The Art of Praise: Forum and Display on the Medieval Choir Book

The Art of Praise

Forum and Display on the Medieval Choir Book

The Advent Festival, in conjunction with the State Library of Victoria and The University of Melbourne, will host a forum and display on the Medieval Choir Book, convened by Margaret Manion.  Margaret Manion has published widely on medieval manuscripts and is preparing a publication on the medieval choir book, entitled The Art of Praise.  Shane Carmody, John Stinson, Elizabeth Melzer and Hugh Hudson will introduce the manuscripts, discussing their provenance, parchments, music and illuminations.  The forum will include a number of live examples of the music sung by John Weretka.

At the forum’s conclusion, the manuscripts and leaves discussed will be available for inspection in the Oratory. Richly illuminated examples from the State Library of Victoria include: an eleventh-century manuscript of musical treatises by Boethius and others; a fourteenth-century French antiphonal made for the royal monastery of St Louis de Poissy; a section of a late thirteenth-century Italian antiphonal for the Christmas season; and fifteenth-century illustrated and decorated letters from an album of manuscript cuttings. From the University of Melbourne’s collections come two splendid leaves from a fourteenth-century Gradual made in Perugia; and illustrated initials from a late fifteenth-century Augustinian antiphonal made in Brescia.

Date: Sunday, December 4, 1:45pm, 2011
Venue: The Newman College Oratory

For further information and enquiries, email reception@newman.unimelb.edu.au or telephone 9347 5577.

For further information on the Advent Festival see the Newman website http://www.newman.unimelb.edu.au/calendar-events-and-alumni/adventfestival

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