Problematic Music
1. Cantigas de Santa Maria (13th century)
 Two contrasting approaches to discussing the Cantigas of Alfonso X “The Wise”: a traditional musicological account by Prof. Margot Fassler and an interpretation by Ian Pittaway, a British performing musician. On bigotry in the 13th-century Cantigas de Santa Maria of Alphonso X (published as a blog post, CSM article 5/6, at Early Music Muse. Go to “Infidels”, “traitors” and “that ugly bearded crew”: fear and loathing in the Cantigas de Santa Maria) that highlights the anti-Semitism and racial prejudice of the era.
Listening:
Video of performance of Cantiga 302, A Madre de Jesu Cristo, performed by Simone Sorini
Another performance of Cantiga 302, A Madre de Jesu Cristo, this one performed by performed by Anno Musica, Király Nóra, singer, harp; Bergics András, flute; Szlama László, singer, koboz; Okos Gergely, drum
Another performance of Cantiga 302, A Madre de Jesu Cristo, this one performed by performed by Ensemble Micrologus

2. Problematic liturgical sequences
Chant sequence Victimae paschali

Chant Victime pascali from York Graduale (fifteenth century), showing the “Credendum est magis
Mariae veraci” verse.

Anonymous fifteenth-century setting of Victime pascali from Trent Codex 93 (ca. 1455)

Verse by verse explication of the Victimae paschali, with interesting theory about the excision of
the “Credendum est magis Mariae veraci” verse.

Chant Victime pascali from York Graduale (early fifteenth century), showing the “Credendum est magis Mariae veraci” verse.

Music and sound file of Busnoys’s Victime pascali

Richard Taruskin on how to deal with the antisemitism expressed in Antoine Busnoys’s Victime pascali ”


3. Original meaning of Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus

Messiah, and the Jews”