The Power of Music: the Significance of Contrafactum in Execution Ballads

What is it about?

This paper looks at how song was employed across Europe for centuries as a vehicle for broadcasting news about crime and executions, and how this performative medium could both frame and mediate the message of punishment and repentance. In particular, it focuses on the ancient, pan-European tradition of contrafactum, the setting of new words to old tunes, that was a feature of this early form of news media, revealing the significance of the choice of music to the transmission of information.

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