History of Medieval Era of Music

• introduction
• composers
• see also:
  • History of Music
  • History of Renaissance Era of Music
  • History of Baroque Era of Music
  • History of the Classical Period of Music
  • History of the Romantic Era of Music
  • The middle ages

Introduction:

• that era of music preceding the Renaissance era of music, ie. 11thC to end of 14thC
• Catholic sacred music dominated by Gregorian chant form (also called plainsong) sung by choirs which originated in 6thC by Pope Gregory
• new instruments:
  • medieval psaltery:
    • a plucked string instrument which was precursor of the harpsichord
  • mandola:
    • a small ancestor of the European lute, possibly developed in 9thC
    • became popular in England at end of 14thC
    • ancestor of the mandolin
  • European lute:
    • whilst the 'long lute' dates back to at least 2000BC & the 'short lute' from 800BC, it was transformed into the European lute with distinct neck & central soundhole, probably in Spain in 14thC
• new music styles:
  • conductus:
    • metrical Latin song, sacred or secular, usually for 2 or 3 voices, originating in France in 12thC
    • superseded by motet in 13thC (see Renaissance)
  • lai, lay:
    • 13th & 14thC French song form consisting of 12 unequal stanzas sung to different tunes
  • ars antiqua:
    • medieval western European music style based on plainsong & organum, employed by composers (esp. Leonin, Perotin) of the Notre Dame or Parisian schools in 12th & 13thC.
  • ars nova:
    • 14thC French & Italian new style of music with restrictions of ars antiqua replaced by greater variety of rhythm, duple instead of triple time, and increased independence in part-writing.
    • developed into the madrigal in Renaissance times

Composers:

• Machaut, Guillaume de (c1300-1377):
  • French composer, cleric, poet & diplomat
  • outstanding practitioner of ars nova & among 1st to compose polyphonic setting of petry in fixed forms (ballade, rondeau & virelai)
  • among the last to compose in the medieval forms of lai & dit
  • music compositions:
    • Messe de Notre Dame
    • Voir Dit
    • 23 motets
•  

MUSIC THEORY AND MUSIC TREATISES IN THE MIDDLE AGES

I. Early Medieval Music Theory and Treatises on Music: 4th-6th cc.

• Augustine
• De musica ("On Music", 387 C.E.)

 
• Martianus Capella
• The Marriage of Mercury and Philology (early 5th c.)
• A treatise on the seven liberal arts:
• Trivium or the Verbal Arts
1. Grammar
2. Dialectic
3. Rhetoric
• Quadrivium or the Mathematical Arts (Disciplines)
1. Geometry
2. Arithmetic
3. Astronomy
4. Harmonics

 
• Boethius (cc. 480-524)
• De institutione musica ('On the Fundaments of Music', beginning of the 6th c.)
• Eclectic treatise influenced by the ancient Greek treatises on the theory and ethics of music, such as those of Aristotle and Ptolemy, Pythagoras and Aristoxenus
• Often contradictory in its statements and exposition
• Division of music in three parts:
1. Musica mundana (the ''music of the world/cosmos')
• ancient numerology (theory of numbers) and astrology (planets, elements, seasons, etc.)
2. Musica humana (the 'human music')
• on the relation between the body and soul and their parts
3. Musica instrumentalis (the 'instrumental music')
• music as understood today, i.e. music produced by instruments and the human voice, not the speculation about music

II.  Later Medieval Music Theory: 10th-13th cc.

Guido d'Arezzo (Guido of Arezzo, ca. 991-1033?)

• Micrologus (ca. 1025-1028)
• Music treatise in which Guido d'Arezzo mentions Boethius (see above) and credits him for explaining the numerical ratios of the intervals
• Monochord (Gr. 'one string'), a one-stringed musical instruments Guido used to measure musical intervals
• The division of string on the monochord would yield the diatonic scale with the main intervals of octave, fourth, fifth, and a whole tone, in the ratio of 9:8, being an intervallic difference between the fourth and the fifth
• Guido's scale is based on hexachords, a series of six tones (Gr. hexa, six) of the diatonic scale, and not on tetrachord of the ancient Greeks
• Guido's hexachordal theory produced a set of scales, later to be known as the Church Modes, which used ancient Greek names, such as Dorian, Phrygian, etc., but were not based on nor directly derived from Ptolemy's tonoi or harmoniai (modes; see above, Chapter 1)
• Guido's theoretical work also includes discussion on early polyphony (organum, see Chapter 3), i.e. combination of two or more voices singing separate parts
• Solmization
• For educational purposes of teaching sight singing, Guido d'Arezzo is credited with the invention of solmization
• He used first syllables of every verse of the St. John Hymn and assigned them as singing syllables for each of the tones within the hexachord of the diatonic scale:
St. John Hymn "Ut queant laxis" (ca. 800)
1. Ut queant laxis                "That [ut] your servants
2. Resonare fibris              "May freely sing [resonare]
3. Mira gestorum               "The miracles
4. Famuli tuorum               "Of your deeds
5. Solve poluti                   "Remove [solve] all stains [pollution's of sin?]
6. Labii reatum,                 "From their unclean lips [Labii],

