Picardy's musical topography
Magnus Williamson
Why do some regions seem to punch above their musical weight? This collection of 30 essays implicitly addresses this question insofar as it concerns Picardy, one the heaviest hitters all. Twenty-six chapters are grouped into three broad categories: ‘Places’, ‘Practices, sources and repertories’ ‘Training circulation’; while a four-part introduction raises epistemological curtain (Philippe Vendrix), defines territory its history (Olivia Carpi), exemplifies pithy case-studies that punctuate volume whole (Andrew Kirkman on Saint-Omer David Fiala funerary monuments two Picard singers). Territorial histories kind presuppose distinctive regional dialects (as Vendrix explains), but risk slipping coarseness regionalist, blood-and-soil narratives conflate terrain, terroir. The migration singers from 15th 17th centuries was neither inevitable nor spontaneous, reminds us, result social contingencies in region which lacked both dominant ducal court university might otherwise have encouraged local stay put rather than seek fortunes elsewhere. A series topographical case studies continually us cultures were shaped by variable interactions contestations key power (feudal, ecclesiastical, civic); flows trade people; gravitational forces exerted neighbouring cities further-flung metropolis. Although Picardy prided itself cradle French monarchy, lay principal dynastic fault-line northern Europe, between French, English Burgundian (later Habsburg) domains. building Saint Vulfram, Abbeville, whose quire, rebuilt 1360s Edward III England dwarfed uncompleted nave begun Louis XII France 1488 (discussed Grantley McDonald), illustrates microcosm impact feudal oscillations never securely any single overlord’s pocket.
Early Music