Fortune's demesne: the interrelation of text and music in Machaut's Il mest avis (B22), De fortune (B23) and two related anonymous balades*
Machaut's balades Il mest avis (hereafter B22) and De fortune (hereafter B23), adjacent in the music section of the Machaut manuscripts, form a diptych on the theme of Fortune. In relation to each other, their poetic texts offer complementary perspectives on the power of Fortune: B22 is static, detached in tone, a clerk commentating in a public sententious statement upon the political manifestations of Fortune; conversely, B23 is personal and dynamic, a spurned lady's personal testimony to the power of Fortune to change happiness into sorrow. Despite these contrasts, the two poems share a diction markedly different from that of the twenty-one balades that precede them in the music section.
Counterpoint and Analysis in Fourteenth-Century Song
This paper advocates the use of fourteenth-century counterpoint teaching in analysis of the harmony of fourteenth-century secular songs. Specifically, basic counterpoint, as taught in treatises, is employed as a way of understanding the style of Machaut's ballades, although it is hoped that the notation and procedure of the analysis will find a broader application. The basic consonant dyads proper to simple counterpoint are posited as underlying and governing the rhythmically decorated and often highly dissonant musical surface of these pieces, even those in more than two parts. Elements of Machaut's ballade style, such as dissonance treatment, rhythmic figuration and melody, are accessed by an investigation of the relationship of an arhythmic, consonant contrapuntal background to the rhythmic, and frequently dissonant, foreground.
Religion and school
The report presents and argues in favor of the thesis that the secular school offers no alternative in modern society. Simultaneously, the author displays the basic contours of spiritual physiognomy of such a modern school which in many ways differs from the, school we know in this country. The school the author pleads for does not decide among various contents that influence forming of the young, within which the line is established between theism - atheism, but, on the contrary, pleads for the principle of humanistic education. The predominant here is the notion of methodological skepticism which marks the principle by which the process of education should be realized as though there were no God, or - which is on the same level - as though there were God. Out of this basic principle any others upon which the concept of modern secular school the author pleads for is established can be drawn. It ought not to neglect the rich, scientifically confirmed knowledge on the phenomenon of religion and atheism, which should be, presented in all school subjects where the contents allow for it as well as the Religious Culture should be introduced as a compulsory subject. By introducing this subject as a collection of knowledge on the phenomenon of the, religious, we would avoid imposing a particular religious culture as an attitude, behavior, belief and evaluation.