Sancte Ioannes!             "Saint John!"
• According to one interpretation, the initials of the words contained in the seventh line of the hymn, "Sancte Ioannes," were later used for the seventh syllable of solmization, si or ti, thus including the missing seventh tone of diatonic scale
• Also, later, the first syllable ut was replaced with do
• The name 'solmization' comes from these syllables, sol-mi, and today it has the following syllables:

do, re, mi, fa, so(l), la, si/ti, (do).
• The Guidonian Hand
• For teaching of scale intervals their easier memorization by students, followers of Guido d'Arezzo came up with the idea of representing scale pitches on different joints of the left hand fingers.  To each joint, i.e. pitch, on his open left hand the teacher would point by the index finger of his  right hand.

The Hexachord System

• Guido's hexachords could be transposed to any pitch of the scale, keeping the same intervallic arrangement of whole (W) and half (H) tones:

• The same hexachordal structure would be preserved if the scale would start on G:

• But, in the case of a scale starting on F, the intervallic pattern of the hexachord would make the tone B flat:

• This practice created two separate B's within the diatonic scale, a type of scale which, by its nature, should not have any same letter-name doublings in it, i.e. no chromaticism (which doubles or triples the same note letter-name, such as C, C-sharp, C-flat), and no accidentals
• The two B's, one 'natural', another 'flat', became known as:
1. b quadratum, the 'square b'
• today, we call this 'b', 'b-natural'
• the 'square b' became later stylized as the natural and sharp signs
• the 'square b' was also known as b durum, the 'hard b', and since it is found in the G-hexachord, which later became the basis of G-major scale, the major scale later became known as the dur scale, a term still in use in German and some other European languages: G-Dur, meaning 'G-major', C-Dur/C-major, etc.
2. b rotundum, the 'round b'
• today, this is 'b-flat'
• the 'rounded b' became later stylized as the flat sign
• the 'round b' was also known as b molle, the 'soft b', and since it is found in the F-hexachord (see above), which later became the basis of F-major scale and its relative d-minor, the minor scale is also known as the mol scale, a term still in use in German and some other European languages: d-mol, meaning 'd-minor', c-mol/c-minor, etc.  In French, for example, all flatted pitches are also known as the 'b-molle': C b-molle is C-flat, D b-molle is D-flat, etc.

Medieval Music Notation: The Neumes (9th-11th cc.)

• 9th century:
• The early music signs to represent pitches, known as neumes, where placed above the lines of the text in a dispersed order, vaguely showing or following the outline of melodic progression
• Later on, a line in red color was drawn above the text which was the first step in fixing at least three pitches of melody: one pitch on the line, and the other two above and below it
• 11th century:
• In the meantime, two more lines were added, and finally, by the time of Guido d'Arezzo, a fourth line was drawn, thus fixing the music staff for another several centuries, when the final, fifth line was added, giving the 'modern' shape to the staff still used throughout the world
• On these lines the letters representing pitches were written: letter F for  f', C for c', and occasionally G for g'
• With time, these letters got heavily stylized, but their shapes and outlines are still clearly recognizable in modern figures of F, C, and G Clefs
• For later developments of medieval notation in the 13th century and Franco of Cologne's treatise see below

 
• Important for class discussion:  Bear in mind that the following Grout-Palisca statement on the invention of notation is very much biased and, unless carefully rephrased, even groundless.  But, again, both of these authors come from the era and tradition, as well as a heavily philologically oriented cultural milieu, in which only the written sources were considered true, reliable and almost as if worthy of studying.  Oral tradition was deemed as almost something dangerous, probably because it was not that easy to control it by established scholarly apparatus of knowledge:

 
The invention of the staff enabled scribes to notate (relative) pitches precisely and FREED MUSIC [emphasis mine] from its dependence on oral transmission.  The achievement was as crucial for the history of Western music as the invention of writing was for the history of language (Grout and Palisca 1996:60).

