Elsa De Luca

Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas - Universidade Nova de Lisboa, CESEM - Research Center in Sociology and Aesthetics of Music, Post-Doc

Followers

336

Following

318

Co-authors

Public Views

Personal website and CV at https://sites.google.com/fcsh.unl.pt/elsadeluca/

ELSA DE LUCA is an early music scholar pursuing research on medieval chant notations; she is also actively involved in the development of tools for computer-assisted research in early music (mainly databases and automatic music encoding).

Elsa De Luca is currently carrying out palaeographical research into Iberian medieval notation through the research project 'A pre-Gregorian musical repertory under scrutiny: neumes, scribes, and books of the Old Hispanic Chant' (Norma Transitória – DL 57/2016/CP1453/CT0085). Elsa has published articles on notation, cryptography, and liturgy in a selection of Iberian and French manuscripts (10th – 16th cent.) and on music encoding. She co-edited with A. Miguélez and E. Loic a special issue of the Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies (14/1, 2022) Connecting the Dots: New Research Paradigms for Iberian Manuscripts as Material Objects. Currently, she has two forthcoming books on the palaeography of plainchant from the medieval East and West, both books co-edited with I. Moody and J.F. Goudesenne.

In addition, Elsa is Coordinator of the Portuguese Early Music Database; co-director of the book series Musicalia Antiquitatis & Medii Aevi, published by Brepols; a member of the CESEM-FCSH editorial committee and review editor for the Portuguese Journal of Musicology new series. She is the PI of the FCT-funded research project Echoes from the Past: Unveiling a Lost Soundscape with Digital Analysis (2022.01957.PTDC) that will run from 03/2023-02/2026. The project was ranked first in the 2022 Portuguese national call for research projects in the ‘Arts’. Finally, Elsa will serve as member of the CESEM board of directors from 04/2023. Over the years Elsa has collaborated in ten research projects in Italy, France, Portugal, the UK and Canada.
Address: Centro de Estudos de Sociologia e Estética Musical (CESEM)
Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Avenida de Berna 26, Edíficio I&D, Salas 301 a 303, 1069-061 Lisboa, Portugal

less

InterestsView All (15)

Uploads

Papers by Elsa De Luca

Erreur, variante et correction

Download

Intermediality in medieval Iberian manuscript cultures: methodological reflections on ongoing and future research

Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies, 2022

ABSTRACT This introductory article offers an in-depth discussion of the special issue’s overall t... more ABSTRACT This introductory article offers an in-depth discussion of the special issue’s overall theme, as well as summaries of the individual contributions and a reflection on how digital tools are reshaping research. The first section covers the recent flourishing of large-scale digitization projects along with advances in material sciences and in a range of scholarly disciplines including paleography and codicology, art history, musicology, literary studies, and conservation and restoration, all of which have explored previously unimaginable possibilities for the study of medieval manuscripts. The second section focuses on the articles gathered for the special issue: those helping to create a theoretical framework, those presenting the results of recent projects, and a group of case studies that reveal how scholars are gradually adopting digital technologies and material studies as essential research tools. The third and final section suggests new avenues of investigation and methodological approaches to promote and improve our current understanding of Iberian manuscript materiality.

Medieval Musical Notes as Cryptography

A Material History of Medieval and Early Modern Ciphers, 2017

Manuscripts and Medieval Song: Inscription, Performance, Context

The Neumes of the León Antiphoner: Written and Oral Transmission in Old Hispanic Chant

Old Hispanic Chant was the liturgical repertory sung in the Iberian Peninsula before the impositi... more Old Hispanic Chant was the liturgical repertory sung in the Iberian Peninsula before the imposition of the Gregorian liturgy (c. 1080). Old Hispanic notation is non-pitch readable, it cannot be transcribed into a score and we have lost, probably for ever, the possibility to sung it at the right pitches. Surviving Old Hispanic musical manuscripts date approximately from the tenth to the thirteenth century and, among them, the León Antiphoner is by far the most complete and, therefore, most studied manuscript. Due to the quantity of music it preserves, the Antiphoner has been widely used as basis of comparison in musical analysis of Old Hispanic melodies (Randel, Hornby and Maloy). Prior to this research, the Antiphoner was considered to be written by a single music scribe and, consequently, cross-musical comparisons between Old Hispanic manuscripts treated the Antiphoner as a whole and homogeneous witness of early Iberian notation. The research I propose to present demonstrates the presence of at least four main music scribes and several later hands in the Antiphoner. By means of paleographical analysis of neume shapes, duplicated chants and customary neumatic patterns, I propose to describe the characteristics of the notation and the individual peculiarities of the Antiphoner’s music scribes. I will focus on both the four main music scribes and some of the later hands, discussing their neumatic preferences and the interventions to the original layer of notation. From a methodological point of view, the originality of this research consists in treating the Antiphoner as a complex witness in which there are traces of multiple layers of musical transmission. Understanding its scribes’ habits can help to clarify the extent to which orality and scribes intervened in the dissemination (and modification) of the Old Hispanic melodies found in the Antiphoner. This information can be of great help when we compare these same melodies in other Old Hispanic manuscripts. Within the bigger picture of Western sacred music, Old Hispanic Chant is the pre-Gregorian repertory which is preserved most completely and has few Gregorian contaminations. Hence, its study may unveil important information about Western liturgical chant before the Carolingian reform.

