Date Thesis Awarded
6-2013
Access Type
Honors Thesis -- Access Restricted On-Campus Only
Degree Name
Bachelors of Arts (BA)
Department
Music
Advisor
Thomas Payne
Committee Members
James Armstrong
George D. Greenia
Monica Brzezinski Potkay
Abstract
In 2002, David Wulstan reattributed five pieces of music previously attributed to Abelard to his wife Heloise based on the identification of their early love letters. These pieces, two liturgical dramas and three sequences, have not been given the attention they deserve in previous scholarship and are often dismissed because of their use of erotic imagery from Song of Songs. The sequence and two liturgical dramas for the Easter liturgy particularly demonstrate a coherent theology and an attempt to create liturgical music that rejects the dichotomy between the physical and the spiritual commonly seen in sacred music of the time, in favor of music that is more appropriate and authentic to the experiences of nuns.
Recommended Citation
Ashlock, Taylor Ann, ""New Music to the Very Ears of God": Heloise the Composer" (2013). Undergraduate Honors Theses. William & Mary. Paper 580.
https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses/580
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Comments
Thesis is part of Honors ETD pilot project, 2008-2013. Migrated from Dspace in 2016.