The Church Modes

• The medieval modal system consisted of eight modes also known as the church modes
• This system developed gradually, and assumed its final form by the 11th century
• In their names, church modes are identical to Ptolemy's tonoi (see above):
• They differ from the ancient Greek tonoi in conceptual understanding of the division of octave: Greeks divided octave into two tetrachords, while Guido d'Arezzo based it on the concept of hexachord (see above)
• The main characteristics of the medieval church modes are:
1. Finalis:  Each church mode is based on the diatonic scale, which starts on the finalis, called so because it was also the 'final' tone of the melody
2. Tenor:  The second prominent tone is the tenor, usually the sixth tone above finalis and the last tone of the hexachord
• It was this tone on which the tenor part of chant was usually sung, 'held' (see above)
• In the case that the tenor would fall on tone B, as was the case with the Phrygian mode, it would be automatically shifted to the next pitch above, since the note B was deemed dangerous
• Later on, when this B would form, with F below it, an interval of augmented fourth, also known as the tritonus ('three whole tones'), it would be called the diabolus in musica, the 'devil in music'!  This also explains the attitude of medieval music theorists towards the note B.
• It seems that tritonus was particularly disliked by the medieval music theorists.  It was also banned in organum (see below)
3. Modal Pairs:  The modes were set in pairs, original mode being called authentic, and its counterpart plagal, 'collateral', located a perfect fourth below -- a similarity with the Byzantine system of Oktoechoi (see above), which obviously served as a model for the medieval music theory and church modes
4. Shared Finalis:  Each pair shared the same finalis
5. Different Tenor:  Each pair differed in their tenors and ambituses or gammuts, the latter being a Guidonian term, which meant the range of the 'gamma ut', i.e. the pitch G, called gamma, of a hexachord starting on that pitch G

• The eight modes are:

• Modes on A, B, and C, the remaining tones of the diatonic octave scale, were not recognized during this period
• 16th century:   Glareanus (see below) recognized two new modes modes on A and C,  but again not that on B

NONLITURGICAL AND SECULAR MONODY

• Early medieval church music was monophonic (Gr. monos, 'one', phonos. 'voice'), with only one part sung by either a soloist or a choir in unison (the term 'unison' is the Latin translation of 'monophony': uno, 'one', sonus, 'sound, voice')
• The term monody (Gr. monos and aidein, 'to sing') means the vocal solo performance, solo singing
• Later on, in the early 17th century, this term came to imply the solo singing styles in the early opera in Italy (see below)
• 11th-12th centuries:
1. Goliard songs: the earliest known examples of medieval secular music
• Latin texts
• Topics include:
• Wine
• Women
• Satire
• Important for class discussion:  Grout-Palisca statement that,

 
The treatment [of the above mentioned topics] is sometimes delicate, sometimes not; the spirit is decidedly keen and informal, as we may readily sense when listening to the modern musical settings in Carl Orff's Carmina burana (Grout and Palisca 1996:60).
is biased.  The question of 'delicacy' is culture specific, judgmental, and one-sided.  Remember Plato and Aristotle and their theories of ethos?  Do we necessarily agree with everything they said about men and women, about music and gymnastics, soldiers and philosophers, and their roles in society?  About 'effeminate' and 'brave' music, and good and bad music modes?  The same is with 'delicacy'?  Who is it to judge?  Also, is Orff's Carmina trilogy really a good and truthful example of music that existed some thousand years ago?  Or, is it rather that his Carmina is just another construct of the time to which we cannot possibly have access?  Are these some of the myths about our past, which we create, construct and then perpetuate, for whatever reason, just because the written texts tell us so?
2. Conductus:  liturgical drama, probably performed while a priest was formally led, 'conducted', to another church for the performance of the Liturgy, Mass
• Text: metrical
• Melody: 'newly' composed
• Topics: religious and secular
• This type of monophonic conductus should not be confused with its later 12th-13th century development as polyphonic conductus at Notre Dame
3. Chanson de geste:
• 'Song of deed'
• Secular songs in medieval France
• Text: vernacular
• Epic narrative about the national heroes: Song of Roland

 

I. Secular Monody in France: 12th-13th cc.

1.  Jongleurs and Ménestrel (Minstrels)

• Wandering artists, going from village to village, performing all kinds of arts, from theatrical plays and poetry to acrobatics to music
• Poets and bards
• Social outcasts
• Denied protection of the law and the sacraments of the church
• Guild organization
• Brotherhoods
• Professional training in various crafts and music in their lodges
• Jongleurs and Minstrels resemble dervishes, 'Muslim mystics', in Islam, who have been historically organized in brotherhoods, with their own separate lodges, rules, initiation ceremonies, rituals and lively cultural activity
• Dervishes have been also known for their educational role in Ottoman Empire and even today, the lodge, tekke, of the Cerrahi Order, in Istanbul, Turkey, is known for its musical activity and musical education of its members
• Another important tekke in Istanbul is the one of the Mevlevi Order, where younger Turkish students come to participate in its rituals which consist of music and dancing

