Season 2, Episode 9

Since pretty much the beginnings of our field, musicologists have gone digging for lost music, bringing old pieces back into the world after centuries of neglect. But it’s not just about finding some new scores: it’s also about building an understanding of the culture that created and preserved them. When we find music in Renaissance manuscripts, what meaning can, and should, we make from it? An interview with musicologist Laurie Stras about what she has uncovered in the archives––including a major work by the Renaissance composer Antoine Brumel––what it means for music to be anonymous, what to do when you realize your research might actually be wrong, and a lot more.

Laurie Stras is Research Professor of Music at the University of Huddersfield and Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of Southampton.

If you’re interested in learning more about Professor Stras’s work, you can follow her on Twitter at @LaurieStras and check out:

• The ensemble Musica Secreta’s album From Darkness Into Light, which includes Brumel’s Lamentations (discussed in the episode); see Stras’s liner notes, an analytical essay, and a film the ensemble made in Florence
• The 2018 book Women and Music in Sixteenth-Century Ferrara
• An article on anonymous composers for Classical Music Magazine
• Musica Secreta’s website, with links to their performances and recordings

Sound Expertise is hosted by Will Robin (@seatedovation), and produced by D. Edward Davis (@warmsilence). Please subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and/or Spotify. Questions or comments? Email williamlrobin@ gmail

A written transcript of this episode is available here; many thanks to Andrew Dell’Antonio for volunteering to prepare transcripts for the show!