Music
Abélard was also long known as an important poet and composer. He composed some celebrated love songs for Héloïse that are now lost, and which have not been identified in the anonymous repertoire. Héloïse praised these songs in a letter: "The great charm and sweetness in language and music, and a soft attractiveness of the melody obliged even the unlettered".
Abélard composed a hymnbook for the religious community that Héloïse joined. This hymnbook, written after 1130, differed from contemporary hymnals, such as that of Bernard of Clairvaux, in that Abélard used completely new and homogeneous material. The songs were grouped by metre, which meant that comparatively few melodies could be used. Only one melody from this hymnal survives, O quanta qualia.
Abélard also left six biblical planctus (laments), which were original, and which influenced the subsequent development of the lai, a song form that flourished in northern Europe in the 13th and 14th centuries.
Melodies that have survived have been praised as "flexible, expressive melodies show an elegance and technical adroitness that are very similar to the qualities that have been long admired in Abélard's poetry."
Read more about this topic: Peter Abelard
Famous quotes containing the word music:
“A man in all the worlds new fashion planted,
That hath a mint of phrases in his brain.
One who the music of his own vain tongue
Doth ravish like enchanting harmony.”
—William Shakespeare (15641616)
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—Administration in the State of Texa, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
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—Frank Zappa (19401994)