Too Many Hockets
Instrumentation: video
Duration: 0:53
Written in: 2016
Category: Video
A 14th century music critic rants about contemporary music.
“…nimis lascive discantant, voces superflue multiplicant; horum antiquorum nimis hoketant, nimis voces suas in consonantiis frangunt, scandunt et dividunt, et in locis inopportunis saltant, hurcant, jupant et ad modum canis hawant, latrant, et quasi amentes incompositis et anfractis pascuntur vexationibus, harmonia utuntur a natura remota.” Jacques de Liège (1260 – ca. 1330)
“They sing lascivious descants and multiply vocal parts to excess; they spoil the old melodies with too many hockets, they break and raise and divide their voices in exaggerated harmonies, and in inappropriate places they leap up and down, bleat like goats, whoop and howl and bark like a dog, and like madmen they delight in irregular and annoying digressions. In short, they employ a kind of harmony far removed from nature.” Translation, Barbara Newman, 2008