Parody

What it means

Parody, in older music, designates the reuse of existing music with a new text or in a new context. The term carries no mocking meaning — unlike in today's usage. What is meant is a craft procedure: a movement from a secular cantata receives a sacred text, a chanson becomes the basis of a Mass, an existing polyphonic setting is reworked for a new purpose.

Musical use

The procedure was self-evident for centuries and had practical as well as artistic reasons: successful music was not supposed to disappear after a single performance, and the need for music for particular occasions was great. The Renaissance parody Mass works the material of a model into all movements and counts among the most artful genres of its time. In the eighteenth century, movements of secular works are provided with sacred text and inserted into cantatas and oratorios. With good work, the new text fits so precisely in stress and expression that the reworking is not noticeable.

Performance practice

If a work rests on a parody, a look at the model is worthwhile: some things about declamation and gesture are explained only by it. When shaping, check whether the new text sits well on the music at every point, and clarify syllable distributions that are resolved differently in editions. Avoid playing the original meaning off against the new one; for contemporaries the procedure was no contradiction. Explain the connection in the programme where appropriate.

Check, with well-known cases of parody, the chronological order, because the sacred version is not always the later one. A retexting changes the number of syllables and the stress, so the declamation must be checked anew.

For performance it is also important that a parodied version can contain its own readings and errors: where a model survives, compare both sources, since ambiguities at one point can often be clarified from the other. Name the connection in the programme booklet when it matters for understanding the work.