Text and Tune

This book offers an overview of issues related to the regulated, formal organization of sound and speech in verse intended for singing. Particularly, it is concerned with the structural properties and underlying mechanisms involved in the association of lyrics and music. While in spoken verse the underlying metrical scheme is grounded in the prosody of the language in which it is composed, in sung verse the structure is created by the mapping of specific prosodic units of the text (syllables, moras, tones, etc.) onto the rhythmic-melodic structure provided by the tune. Studying how this mapping procedure takes place across different musical genres and styles is valuable for what it can add to our knowledge of language and music in general, and also for what it can teach us about individual languages and poetic traditions. In terms of empirical coverage, the collection includes a wide variety of (Western) languages and metrical/musical forms, ranging from the Latin hexameter to the Norwegian stev, from the French chant courtois to the Sardinian mutetu longu. Readers interested in formal analyses of vocal music, or in metrics and linguistics, will find useful insights here.

Teresa Proto is a postdoctoral fellow affiliated with Leiden University and the Meertens Institute, Amsterdam. Her publications reflect her interest in language, music and the interactions between the two. Paolo Canettieri is a romance philologist and researcher in cognitive science. He is full professor at the University of Rome ‘Sapienza’. He is Editor in chief of the journal «Cognitive philology». Gianluca Valenti is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Liège. His main interests are romance philology, metrics, history of science and lexical studies. He has recently published La liturgia del trobar.

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