A Notated Graduale-Prosarium from Sens in Lisbon

Little was known about the history of P-Ln Iluminado 84 , a fully notated Gradual with integrated... more Little was known about the history of P-Ln Iluminado 84 , a fully notated Gradual with integrated sequences. Manuel Pedro Ferreira first proposed Sens as the point of origin for the manuscript, but nothing was published to substantiate this informal proposition. In this article I discuss the contents of Iluminado 84 and test the hypothesis of its origin in Sens for the first time. By means of a close examination of the codicology of the manuscript and its liturgical contents, it is possible securely to identify its origins in the archdiocese of Sens and demonstrate that the manuscript consists of two codicological units. The first copied from a model dated after 1240s (but not much later than 1264) and the second unit copied from a model dated after 1297. Analysis of the set of sequences and their comparison with coeval manuscripts demonstrates that P-Ln Iluminado 84 can be considered to be the oldest surviving manuscript to transmit some of the earlier sequences from Sens fully not...

Download

Il rito parigino Duecentesco nei manoscritti di San Nicola di Bari

Encoding Old Hispanic Neumes

Cantus Ultimus’ MEI Neume Module and its Interoperability Across Chant Notations

The MEI Neume Module represents the community’s attempt to create a standardized set of rules tha... more The MEI Neume Module represents the community’s attempt to create a standardized set of rules that encapsulate in a logical, systematic, and unequivocal way the musical information represented and conveyed by Western European neumatic notations (beginning with the late ninth century and continuing to the printed books of the twentieth). This paper has a threefold objective: 1) to describe the current MEI Neume Module (MEI Guidelines, version 4.0); 2) to outline the musical and palaeographical reasons that prompted us to flesh out some of its most debated rules; and 3) to discuss the interoperability of the current MEI Neume Module across the various styles of Western European early notations.

Download

De notación hispánica a notación aquitana: escribir música en la Iberia medieval

Anuario de Estudios Medievales

Este artículo se centra en las peculiaridades de las principales muestras de notación musical his... more Este artículo se centra en las peculiaridades de las principales muestras de notación musical hispana y aquitana conservadas en los manuscritos litúrgicos peninsulares de los siglos X a mediados del XVI, proponiendo reconsiderar el estado de la cuestión desde el campo de la paleografía musical peninsular. Específicamente, esta aproximación paleográfica se orienta alrededor de los dos cambios principales que marcaron la escritura de música en la Península en el período bajo consideración: la substitución de la notación hispánica tradicional por la notación aquitana a finales del siglo XI, y el cambio gráfico que muestra la notación aquitana por influencia de la escritura gótica. La forma en la que ambos cambios se desarrollaron fue considerablemente desigual; precipitada y rápida en el primer caso, lenta y gradual en el segundo. En esta visión de conjunto, se presentan como ejemplos ilustrativos de notación aquitana fuentes que habían pasado desapercibidas hasta hace poco y que están...

Download

Intermediality in medieval Iberian manuscript cultures: methodological reflections on ongoing and future research

by Elsa De Luca and Alicia Miguélez

Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies, 2022

This introductory article offers an in-depth discussion of the special issue’s overall theme, as ... more This introductory article offers an in-depth discussion of the special issue’s overall theme, as well as summaries of the individual contributions and a reflection on how digital tools are reshaping research. The first section covers the recent flourishing of large-scale digitization projects along with advances in material sciences and in a range of scholarly disciplines including paleography and codicology, art history, musicology, literary studies, and conservation and restoration, all of which have explored previously unimaginable possibilities for the study of medieval manuscripts. The second section focuses on the articles gathered for the special issue: those helping to create a theoretical framework, those presenting the results of recent projects, and a group of case studies that reveal how scholars are gradually adopting digital technologies and material studies as essential research tools. The third and final section suggests new avenues of investigation and methodological approaches to promote and improve our current understanding of Iberian manuscript materiality.

Download

Capturing Early Notations in MEI: The Case of Old Hispanic Neumes

by Elsa De Luca, Sarah Long, and Jennifer Bain

This paper describes the challenges involved in designing a computer encoding system for early pl... more This paper describes the challenges involved in designing a computer encoding system for early plainchant notation (both with and without staff lines) and, in particular, Old Hispanic neume notation. We have been working on a new version of the Music Encoding Initiative (MEI) schema for neume notations since 2012. Our goal and that of MEI is to digitally represent as accurately as possible the notation in musical sources, especially its semantics wherever possible, so that the encoded files can be used for various musical research purposes, such as creating critical editions and data mining. Of the early plainchant notations, Old Hispanic neume notation is the least understood. We will present some of our solutions to resolve the specific issues surrounding Old Hispanic notation while maintaining compatibility with the encoding of other styles of plainchant notation.

