Josh Drake
Encyclopedia
Dr. Joshua F. Drake is a musicologist and hymnist at Grove City College
in Grove City, Pennsylvania
. His research, writing and presentations primarily analyze the structure of 15th century Latin
Christian
motets, which are a category of choral musical compositions.
Drake is notable for his research and papers that challenge commonly held views regarding the relationship between words and music in motets of the late 15th century, as well as his discoveries related to the origins of the Buonaparte family. He also serves on the editorial advisory board for "The Quad" Magazine.
While the earliest motets originated during the 13th century, the relationship between words and music in 15th century is particularly significant in the study of music because it coincides with the Protestant Reformation
, which completely reordered Western society and had a profound influence on the evolution of music.
Drake's research into Ms. Magl.XIX 164–7 located at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Firenze uncovered previously unidentified emblems in the bassus partbook. Drake's further investigations led him to suggests that the emblems should be associated with the Buonaparte family and, perhaps, with Pope
Clement VII's friend and advisor Jacopo Buonaparte
who witnessed and wrote an important account of the sack of Rome (1527)
.
Drake makes this association because of the emblems' similarity to the Buonaparte coat of arms
.
The partbooks he analyzed consist of 49 Italian, 24 French secular and 13 Latin sacred musical compositions from early composers such as Josquin, Heinrich Isaac
, Sebastiano Festa
and Bernardo Pisano
and have been essential in reconstructing the life of Pisano.
Drake also suggests that the association with the Buonaparte family helps to explain the geographical disputes that exist due to the partbooks having a Roman binding yet a Florentine script and Florentine paper. He makes this further assertion in part because the Buonaparte family was Florentine but Jacopo Buonaparte spent a great deal of time in Rome, in addition to the coat of arms in the partbooks being so similar to those of the Buonapart family.
When • Behold, What Light Rolls Back the Sky? • Eternal God, Mover Unmoved • Holy Word of God, The • O Christian Home • Spirit Binds Us to Our Lord, The
Public availability of works here
Grove City College
Grove City College is a Christian liberal arts college in Grove City, Pennsylvania, about north of Pittsburgh. According to the College Bulletin, its stated three-fold mission is to provide an excellent education at an affordable price in a thoroughly Christian environment...
in Grove City, Pennsylvania
Grove City, Pennsylvania
Grove City is a borough in Mercer County, Pennsylvania, approximately north of Pittsburgh. It is the home of Grove City College, a private conservative Christian liberal arts college; General Electric; Instron; USIS; George G. Howe Co.; and a number of small businesses. It is also the home to...
. His research, writing and presentations primarily analyze the structure of 15th century Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
motets, which are a category of choral musical compositions.
Drake is notable for his research and papers that challenge commonly held views regarding the relationship between words and music in motets of the late 15th century, as well as his discoveries related to the origins of the Buonaparte family. He also serves on the editorial advisory board for "The Quad" Magazine.
While the earliest motets originated during the 13th century, the relationship between words and music in 15th century is particularly significant in the study of music because it coincides with the Protestant Reformation
Protestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...
, which completely reordered Western society and had a profound influence on the evolution of music.
Education
- B.M. Union UniversityUnion UniversityUnion University is a private, evangelical Christian, liberal arts university located in Jackson, Tennessee, with additional campuses in Germantown, Tennessee, and Hendersonville, Tennessee...
(Sacred Music) - M. Mus. University of GlasgowUniversity of GlasgowThe University of Glasgow is the fourth-oldest university in the English-speaking world and one of Scotland's four ancient universities. Located in Glasgow, the university was founded in 1451 and is presently one of seventeen British higher education institutions ranked amongst the top 100 of the...
(Musicology) thesis - Text-Music Relationships c. 1500: Case Studies from Petrucci’s Motets - Ph.D. University of GlasgowUniversity of GlasgowThe University of Glasgow is the fourth-oldest university in the English-speaking world and one of Scotland's four ancient universities. Located in Glasgow, the university was founded in 1451 and is presently one of seventeen British higher education institutions ranked amongst the top 100 of the...
(Sacred Music) dissertation - The Contemporary Perception of Text-Music Relations in Motets c. 1500
Discoveries related to the Buonaparte family
Pope
The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...
Clement VII's friend and advisor Jacopo Buonaparte
Jacopo Buonaparte
Jacopo Buonaparte was an early member of the Bonaparte family and a friend and advisor to Medici Pope Clement VII. He is notable for being a non-Roman eyewitness to the sack of Rome on May 6, 1527 where the pope was forced to surrender the Castel Sant' Angelo and pay a ransom for his life...
who witnessed and wrote an important account of the sack of Rome (1527)
Sack of Rome (1527)
The Sack of Rome on 6 May 1527 was a military event carried out by the mutinous troops of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor in Rome, then part of the Papal States...
.
Drake makes this association because of the emblems' similarity to the Buonaparte coat of arms
Coat of arms
A coat of arms is a unique heraldic design on a shield or escutcheon or on a surcoat or tabard used to cover and protect armour and to identify the wearer. Thus the term is often stated as "coat-armour", because it was anciently displayed on the front of a coat of cloth...
.
The partbooks he analyzed consist of 49 Italian, 24 French secular and 13 Latin sacred musical compositions from early composers such as Josquin, Heinrich Isaac
Heinrich Isaac
Heinrich Isaac was a Franco-Flemish Renaissance composer of south Netherlandish origin. He wrote masses, motets, songs , and instrumental music. A significant contemporary of Josquin des Prez, Isaac influenced the development of music in Germany...
