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Tactus, Mensuration, and Rhythm in Renaissance Music. By Ruth I. DeFord. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. [xii, 504 p. ISBN 9781107064720 (hardcover), $130; ISBN 9781316236734 (e-book), $104.] Music examples, index of signs, bibliography, index.
At first blush, Renaissance musical notation appears to have a lot in common with modern musical notation. The note shapes and colors look alike, and the notes are placed on a staff made up of lines and spaces. However, to assume an exact correlation between our present-day notation, especially our methods of notating rhythm, and systems of Renaissance mensural notation, is to be quite certainly mistaken. In her book, Tactus, Mensuration, and Rhythm in Renaissance Music, Ruth DeFord describes how composers and theorists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries conceived of and notated rhythm and musical time and addresses the many difficulties in understanding rather foreign rhythmic structures.
The thoroughness of DeFord's research is enviable. She leaves no stone unturned when considering the various options for interpreting Renaissance rhythmic notation. The fastidious nature of DeFord's survey, however, is not for the faint of heart. Rather than providing straightforward guidelines for applying a single theorist's ideas, she presents the reader with a variety of options and ideas. Throughout the book, she describes mensural notation and Renaissance rhythm not as a "single, unified system, but as a collection of diverse practices that varied with time, place, genre, and composer" (p. 3).
DeFord's volume is divided into two parts, the first focused on theoretical sources and the last steeped in practical concerns regarding repertoire. Following a brief introduction that lays out the basic issues at hand in the volume, she explores the extant sources pertaining to Renaissance rhythm. In chapter 2, an essential introduction to specialized terminology eases the reader into the complexities of Renaissance rhythm, making the information that follows accessible to a wider audience of students and scholars. Chapters 3 through 7 address topics related to musical tactus, a unit of musical time which DeFord describes as the juncture between the abstract values of mensural notation and actual time values in performance. The final section of the book focuses on repertoire, honing in on the works of some of the most well-known composers of the period: Ockeghem, Busnoys (or Busnois), Josquin, Isaac,...