2.  Troubadours

• Poet-composers
• The name probably comes from the word trobar, 'to find', since troubadours and trouvères were the 'finders of songs' and 'court employment', too
• They flourished in southern France, Provence
• Spoke Provençal or the langue d'oc, Occitan
• were influenced by Moorish culture of medieval Spain
• Moorish culture itself was influenced by Arabic culture and the religion of Islam, which were present in Spain either as the main and official religion or as strong cultural influence for some 700 years: from the 8th/9th centuries until the late 15th century, when, in 1492, during her reconquista, the 'reconquest' of Spain for Christianity, the Spanish Queen Isabella expelled all Muslims and Jews from the Iberian Peninsula
• The expelled Muslims moved to North Africa, today's Maghrib (Morocco, Algeria, and Tunis), while the Jews, known as the Sephardim or Sephardic Jews, moved mostly eastwards, to the lands within the Ottoman Empire.  The Ottoman sultans accepted them warmly and the Jews became an important element in the economy, administration and culture of the Ottoman Empire.  Other Sephardic Jews moved northwards, to the Netherlands (among the descendants of these Sephardic Jews was the famous philosopher Spinosa), and as early as the 16th century, Sephardic Jews reached America, establishing a small colony and building a synagogue in what is today New York City, the first synagogue to be ever built in America

3.  Trouvères

• The word trouvère comes from the verb trouver, which in northern French dialect and in modern French means 'to find' -- it is thus identical to the southern trobar
• Flourished in northern France, in Champaign and Artois provinces
• Spoke langue d'oeil, medieval French dialect to become modern French
• became gradually associated with aristocratic circles at the French courts, including even kings among their numbers

The Repertory and Musical Forms Created by Troubadours and Trouvères

• Musical Forms:
• Chanson: 'song', a collective term used for all musical forms sung by troubadours and trouvères
• Chansonnier: collection of chansons
• Ballade
• a type of chanson, song
• simple and dramatic ballads
• the use of mime and dance
• topics:
• lovesongs
• political and moral songs
• religious songs
• For the 14th century ballade form by Guillaume de Machaut, see below
• Pastourelle (France) /  Pastorela (Italy)
• pastoral moods, usually about unreturned love, women, yearning heart, abandonment, the beauty of nature, birds, etc.
• all of these topics are in striking resemblance with some Sufi poetry in Turkey, where woman as an object is replaced by God and the love towards women by Love towards Him -- this is why many Sufi songs, ilahis, are often with a strong tinge of somewhat more abstracted but nevertheless strong sexual underpinnings
• Mevlana Celaluddin Rumi's Na't-i Serif , the 'Eulogy of the Prophet', is a beautiful example of such an abstracted Sufi love, where the Prophet Muhammed is likened to the 'cypress tree' in the 'orchard of religious law'!
• sometimes openly male musical genre: "loving a lady"
• this does not mean that women did not have their own openly female genres, but recorded history did not leave known examples
• some folk songs in the Balkans today, sung by the shepherdesses or other peasant women, are very much female oriented
• telling a story: usually with 'sexy' elements and the plot that tells about a knight pursuing a shepherdess, trying to sexually use her -- after a fight, she of course succumbs and the manly knight reaps the pleasures of his sexual assault (well, today we call it 'assault' and 'harassment' -- back then it may have been understood differently and interpreted by the male interpreters [who else?!] as something good and necessary for a knight -- like his aristocratic right based on his social might)
• women treated as objects of sexual pleasure
• theatrical elements: the story also included a dialogue between the knight and the shepherdess, resembling a little musical play
•  
  • Poetic text can be rather spicy, with lots of sexual innuendoes and talk, such as in the following example below:

  Robins m'aime  Robins m'a  Robins m'a demandée  Si m'ara

  Robin loves me  Robin has me  Robin asked me  If he can have me[!]

  • Music Example  -- trouvère musical play:
  • Jeu de Robin et de Marion, "Play between Robin and Marion," by the trouvère Adam de la Halle (ca. 1237-ca. 1287)
  •  Music analysis:
  • monophonic rondeau (rondo) in the ABAABAB form
  • dance mood
  • narrow range
  • Music Example  -- troubadour pastourelle / lovesong:
  • Can vei la lauzeta mover, "When I see the lark beating," by the troubadour Bernart de Ventadoran (ca. 1150-ca. 1180)
  •  Music analysis:
  • strophic form consisting of several stanzas
  • metered text: octosyllabic (eight syllables per line)
  • rhyme pattern: ababcdcd
  • inserted melismas on the penultimate syllable
  • Dorian mode, with finalis on D and tenor on A
  • ambitus of an octave
  • Music Example  -- canso / lovesong:
  • A chantar, "To sing," by Beatriz de Dia (d. ca. 1212)
  • According to a legend, comtessa Beatriz de Dia was married to a French nobleman Guillaume of Poitiers and was probably a good wife.  However, the destiny had it that she fall in love with a gentleman Rambaud d'Orange, making him and her love towards him, immortal in her cansos, lovesongs
  •  Music analysis:
  • strophic form
  • metered text: decasyllabic (ten syllables per line)
  • inserted melismas on the penultimate syllable
  • Dorian mode, with finalis on D and tenor on A
  • ambitus of an octave: from hypofinalis on c to hypofinalis on c'
  • musical form: ABABCDB

