Anacruses and Opening Rests in the Leuven Chansonnier Alamire Foundation KU Leuven
Most polyphonic compositions of the fifteenth century have at least one voice which begins without rests. The exceptions usually use the rests to create a musical upbeat, potentially motivated by the text. In less straightforward examples, the rests have the potential to cause confusion on the part of performers or scribes. Theorists only rarely addressed this phenomenon directly, but they did discuss rests as indicators of mensuration. As ...