Looking Back over the 'Missa L'Ardant desir': Double Signatures and Unusual Signs in Sources of Fifteenth-Century Music

In an article wittily entitled 'The End of the Ars Subtilior' David Fallows observes that music theorists continue to discuss, and composers occasionally use, notational and stylistic elements associated with the ars subtilior over the course of the fifteenth century. While it is agreed that the years roughly between 1380 and 1415 witness the apogee of the so-called ars subtilior style on either side of the Alps, Fallows argues for the existence of continuities in musical and notational practices, offering up a foil to any attempt to periodize this style. For music historians, this situation is not surprising in the light of later musical parallels like, for example, the final flowering of the North German contrapuntal style in the hands of Bach contemporaneous with the development of the early Classical symphony by younger composers such as G. B. Sammartini and Johann Stamitz. Fallows invites further exploration of stylistic and notational continuities in the fifteenth century. In this article I take up the second part of his challenge by considering further evidence for the use of unusual mensuration signs in sources from well into the second half of the fifteenth century.