Musical Cryptography and the Early History of the ‘León Antiphoner’

Early Music History

The ‘León Antiphoner’, León, Cathedral Library, MS 8, is the most complete manuscript containing ... more The ‘León Antiphoner’, León, Cathedral Library, MS 8, is the most complete manuscript containing Old Hispanic chant, comprising Office and Mass chants for the whole church year. As such, the León Antiphoner is the most studied Old Hispanic manuscript. Despite this, its dating is controversial and hypotheses have ranged from c. 906 (Menéndez Pidal) up to the eleventh century (Zapke and others). In this article, the dating and early history of the manuscript are reconsidered and an entirely new perspective is brought to bear on the questions of when, where, and for whom the manuscript was written. The reinterpretation of the cryptographic inscriptions found at the bottom of fols. 128v and 149r has made it possible to identify the patron of the Antiphoner as San Froilán, Bishop of León, and to date the manuscript’s production to the years 900–5. The scriptorium of the monastery of SS Cosmas and Damian in Abellar is suggested as the likeliest place of production of the Antiphoner.

Aquitanian Notation in Iberia: Plainchant Fragments in Braga and Guimarães (11th – 15th century)

Revue de Musicologie, 2020

Download

Cantus Ultimus' MEI Neume Module and its Interoperability Across Chant Notations

by Elsa De Luca and Jennifer Bain

The MEI Neume Module represents the community's attempt to create a standardized set of rules tha... more The MEI Neume Module represents the community's attempt to create a standardized set of rules that encapsulate in a logical, systematic, and unequivocal way the musical information represented and conveyed by Western European neumatic notations (beginning with the late ninth century and continuing to the printed books of the twentieth). This paper has a threefold objective: 1) to describe the current MEI Neume Module (MEI Guidelines, version 4.0); 2) to outline the musical and palaeographical reasons that prompted us to flesh out some of its most debated rules; and 3) to discuss the interoperability of the current MEI Neume Module across the various styles of Western European early notations.

Download

From Old Hispanic to Aquitanian Notation: Music Writing in Medieval Iberia

Anuario de Estudios Medievales 50/2, 2020

The article is open access. It can be downloaded at http://estudiosmedievales.revistas.csic.es/in... more The article is open access. It can be downloaded at http://estudiosmedievales.revistas.csic.es/index.php/estudiosmedievales/article/view/1225/1219

Abstract: This article focuses on the peculiarities of the Old Hispanic and Aquitanian musical nota-tions, as found in Iberian liturgical manuscripts from the 10th to the mid-16th centuries, and it proposes some reconsiderations of previous scholarship on Iberian music palaeography. Specifi cally, this pa-laeographical survey engages with two changes that occurred in music writing in the Peninsula in the period under consideration. Firstly, the Old Hispanic notation was replaced by Aquitanian notation at the end of the 11th century. Subsequently, the graphical appearance of Aquitanian notation changed due to the infl uence of the Gothic script. These two changes developed in quite different ways: the fi rst was swift and rapid whereas the second was slow and gradual. In this overview, I present some pre-viously neglected sources as illustrative examples of Aquitanian notation. These sources have been studied for the fi rst time recently and are now available for consultation in the “Portuguese Early Music Database”.
Keywords: Music Palaeography; Neumes; Old Hispanic Notation; Aquitanian Notation; Medieval Iberia.

Resumen: Este artículo se centra en las peculiaridades de las principales muestras de notación musical hispana y aquitana conservadas en los manuscritos litúrgicos peninsulares de los siglos X a mediados del XVI, proponiendo reconsiderar el estado de la cuestión desde el campo de la paleografía musical peninsular. Específi camente, esta aproximación paleográfi ca se orienta alr e-dedor de los dos cambios principales que marcaron la escritura de música en la Península en el período bajo consideración: la substitución de la notación hispánica tradicional por la notación aquitana a fi nales del siglo XI, y el cambio gráfi co que muestra la notación aquitana por infl uencia de la escritura gótica. La forma en la que ambos cambios se desarrollaron fue considerablemente desigual; precipitada y rápida en el primer caso, lenta y gradual en el segundo. En esta visión de conjunto, se presentan como ejemplos ilustrativos de notación aquitana fuentes que habían pasado desapercibidas hasta hace poco y que están ahora disponibles para su consulta en la “Portuguese Early Music Database”.
Palabras clave: paleografía musical; neumas; notación hispánica; notación aquitana; Iberia en la Edad Media

Download

Erreur, variante et correction : l’exemple du plain-chant médiéval

by Elsa De Luca and Océane Boudeau

Textus et Musica 1, 2020

The main obstacle that has hindered our modern understanding of the transmission and disseminatio... more The main obstacle that has hindered our modern understanding of the transmission and dissemination of medieval plainchant is probably its wide diffusion, both chronologically and geographically. This palaeographical and philological analysis of variant, correction, and error aims to contribute to a better understanding of medieval plainchant and its sources. The graphical variants of the neumatic notation of the León Antiphoner and the melodic variants of Franco-Roman chant reveal how cantors and scribes would interpret certain features differently as understanding of performance practice – and perhaps also taste – evolved.

Download