Margaret Bent
CBE , (born Margaret Hilda Bassington; 23 December 1940) is an English
musicologist
Musicology (from Greek μουσική ''mousikē'' 'music' and -λογια ''-logia'', 'domain of study') is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some m ...
who specializes in music of the late
medieval
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
and
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ide ...
eras. In particular, she has written extensively on the
Old Hall Manuscript
The Old Hall Manuscript (British Library, Add MS 57950) is the largest, most complete, and most significant source of English sacred music of the late 14th and early 15th centuries, and as such represents the best source for late Medieval English ...
, English
masses as well as the works of
Johannes Ciconia and
John Dunstaple
John Dunstaple (or Dunstable, – 24 December 1453) was an English composer whose music helped inaugurate the transition from the medieval to the Renaissance periods. The central proponent of the ''Contenance angloise'' style (), Dunstaple w ...
.
Biography
Bent was educated at the
Acton Haberdashers' Aske's School for Girls
Haberdashers' Girls' School is an independent day school in Elstree, Hertfordshire. It is often referred to as "Habs" (or "Habs Girls" to distinguish it from the neighbouring Haberdashers' Boys' School). The school was founded in 1875 by the Wor ...
and
Girton College
Girton College is one of the Colleges of the University of Cambridge, 31 constituent colleges of the University of Cambridge. The college was established in 1869 by Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon as the first women's college in Cambridge. In 1 ...
,
Cambridge University
, mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts.
Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge.
, established =
, other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...
(where she read music, was organ scholar, and is now an honorary fellow), receiving her BA in 1962 and PhD in 1969. She taught at
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
and
King's College London
King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...
after 1963, and became a lecturer at
Goldsmiths' College in 1972. In 1975 she was appointed professor at
Brandeis University
, mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts"
, established =
, type = Private research university
, accreditation = NECHE
, president = Ronald D. Liebowitz
, p ...
and in 1981 at
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...
, and served as department chair in both. Bent was president of the
American Musicological Society
The American Musicological Society (AMS) is a musicological organization which researches, promotes and produces publications on music. Founded in 1934, the AMS was begun by leading American musicologists of the time, and was crucial in legitim ...
(1984–1986), of which she is now a Corresponding Member. She returned to England in 1992 as senior research fellow at
All Souls College
All Souls College (official name: College of the Souls of All the Faithful Departed) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Unique to All Souls, all of its members automatically become fellows (i.e., full members of ...
,
University of Oxford
, mottoeng = The Lord is my light
, established =
, endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019)
, budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20)
, chancellor ...
, where she is now an emeritus fellow.
Research
Bent's research centers on English, French and Italian music of the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries and includes work on the medieval
motet
In Western classical music, a motet is mainly a vocal musical composition, of highly diverse form and style, from high medieval music to the present. The motet was one of the pre-eminent polyphonic forms of Renaissance music. According to Ma ...
. Her study of the
Old Hall Manuscript
The Old Hall Manuscript (British Library, Add MS 57950) is the largest, most complete, and most significant source of English sacred music of the late 14th and early 15th centuries, and as such represents the best source for late Medieval English ...
(both her 1969 dissertation and the edition, co-edited with Andrew Hughes, published in the
Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae
The ''Corpus mensurabilis musicae'' (CMM) is a collected print edition of most of the sacred and secular vocal music of the late medieval and Renaissance period in western music history, with an emphasis on the central Franco-Flemish and Italian ...
, 1969–73), was a key work in scholarship on early English music. Her studies of
John Dunstaple
John Dunstaple (or Dunstable, – 24 December 1453) was an English composer whose music helped inaugurate the transition from the medieval to the Renaissance periods. The central proponent of the ''Contenance angloise'' style (), Dunstaple w ...
,
Philippe de Vitry,
Guillaume de Machaut
Guillaume de Machaut (, ; also Machau and Machault; – April 1377) was a French composer and poet who was the central figure of the style in late medieval music. His dominance of the genre is such that modern musicologists use his death t ...
, the
Roman de Fauvel, ''
musica ficta'' and music and manuscripts in the Veneto, have all been highly influential; she was a pioneer in musical
paleography
Palaeography ( UK) or paleography ( US; ultimately from grc-gre, , ''palaiós'', "old", and , ''gráphein'', "to write") is the study of historic writing systems and the deciphering and dating of historical manuscripts, including the analysi ...
and source studies. She co-founded and co-directed the Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music serves on many editorial boards of journals and publication series and contributed articles to the
New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and theo ...
