Eric Rice
Musicologist and conductor ERIC RICE is Head of the Music Department at the University of Connecticut, where he teaches music history and directs the Collegium. He is the 2019 recipient of Early Music America’s Thomas Binkley Award for excellence in performance and scholarship. He also directs Ensemble Origo, hailed by The New York Times as “a fine, flexible ensemble,” creating concerts and recordings that reflect early repertory’s original context. His books are Music and Ritual at Charlemagne’s Marienkirche in Aachen and Young Choristers, 650-1700, and his articles have appeared in numerous journals. He holds degrees from Columbia and Bowdoin College.
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The essay argues that the canon’s intervallic content is meant to be exact. The combination of cantus firmus and canon often requires considerable emphasis on C on the part of the dux, with a resultant emphasis on F in the comes. The emphasis on F, in turn, triggers use of the soft hexachord that makes its way into the cantus firmus, thereby juxtaposing the dorian and mixolydian versions of L’Homme armé within the mass. Midway through the Credo, the dux is shifted from the discantus to the bassus voice, suggesting a theologically significant chiastic form. The remainder of the mass shifts the canon to various voices, and entrances employing canonic imitation serve to obscure the strict canon’s true location.