Quintet L'homme armé

douglasboyce

Quintet L’homme armé takes as its touchstone the eponymous 15th cent. melody. The melody is subjected to a series of transformations so drastic as to render it completely unrecognizable in its new fragmented and atonal context. This transformed melody, however, serves as the source material for the piece in much the same way that the l’homme armé tune did for so many composers of masses from the mid-15 th to the end of the 16th centuries. Indeed, several contrapuntal and isorhythmic techniques occur within the piece, though they are partially or completely effaced by a different set of contrapuntal and textural strategies derived from Lutoslawski and Ligeti. The source tune and the tradition surrounding it serve as organizing principles, but not, in any significant way, as a stylistic framework. Rather, consideration of earlier compositional practice informs current practice, not through a one-to-one mapping, but rather, far more varied and mercurial processes.