also newly expressive motets such as the lament of David over his son Absalom or the "Deploration d’Ockeghem," a dirge on the death of Ockeghem, the greatest master before Josquin, a motet written all in black notes, and one of the most profoundly moving scores of the Renaissance. Josquin was the first composer to set psalms to music. But alongside Benedicite omnia opera Domini Domino ("Bless the Lord, all ye works of the Lord") he put El Grillo ("The cricket is a good singer who manages long poems") and Allegez moy ("Solace me, sweet pleasant brunette"). Josquin was praised by Martin Luther, for his music blends respect for tradition with a rebel’s willingness to risk the horizon. What Galileo was to science, Josquin was to music. While preserving their allegiance to God, both asserted a new importance for man.
   Why then should Josquin languish in relative obscurity? The answer has to do with the separation of concept from performance in music. In fine art, concept and performance are one both the art lover and the art historian have thousands of years of paintings, drawings and sculptures to study and enjoy. Similarly with literature: Poetry, fiction, drama, and criticism survive on the printed page or in manuscript for judgment and admiration by succeeding generations. But musical notation on a page is not art, no matter how lofty or excellent the composer% conception it is, crudely put, a set of directions for producing art. Being highly symbolic, musical notation requires training before it can even be read, let alone performed. Moreover, because the musical conventions of other days are not ours, translation of a Renaissance score into modem notation brings difficulties of its own. For example, the Renaissance notation of Josquin’s day did not designate the tempo at which the music should be played or sung. It did not indicate all flats or sharps; these were sounded ill accordance with musicianly rules, which were capable of transforming major to minor, minor to major, diatonic to chromatic sound, and thus affect melody, harmony, and musical expression, a Renaissance composition might include several parts--but it did not indicate which were to be sung, which to be played, nor even whether instruments were to be used at all.
   Thus, Renaissance notation permits of several interpretations and an imaginative musician may give an interpretation that is a revelation. But no matter how imaginative, few modern musicians can offer any interpretation of Renaissance music. The public for it is small, limiting the number of musicians who can afford to learn, rehearse, and perform it. Most of those who attempt it at all are students organized in colegia musica whose memberships have a distressing habit of changing every semester, thus preventing directors from maintaining the year-in, year-out continuity required to achieve excellence of performance. Finally, the instruments used in Renaissance times--drummhorns, recorders, rauschpfeifen, shawms, sackbuts, organetto-must be specially procured. [br] The author cites all of the following as reasons for Josquin’s relative obscurity EXCEPT______.
选项 A、the difficulty one encounters in attempting to read his musical notation
B、the inability of modern musicians to play instruments of Renaissance
C、the difficulty of procuring unusual instruments needed to play the music
D、the lack of public interest in Renaissance music
答案 B
解析 这是一个细节题。C及D的内容可以在文中的最后一段找到。A的内容则在第三段中提及，但是B的内容从未讲到。作者说到现代音乐家在解读文艺复兴时期的曲谱时有困难，但并没有说他们缺少智慧和能力。
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