It has become easy to win over new students to the study of fifteenth-century music. The widespread availability of recordings of Du Fay, Josquin, and others puts the sonorous qualities of this music on full display. This chapter begins with the autobiography of Johannes von Soest, one of the most loquacious witnesses to the listening experiences of fifteenth-century art music. It provides an encapsulation of the essential modes of perception of late medieval art music. The chapter focuses on the doctrine of the internal senses and their effect on music comprehension with a special focus on the spiritual efficacy of sacred polyphony and the considerable critique that this music engendered. The doctrine of the spiritual senses made possible an unmediated affective access to God, distinct from representations of the angels in their multitude of merely intellectually perceptible music. Finally, the chapter discusses the justification of earthly sensual pleasure, including the "listening pleasure" of sacred music.

Marian texts, devotional themes, and symbolism were prominent in all the major genres of fifteenth-century sacred music, and even secular genres sounded symbolic echoes of the Virgin. A review of the basic elements of Marian devotion and their musical manifestations can give a sense of Virgin Mary's central place in fifteenth-century music. Musicians in the fifteenth century spent considerable time singing and composing Marian music on behalf of others, but this did not stop them from seeking her intercession for themselves as well. Over the course of the century, Mary was praised with high church polyphony and music in the style of secular song. This stylistic range reflects a central paradox of Marian devotion that she was simultaneously both the exalted Queen of Heaven and a humble lady of this earth. The musical genre most closely aligned with Marian devotion in the early fifteenth century, which is called the "cantilena motet", points more to her humility than to her exaltedness.