, Sebastiano Festa
Sebastiano Festa
Sebastiano Festa was an Italian composer of the Renaissance, active mainly in Rome. While his musical output was small, he was one of the earliest composers of madrigals, and was influential on other early composers of madrigals, such as Philippe Verdelot...
and Bernardo Pisano
Bernardo Pisano
Bernardo Pisano was an Italian composer, priest, singer, and scholar of the Renaissance. He was one of the first madrigalists, and the first composer anywhere to have a printed collection of secular music devoted entirely to himself.- Life :He was born in Florence, and may have spent some time...
and have been essential in reconstructing the life of Pisano.
Drake also suggests that the association with the Buonaparte family helps to explain the geographical disputes that exist due to the partbooks having a Roman binding yet a Florentine script and Florentine paper. He makes this further assertion in part because the Buonaparte family was Florentine but Jacopo Buonaparte spent a great deal of time in Rome, in addition to the coat of arms in the partbooks being so similar to those of the Buonapart family.
Books and media
- Joshua Drake, Recovering Music Education as a Christian Liberal Art, (BorderStone Press, LLC) (2010).
- Joshua Drake, Gene Veith and Timothy Chambers, Generation Joshua DVD: "Picturing America: A Different Lens!" (2009)
- Joshua Drake, Botticelli, The Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization, ed. G. Kurian, (Blackwell, Dec. 2008).
- Joshua Drake, DonatelloDonatelloDonato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi , also known as Donatello, was an early Renaissance Italian artist and sculptor from Florence...
, The Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization, ed. G. Kurian, (Blackwell, Dec. 2008). - Joshua Drake, The Part-books of a Florentine Ex-Patriate: new light on FlorenceFlorenceFlorence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Ms. Magl. XIX 164-7, Early MusicEarly musicEarly music is generally understood as comprising all music from the earliest times up to the Renaissance. However, today this term has come to include "any music for which a historically appropriate style of performance must be reconstructed on the basis of surviving scores, treatises,...
(OUP), Vol. 33, no. 4 (Oct. 2005), pp. 639-646. - Joshua Drake, AestheticsAestheticsAesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
, Context, and the Music of ObrechtObrechtObrecht is the name of:* Jacob Obrecht , Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance* Hermann Obrecht , Swiss politician...
, panel discussion (with panelists Jenny Bloxam (US), Jacobijn Kiel (NL), Sean Gallagher (US)) at the Annual Medieval and RenaissanceRenaissanceThe Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
Music Conference, Glasgow, Scotland, July 2004. Professor Drake was also on the programme committee for this conference and chaired a session. - Joshua Drake, Randomness and Patterns: repeated texts in PetrucciOttaviano PetrucciOttaviano Petrucci was an Italian printer. His Harmonice Musices Odhecaton, a collection of chansons printed in 1501, is commonly misidentified as the first book of sheet music printed from movable type. Actually that distinction belongs to the Roman printer Ulrich Han's Missale Romanum of 1476...
’s Motet Prints, paper given at the Annual Medieval and Renaissance Music Conference, JenaJenaJena is a university city in central Germany on the river Saale. It has a population of approx. 103,000 and is the second largest city in the federal state of Thuringia, after Erfurt.-History:Jena was first mentioned in an 1182 document...
, GermanyGermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, July 2003. - Joshua Drake, The Part-books of a Florentine Ex-Patriate: new light on Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Ms. Magl. XIX 164-7, paper given at the Royal Musical Association, 36th Annual Music Research Students’ Conference, January 2003.
- Joshua Drake, WorshipWorshipWorship is an act of religious devotion usually directed towards a deity. The word is derived from the Old English worthscipe, meaning worthiness or worth-ship — to give, at its simplest, worth to something, for example, Christian worship.Evelyn Underhill defines worship thus: "The absolute...
MusicMusicMusic is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
In toto, Union Academic Forum, Union University (December 14, 2000).
Selected conferences
- Joshua Drake, Chair of MemoryMemoryIn psychology, memory is an organism's ability to store, retain, and recall information and experiences. Traditional studies of memory began in the fields of philosophy, including techniques of artificially enhancing memory....
& RhetoricRhetoricRhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the facility of speakers or writers who attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. As a subject of formal study and a productive civic practice, rhetoric has played a central role in the Western...
, Thursday 15 July, Annual Medieval and RenaissanceRenaissanceThe Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
Music Conference, Glasgow, Scotland, July 2004.
Hymns
• As in the Days of HaggaiHaggai
Haggai was a Hebrew prophet during the building of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, and one of the twelve minor prophets in the Hebrew Bible and the author of the Book of Haggai. His name means "my holiday"...
When • Behold, What Light Rolls Back the Sky? • Eternal God, Mover Unmoved • Holy Word of God, The • O Christian Home • Spirit Binds Us to Our Lord, The
Music
• Flandrensis • Forest Glen • Français • Honoro Patris • Lex Noster • SchultzPublic availability of works here
External links
- Church Music Management System Database
- Ingentaconnect
- Project Muse, Scholarly Journals
- Worship Music In Toto, Union UniversityUnion UniversityUnion University is a private, evangelical Christian, liberal arts university located in Jackson, Tennessee, with additional campuses in Germantown, Tennessee, and Hendersonville, Tennessee...
- Department of Music, University of GlasgowUniversity of GlasgowThe University of Glasgow is the fourth-oldest university in the English-speaking world and one of Scotland's four ancient universities. Located in Glasgow, the university was founded in 1451 and is presently one of seventeen British higher education institutions ranked amongst the top 100 of the...
- Student Research, University of Glasgow