  II.  Secular Monody in Germany: 13th-16th cc.

  1.  Minnesänger: 12th-14th cc.

  • The German 'troubadours', knightly poet-musicians
  • Minne, 'love', and sänger, 'singer, chanter, bard, poet'
  • Minnelieds, 'lovesongs', G. minne and lied, pl. lieder, 'song' in the sense of poem
  • Song in the sense of the 'sung song' is Sang
  • Strophic form based on stanzas and occasional refrains
  • Triple meter
  • Topics:
  • love
  • religious tinge
  • more 'sober' in nature than their French counterparts, chansons, ballads, pastourelles/pastorele
  
   
  • Music Example  -- Minnelied / lovesong:
  • We ich han gedacht, "Alas, I have been thinking," by Wizlau von Rügen (ca. 1268-1325)
  •  Music analysis:
  • strophic form with several stanzas
  • repetitive melodic phrases / motives
  • ten lines per stanza
  • metered text with alternating poetic meter
  • rhyme: aabccbddeed
  • ambitus of an octave: from hypofinalis on g' to hypofinalis on g''
  • 'tenor' on e'', a perfect fifth above finalis on a'
  • musical form:  {:AAB:} (C) AAB or {:A:} (B) A

  2.  Meistersinger: 14th-16th cc.

  • Urban tradesmen, craftsmen, artisans
  • Like 'trouvères' a century earlier in France, Meistersinger became connected with nobility and aristocratic circles
  • Meister, 'teacher, master, chief, leader, master-workman, the head of a guild lodge', but also the synonym for the Singer, a term stemming from the verb singen, 'to sing'
  • Meistersinger, a typically urban guild organization pattern on the concept of brotherhood, are very much similar in their form of organization, craftsmanship, rituals, initiation ceremonies, strict and secretive brotherhood rules, to their Sufi contemporaries in medieval Anatolia, at the time of the establishment of Ottoman Empire, the late 13th to the mid 15th centuries
  • Minnesinger, like the Anatolian Sufis, stressed the importance of education of their guild/lodge/brotherhood members
  • Both in medieval Germany and in Anatolia, lodges became outstanding centers of culture, poetry, music, arts and learning, resembling unofficial academies and becoming important counterparts to the medieval universities in Europe and the medreses, the Muslim religious schools, in Ottoman Turkey
  • Hans Sachs, a shoemaker from Nürnberg, and a famous Meistersinger, made immortal in Richard Wagner's opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, "The Masters-singers from Nürnberg"
  • The Bar Form:
  • German poetic form used by the Meistersinger in their minnelieds
  • Consists of two melodic phrases
  • The first phrase, A, is called Stollen (pronounced as 'shtol-len')
  • The second phrase, B, is called the Abgesang, (pronounced as 'ab-ghe-zung')
  • Since the Stollen is repeated, the whole form results in a tripartite structure of AAB
  
   
  • Music Example  -- Meistersinger song on a biblical subject:
  • Nachdem David war redlich und aufrichtig, "Since David was honest and candid," by Hans Sachs (1494-1576)
  •  Music analysis:
  • strophic form with two stanzas
  • the first stanza with 8 lines (4+4), the second with 10 lines (6+4)
  1. Stollen: the first four lines of the first stanza make the A part, which is then musically repeated to comprise the second four lines of the first stanza: A (4) + A (4) = AA (8 lines)
  2. Abgesang: the first six lines of the second stanza make the B part
  3. Stollen:  the remaining four lines of the second stanza are again the A part -- thus the second stanza consists of: B (6) + A (4) = BA (10 lines)
  • The resulting musical form is AABA, a version of the Bar Form, AAB
  
   

  III.  Secular Monody in Italy and Spain: 13th c.

  Trovatori

  • Italian 13th century troubadours

  Musical Forms

  • Lauda: Italian monophonic song
  • Cantiga: Spanish monophonic songs of praise to the Virgin mary
  
   

  Instrumental Music: 11th-14th cc.

