Michael Winter

Postgraduate Research Student in Music

Michael Winter is a PhD student in late-medeival English polyphony, and is supported by Northern Bridge AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership. His doctoral thesis is titled ‘Restoring polyphonic fragments from the Eton Choirbook: a study of contemporary reconstruction and fifteenth-century compositional processes.’ This thesis studies the music from the Eton Choirbook, and the means by which we can recover now-fragmentary music. This process is used to study contemporary reconstruction methodologies and fifteenth-century compositional processes.

Name: Michael Winter

PhD Student in: Musicology

Newcastle University Email: m.winter@newcastle.ac.uk

Supervisors: Prof Magnus Williamson; Dr Hector Sequera Mora; Prof David Smith

Research Project Title: Restoring polyphonic fragments from the Eton Choirbook: A study of contemporary reconstruction and fifteenth-century compositional processes.

Brief Outline of Research Project:

The Eton Choirbook is perhaps the most significant source of pre-reformation English polyphony; in June 2018, it was added to the UNESCO Memory of the World Register. However, the loss of leaves from this manuscript means that sixteen incomplete or fragmentary pieces have been neither studied in detail nor, in most cases, polyphonically reconstructed. This project will generate a unique set of eight hypothetical reconstructions, three of which have never previously been published. Enhanced by collaborative creative practice, these reconstructions will inform an analysis of late-medieval compositional processes and lead to an evaluation of reconstruction processes as a means of understanding early music.

Research Interests:

• Fifteen and sixteenth century polyphony
• Fragmentology and restoring lacunary polyphony
• Musical sources
• Early music notation
• Critcal editing