. Her publications address technical matters of music theory, techniques of counterpoint, analysis, musica ficta, text-setting, and other issues that bridge notation and performance in early music, descriptions of new sources, aspects of musical transmission, stemmatics, and manuscript studies, interfaces with literary, historical and biographical questions.
Awards and fellowships
Her awards include the
Royal Musical Association's
Dent
Dent may refer to:
People
* Dent (surname)
* Dent May (active 2007), American musician
* Dent Mowrey (1888–1960), American composer, musician and music teacher
* Dent Oliver (1918–1973), international speedway rider
Places France
* Dent d' ...
Medal, a
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the art ...
, a
Leverhulme Emeritus Fellowship, the
Frank Llewellyn Harrison Medal of the
Society for Musicology in Ireland, the
Claude V. Palisca
Claude Victor Palisca (24 November 1921 – 11 January 2001) was an American musicologist. An internationally recognized authority on early music, especially opera of the Renaissance and Baroque periods, he was the Henry L. and Lucy G. Moses Pro ...
award of the
American Musicological Society
The American Musicological Society (AMS) is a musicological organization which researches, promotes and produces publications on music. Founded in 1934, the AMS was begun by leading American musicologists of the time, and was crucial in legitim ...
, and honorary doctorates from the universities of Glasgow, Notre Dame and Montréal.
[
She is a Fellow of the ]British Academy
The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences.
It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the same year. It is now a fellowship of more than 1,000 leading scholars s ...
, Academia Europaea
The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of Humanities, Letters, Law, and Sciences.
The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europea ...
, the Royal Historical Society
The Royal Historical Society, founded in 1868, is a learned society of the United Kingdom which advances scholarly studies of history.
Origins
The society was founded and received its royal charter in 1868. Until 1872 it was known as the Histori ...
and All Souls College, Oxford
All Souls College (official name: College of the Souls of All the Faithful Departed) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Unique to All Souls, all of its members automatically become fellows (i.e., full members of ...
, a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...
(1994), a Corresponding Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America
The Medieval Academy of America (MAA; spelled Mediaeval until c. 1980) is the largest organization in the United States promoting the field of medieval studies. It was founded in 1925 and is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The academy publishes ...
, a distinguished senior fellow of the School of Advanced Study, London University, an International member of the American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
, and was appointed CBE in 2008.
She was the recipient of a Festschrift
In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the ...
: ''Citation and Authority in Medieval and Renaissance Musical Culture: Learning from the Learned: Essays in Honour of Margaret Bent'' (ed. Suzannah Clark
Suzannah Clark (''b'' February 3, 1969) is a Canadian-British musicologist and music theorist specializing in the music of Franz Schubert, the history of music theory, and medieval music. She is currently Morton B. Knafel Professor of Music and in ...
and Elizabeth Eva Leach, Boydell & Brewer, 2005).
Books
*The Old Hall Manuscript: a Paleographical Study (dissertation, U. of Cambridge, 1969)
*(ed., with Andrew Hughes) ''The Old Hall Manuscript'', Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae, 1969–73)
*(ed.) ''Fifteenth-Century Liturgical Music II: Four Anonymous Masses''. Early English Church Music, vol. 22 (London, 1979)
* ''Dunstaple'' (London, 1981)
*(ed., with Anne Hallmark) ''The Works of Johannes Ciconia'' (Monaco, 1985)
*(ed.) Rossini, Gioachino. ''Il Turco in Italia'' (Pesaro: Fondazione Rossini, 1988)
*(ed., with A. Wathey) ''Fauvel Studies: Allegory, Chronicle, Music, and Image in Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS français 146'' (Oxford, 1998)
*''Counterpoint, Composition, and Musica Ficta'' (London and New York, 2002)
*''Bologna Q15: The Making and Remaking of a Musical Manuscript'': Introductory Study and Facsimile Edition (Lucca, 2008).
* ''Magister Jacobus de Ispania, author of the Speculum musicae (Farnham, 2015).
See also
* Women in musicology
References
Sources
*Andrew Wathey, "Margaret Bent". ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language '' Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and t ...
'' online.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bent, Margaret
1940 births
Alumni of Girton College, Cambridge
Brandeis University faculty
Academics of Goldsmiths, University of London
Princeton University faculty
British musicologists
Women musicologists
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Fellows of All Souls College, Oxford
Fellows of Girton College, Cambridge
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Fellows of the British Academy
Fellows of the Royal Historical Society
Members of Academia Europaea
English musicologists
Living people
Academics of King's College London
People educated at Haberdashers' Girls' School
Corresponding Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America
British women historians
Members of the American Philosophical Society