  • dance music
  • lively rhythms
  • Musical Forms:
  • Estampie (France) / Istampita (Italy), an instrumental musical form consisting of the repeated parts called:
  • partes, puncta, or pars
  1. Fr. Ouvert or It. Aperto, lit. 'open' -- part one, ending on a semi-cadence
  2. Fr. Clos or It. Chiuso, lit. 'closed' -- part two, ending on the full cadence
  
   
  • Music Example  -- Istampita:
  • Istampita Palamento, anon.
  • Music analysis:
  • Five parts: Prima, Sechunda, Terça, Quartta, and Quinta pars
  • Each part is repeated twice, first time ending with aperto, semi-cadence, the second time with chiuso, full cadence
  • The whole piece gives impression of improvisation rather than the strict following of the score
  • Important for class discussion:  Palisca does not give any information on the performers who appear in his NRAWM, a set of six CD's.  This information is also omitted in his NAWM, which contains the music scores of recorded pieces.  It is therefore hard or impossible to judge the performances since the listener/reader is not given opportunity to think of or have an insight in the contextual aspect of performance:  are the pieces recorded by the conservatory trained musicians, or are they performed by professional but untrained musicians, etc.?  The example of Istampita has improvisatory character, giving impression of a piece transmitted through oral tradition.  Its strong 'folksy' flavor tells us that, but we cannot decide nor learn why it is so, since we lack the crucial contextual information.  The same is with de Dia's canso "A chantar" (see above).  Its melody so much resembles folk music from southern Europe, stretching from Spain to the Balkans, and yet we do not have any ethnomusicological information on it to be able to connect this song with other songs and possibly place it in the context of other cultural traditions from the area.
  
   

  Instruments

  • Stringed:
  • Harp
  • originally an Irish and British instrument, introduced to continental Europe in the 9th century
  • Fiddles -- bowed instruments:
  • Vielle, France
  • Fiedel, Germany
  • prototype of the Renaissance viol and the modern violin
  • five strings, one string used as a drone
  • Lute -- a short-necked stringed instrument with pear-shaped body usually played with a plectrum
  • originally introduced in Europe by Arabs, in the 8th-9th centuries
  • its Arabic counterpart is called the ^cud, or with article al-^cud, hence its Italian name lauta and in French lute
  • in Turkey this instrument is known as ud
  • from the Arab lands, the ^cud also traveled eastwards, to China and then Japan; in China it is known as the pipa, and in Japan as the biwa
  • all these instruments, viz. ^cud, pipa, biwa, lauta, bear a striking resemblance in their physical appearance, although the techniques of playing may differ -- the pipa, for example, is held upright and has bridges which function as frets, while the Turkish ud and Arabic ^cud are fretless, held in the lap, and played transversally
  • the lute spread across Europe but did not gain the widespread popularity until the Renaissance
  • lute may be also understood as the predecessor of the modern guitar
  • Organistrum
  • prototype of the modern hurdy-gurdy
  • Psaltery -- zither (plucked)
  • a remote ancestor of the Baroque harpsichord and clavichord, clavecin, and of the modern piano
  • the piano may be also understood as a kind of zither, with strings being struck by the hammers hit by the keys on the keyboard, instead of being plucked by the fingernails
  • most world zithers, such as the Arabic qanun, Turkish kanun, Chinese qin (pronounced "chin") and zheng (pronounced "cheng"), Japanese koto, Korean kayagum ("kha-yah-ghoom"), are plucked with the fingernails, usually artificial ones attached to the index finger(s)
  • an instrument similar to zither, but with strings being struck by a pair of two wooden batons instead of plucking, is known as dulcimer
  • in Turkey, Iran and the cultures between Iran and Hindustan, in Northern India, this instrument is known as the santur (pronounced as "san-toor")
  • Wind:
  • Flute
  • a flute type instrument
  • recorder type, played vertically
  • transversal type, like the modern Western flute
  • Shawm
  • an oboe type instrument with reed
  • an instrument sometimes played in pairs as the double shawm, similar to the Greek double-aulos (see illustrations in Grout and Palisca 1996:5, 69), and the Turkish zurna
  • Trumpet
  • Bagpipe
  • a reed instrument with an air container
  • Drums
  • ?
  • Organs:
  • Great organs in churches
  • Portatum -- a portable organ, sometimes suspended on a strap across the shoulder
  • Positum -- a 'posited' organ, played by being placed on a flat surface

THE 'BEGINNINGS' OF 'ART' POLYPHONY IN EUROPE

• Gr. poly, 'many, multiple', phonos, 'voice, sound'
• Contrary to monophony, where several people perform in unison one musical line, i.e. part
• Heterophony, a disputed term which supposedly mean 'unconscious' or as if 'accidental' ornamentations and embellishments in monophonic music, i.e. when the 'same' melody is simultaneously performed by two or more musicians
• Important for class discussion:  As Palisca states, "there are good reasons to believe that polyphony existed in Europe long before it was first unmistakably described.  It was probably used chiefly in nonliturgical sacred [religious] music and may have been employed in folk music as well.  Melodic doubling at the third, fourth, or fifth, along with heterophony is found in many cultures and probably existed also in Europe" (Grout and Palisca 1996:74-75).

