Pero Meogo

From metrics and music to metrical perception

Abstract

From the metrics of medieval lyrical texts and the processes of intertextuality, following the postulates of Jörn Gruber (1983), it is possible to formulate the musical reconstruction of some cantigas of which the music has not been preserved. This is a metrical comparison between the Galician lyric repertoire, in this case the poetic work of Pero Meogo, and the Galician paraliturgical repertoire (CSM), the Occitan, the Old French and the medieval Latin repertoire. The metrical coincidences allow us to argue both possible counterfactuals and musical reconstructions of these repertoires without music, always supported by intertextual analyses. This study is formulated as a hypothesis based on a "metrical perception" on the part of the receiver at a level similar to the "melodic perception" on the part of the medieval audience.