Fabrice Fitch | Reconstructing Fragmentary Renaissance Polyphony: Jacob Obrecht’s Missa Scaramella

Event details

Speaker: Fabrice Fitch (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland)

Date: Thursday 3 February 2022

Time: 5.15 - 6.45pm.  

Venue: ECA Main Building, West Court

Abstract

The fragmentary Missa Scaramella by Jacob Obrecht (c.1457/8–1505) survives uniquely in two of an original set of four part-books. Reconstructing the material of the two missing part-books (the top voice and the tenor) poses very different problems. In this presentation, I will explore these challenges and present some of my proposed solutions (part of a reconstruction of the entire mass cycle); those able to attend the session in person will be invited to work through a couple of short examples, to get a sense of what this exercise entails. One of the outcomes of the work is the rediscovery of the original notation for two enigmatic canons, in the Credo, which it has been possible to identify and reconstruct.

Biography

Fabrice Fitch is a composer and researcher on Renaissance music and its performance. He has published widely on the music of Johannes Ockeghem and of composers active c. 1500 (notably Obrecht and Agricola), most recently the monograph Renaissance Polyphony (Cambridge, 2020). He is on the editorial boards of Early Music and the Journal of the Alamire Foundation, and has been a reviewer with and contributor to Gramophone for over 25 years. He is currently completing a reconstruction (originally undertaken with the late Philip Weller) of Jacob Obrecht’s fragmentary Missa Scaramella. His compositions for soloists and chamber ensembles have been broadcast and performed internationally, and recorded by artists including Richard Craig and Distractfold, Ensemble Exposé, Fretwork, and Ensemble Leones. He is currently collaborating on a new work with and for the flautists Stephen Preston and Richard Craig. Some of his music can be accessed at fabricefitch.com