    This is why I put the word 'beginnings' in the above subtitle under quotation marks.
    A good example of polyphony in folk music is that of Bosnia-Hercegovina and the mountainous parts of Dalmatia, today in Croatia, but also parts of Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia, Bulgaria.  In local peasant culture of that area, people sing their songs in seconds, both major and minor, which are sometimes parallel, sometimes formed by contrary motion of two separate musical lines, sometimes making a special timbral effect of 'unrecognizable' parts -- unaccustomed listener may never be sure which part is sung by what singer at what point in the song.  There are also records that the Ambrosian chanting was polyphonic and performed in parallel seconds, like in Bosnia today.

I.  ORGANUM

1.  Early Organum: 10th-11th cc.

1. Musica enchiriadis, 'Music Handbook', anonymous treatise
2. Scolica enchiriadis, 'Excerpts from Handbook', a dialogue associated with Musica enchiriadis, illustrating and describing diaphony, 'singing together' (Gr. dia, 'through', and phonos), and naming it organum
3. Guido d'Arezzo's Micrologus (see above)

1. Vox principalis, the 'main or principal voice', part
2. Vox organalis, the accompanying 'organal voice', part, duplicating the main melody, vox principalis, a fourth or fifth below

1. Parallel: =
• both voices keep the same parallel movement, maintaining the same interval of fourth, either staying on the same pitch or going up and down
2. Oblique: /_
• one line, vox principalis, stays on the same pitch, while another, vox organalis, moves upwards
3. Contrary: < or >
both voices move in contrary directions, making intervals of fifth, octave, third, or prime (unison)

• Winchester Troper:
• the oldest collection of organum pieces, contained in the 11^th century manuscript used at Winchester Cathedral
• in this context, the term 'troping' means addition of another voice, that of organum
• click on the highlighted words for the Byzantine and the 10^th century Catholic meaning of the term 'troping'
• 11^th century:
• the vox principalis becomes the lower voice,
• the vox organalis becomes the upper part by being placed above the vox principalis
• the voices cross each other
• the intervals remain perfect:  unison, octave, fourth, fifth
• Certain sections of both the Mass and the Office become troped, i.e. they receive polyphonic treatment
• In the Mass, both the Ordinary and the Proper sections become troped, 'polyphonized':
• Ordinary:
• Kyrie
• Gloria
• Proper:
• Gradual
• Alleluia
• Tract
• Sequentia
• In the Office, the troped sections are responsories , i.e. those sections sung by a soloist
• The soloist now embellishes the melody of the chant, i.e. treats it with more freedom and improvisation, against the same but unembellished, i.e. plainchant, melody sung by the choir in unison
• The resulting effect is that of a simple polyphonic treatment of musical texture
• In this texture, polyphonic sections (soloist and choir) alternate with monophonic sections (choir in unison)
• Monophonic sections are antiphonal singing
 
• Music Example  -- Organum duplum (NRAWM CD1:30 [CD1:10])
• Alleluia, justus ut palma florebit, "Alleluia, the righteous shall flourish like a palm"
• A 12^th century organum from a Milanese treatise Ad organum faciendum, "To make organum" (1100) -- as its title says, it is a treatise on how to make organum
• Music analysis:
• mostly note-against-note movement of voices
• Contrary and parallel motion
• The upper part, vox organalis, occasionally crosses the lower part, vox principalis
• Beginning of phrase: Contrary motion from unison or octave to fourth or fifth
• End of phrase: fourths or fifths move into unison or octave
• At the end of the initial word "Alleluia" the vox organalis sings a melismatic passage below the steady tone, f, of the vox principalis:
• after the parallel motion in the fourths, voices form a third and then meet in the unison on f
• while the vox principalis holds that pitch, f, the vox organalis crosses it, moves down to c, and then back up to f
• as soon as the two voices meet again in the unison on f, they move a whole tone up and cadence in the unison on g (see Ex. 3.5. in Grout and Palisca 1996:77)
• we sang this example in class
• The third and the sixth function as intervals which lead to resolution in unison or octave

