Musicology Colloquium
Friday, February 24th – 1:55pm | Friends of Music
Guest Speaker
Dr. M. Jennifer Bloxam – Williams College
“From Sinner to Saint: Ritual and Narrative in a
Mass for Margaret of Austria”
This lecture presents a comparative exploration of two versions of the Mary
Magdalene story, told using two of the most vivid means of communication
available in the Renaissance: painting (specifically an altarpiece), and music
(specifically a Mass). We will consider both the “how” and the “why” of these
Magdalene narratives, both created during the second decade of the sixteenth
century in the orbit of the Hapsburg-Burgundian court during the regency of
Margaret of Austria, and both made as ornaments – one visual, one sonic – for the
celebration of the Mass ritual.