Conference Agenda
The Online Program of events for the 2026 AMS Annual Meeting appears below. This program is subject to change. The final program will be published in early November.
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Please note that all times are shown in the time zone of the conference. The current conference time is: 1st Sept 2026, 02:57:53am EDT
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Daily Overview |
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Pre-Modern Musical Expression Session Chair: Mary Channen Caldwell | |
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Two Newly Discovered Sequences by Peter Abelard (1079-1142) University of Cambridge The love story of Peter Abelard and his student Heloise, documented in their letters and Abelard's autobiography, is well-known from popular culture and scholarly literature. Liturgical chant, both texts and music, has a major role to play in understanding this relationship. While Abelard’s authorship of a substantial hymn cycle is well established, his contribution to the sequence repertory has remained a subject of intense debate. His composition of six planctus (laments) on Old Testament themes is widely accepted, but it has long been questioned how many liturgical sequences he may have composed for the Oratory of the Paraclete where Heloise was the abbess. This paper presents new evidence in the form of two recently transcribed sequences found in an overlooked 12th-century Aquitanian source in which the works are attributed to Magister Peter. The first text plays on the name “Paraclete” and matches an unidentified incipit in the Paraclete Ordinal; the second is a contrafactum of Abelard’s own lament for Saul and Jonathan (Dolorum solatium), featuring a striking reference to female martyrs as “Amazons,” a rare term used in one of his hymn texts. These new discoveries prompt a re-evaluation of the sequence repertory as recorded in sources from the Paraclete. The new findings provide crucial support for Abelard’s claim in the 1130s to have compiled a booklet of hymnorum vel sequentiarum ("hymns and sequences"). Furthermore, they suggest that other unidentified items in the Paraclete Ordinal may also be his work. However, these pieces also challenge generic norms: neither follows the standard double-versicle structure of the liturgical sequence. Instead, they favour designs characteristic of Abelard’s planctus, the contemporary lai, and virtuosic twelfth-century Latin songs (labelled versus or conductus). Did Abelard also compose the melodies? His reputed skill in poetry and song—famed through his lost love songs for Heloise—implies significant musical ability; but the first discovery employs a limited range of standard melodic formulae, while the second fits a new text to an existing melody. Even so, both sequences display a sophisticated transformation of received materials, revealing a master craftsman at work. | |