Cantum Pulcriorem invenire - Thirteenth-Century Latin Poetry and Music: Workshop, Performance and Impact (CPI-III)

'Cantum pulcriorem invenire - Thirteenth-Century Latin Poetry and Music: Workshop, Performance and Impact' takes the knowledge that has been gained from the AHRC-funded 'Cantum pulcriorem invenire: Thirteenth-Century Latin Poetry and Music' project (CPI-I, which ran from 2010 to 2014), and engages with communities on which the original project had little opportunity to make any impact. The original research started from the premise that the long thirteenth century (c1170 to c1320) saw the emergence of three coherent repertories of polyphonic music: settings of liturgical chant called organum, motets that were originally derived from parts of organum and the conductus. Organum and the motet have been the subject of impressive levels of musicological study in the last 150 years whereas the conductus - despite its status as the first consistent repertory of newly-composed polyphony - has remained somewhat in the shadows. While the repertory has been catalogued, little work, although very distinguished, has been built on these bibliographical foundations. The conductus therefore stands at the centre of this project, merging Latin poetry and music in a single genre.

Those parts of the original project that engaged with performance as a path to impact did so via CD studio recordings. Using world-class performers with an unrivalled track record in the performance of medieval polyphony, and building on the PI's experience in this area, CPI-I investigated the questions of rhythm and metre in the conductus by bringing various solutions to the question into a performative arena and creating recordings on CD with a commercial label. Not only was this very successful, but it also engendered a number of live concert bookings coupled to some workshop activity. From this ad hoc work, it became clear that there was real scope for massively enhancing the impact of the project through innovative and creative approaches to interactive workshops. The current project proposes eight events that each consist of an interactive workshop and a formal concert.

The key pathways to impact for the project are twofold: a network of partnerships and a series of innovative workshops. The project benefits from eight partners, five in the UK and three in continental Europe: Brighton, Cambridge, Durham, Edinburgh, York, Barcelona, Nieder-Olm and Radovljica. All our concert promoters or festival managers have responsibilities not just for developing audiences but for developing public engagement with other bodies; they are ideal partners for a research project seeking to enhance its impact. We are proposing a series of workshops that will explore various routes to engage with communities that extend beyond those who simply buy the CDs produced by the original research. To do this we will approach questions of notation, performance, poetic and musical composition as well as presenting introductions that characterise lecture recitals and similar sorts of events.

A critical part of the project is the monitoring, evaluation and documentation of the impact that the research makes. Our central tools are the anonymous questionnaire, the one-to-one interview and the video recording; these documents and their analysis will form the lasting legacy of the project, and will be mounted on the project website to serve as materials and a prompt for other ensembles wishing to undertake similar work.

BENEFICIARIES. Our first set of beneficiaries will be those on whom the project has already made an impact through sales of its three commercial CDs. This group will be massively expanded via directors and managers of festivals (our partners) to reach the main group of beneficiaries: those who can appreciate what the research offers but may not yet understand how to benefit from it. This is a wide group, and includes adult semi-professionals, amateur performers, amateur non-performers, student-aged participants - both those with a non-professional interest and those training for careers in music - and school students at all stages of their career. It is certain that we will be engaging with different combinations of user at each of the eight events since our partners have been developing these user groups over many years; these traditions are our principal pathways to impact. We will engage creatively with each of these communities in ways that respond directly to their abilities, needs and interests. While the enthusiastic adult amateur will be interested and respond well to the ways in which medieval music is preserved and displayed on the manuscript page, and will enjoy replicating our own discovery of the path from page to polyphony, secondary school pupils will engage with the material in very different ways that will have more to do with their current education and experience. While our central goal is to contribute to the culture of the United Kingdom, we take the project back into continental Europe (where the repertory originated) to enhance its reach.

These are our immediate beneficiaries, but our aim is, in addition to enhancing their musical experience, to provide a set of materials and experiences that will serve, if not as a model, at least as a point of departure for other professional ensembles engaged in research-led performance who are searching for ways in which to make more of an impact with their research projects beyond the normal recordings and concerts. Systematic documentation of the project is key to this part of the impact.

BENEFITS. The benefits to the user groups involve the acquisition of knowledge about medieval music, and specifically the repertory of Latin poetry and music in the thirteenth century. We will approach imparting these benefits from various directions: Composition (the creation of a monophonic work from poetry supplied; the creation of polyphony from poetry and/or monophony; non-literate [improvised] counterpoint). Notation: (reading C13th notation [clefs, shapes ligatures; modal notation only for advanced participants]; writing medieval notation [also in combination with composition activities]; More formal transcription; preparation of various types of performance material [use of original sources / modern editions / new transcription]). Performance: (ensemble; tuning; tempo; flexible rhythm; projection; programming; use of multimedia). Orientation for the workshops will encompass a summary account of repertories, aesthetics, functions, styles, transmission and reception.
These benefits will be enhanced by the fact that the impact will be made by three of the most high-profile singers in early music today and that all the materials will be directly generated as a result of the AHRC-funded research from which this project follows.