 2.  Florid Organum -- Aquitanian Polyphony: 12th c.

• Aquitanian polyphony
• another name for the style of Florid organum
• A new type of organum that appeared in the early 12^th century
• Examples are found in manuscripts preserved at the Cathedral of Santiago de Campostela, Spain, and at the Abbey of St. Martial, Limoges, France
• this type of organum originated in southwestern France, then called the duchy of Aquitaine, including the city of Limoges
• Technical features of florid organum:
• The lower voice was sung on long-held notes
• the lower voice held the vox principalis, the main melody, and became known as tenor, for the same reasons as the tenor in psalmodic chanting or the tenor of the Church Modes (see above)
• sometimes, the lower voice would carry the melody of a known chant
• since the tones of the lower voice were long-held, they assumed a function of a drone on a single tone
• The upper voice had a freedom of solo singing with melodic embellishments in florid style, hence the name floridus
• the upper voice had a freedom of embellishments
• Two styles of florid organum:
1. Organum duplum / Organum purum
• "double" or "pure" organum, also known as simply organum
• the lower voice holds long notes
• the upper voice has a freedom of melodic movement and embellishments
2. Discantus
• or Discant, a style in which both voices move note-against-note
• measured character, in a sense of strict rhythm, like scanning, using the rhythmic modes (see below)
• Texts of Florid organum:
1. Textual tropes, i.e. additions, to the text of the chant Benedicamus Domino, "We bless the Lord," from the Aquitanian region
2. Versus: Latin poems, which were the newly composed texts, without reference to chant
• both voices usually sang the same text
• occasionally, the lower voice, vox principalis, would sing the main text of the plainchant, such as Benedicamus Domino, while the upper voice, vox organalis, which would improvise the melody by adding the 'melodic tropes' (melisma), would also add the 'textual tropes' (inserted words in the text of the original plainchant), thus creating a strong effect of troping
• the earliest examples of polyphony that was not based on chant
• polyphony is chant based
 
• Music Example  -- Benedicamus Domino Trope (Florid organum) (NRAWM CD1:31)
• Congaudeant catholici, "Let us rejoice together," attributed to Magister Albertus of Paris
• Magister Albertus was the 12th century cantor at the Cathedral of Notre Dame ("Our Lady"), Paris, sometime between 1146-1177
• Congaudeant catholici is a trope for the chant Benedicamus Domino, late 12th century, preserved in the Codex Calixtinus, at the Cathedral of Santiago de Campostela, Spain
• A facsimile of the beginning of the original document is reproduced in Grout and Palisca (1996:78)
• Music analysis:
• The text of the trope is a versus, a rhymed and metered Latin poem with semi-religious topic, even invoking the "sword of Herod," an ancient theme par excellence

 
• Important for class discussion: Remember Huizinga and his statements about France and antiquity in the last chapter of The Waning?!  This example may help you in thinking of how the concept of antiquity was used and understood in some medieval texts.
• Strophic structure:
• seven rhymed octosyllabic couplets
• each couplet followed by a tetrasyllabic refrain (die ista, "on this day")
• Three-part organum:
• The uppermost part, vox organalis (?), is melismatic -- melismas occur mostly on the penultimate syllable
• the lower two parts, vox principalis (?), are syllabic, making a note-against-note organum
• however, during the refrain, these two accompanying parts also receive a somewhat melismatic treatment
• the intervals used between these two parts are unison, fifth, third and octave; occasionally, the two parts cross each other
• Dorian mode on D (?)
• Range:
• melismatic uppermost part: hypofinalis, c', to upper finalis, d''
• note-against-note two-part organum: hypofinalis, c', to hypofinalis, c'', never reaching the upper finalis, d''

 
• Important for class discussion:  In their explanation of the notation of organum purum, Grout and Palisca (1996:78-79) discuss the problem of uncertainty concerning the way the rhythm of two organum voices was written down, and they state:
  • Uncertainties of note duration did not seriously hinder solo or monophonic singing but could cause chaos [emphasis mine] when two or more simultaneously sounding melodies were involved  (1996:78-79)

    The choice of wording is somewhat unfortunate.  Yes, it is true that the inconsistencies and uncertainties in notation may and could lead to problems among musicians/performers.  But, did these musicians, back in the 11th-13th centuries, really mind about these 'inconsistencies'.  Put as it is and explained as "chaos," the message of the Grout/Palisca sentence is that the written tradition, i.e. notation, was the ultimate proof of legitimacy and correctness.  The authors are ignoring the fact that many musics in the world, including European medieval music, were and still are strongly based on oral tradition.  Also, it may as well have been 'chaos' the medieval musicians were looking for, not the uniformity of voices as it is represented to us today in modern score editions of early music.

Ars Antiqua -- The 'Old Art'

3.  Notre Dame Organum -- Northern French Polyphony: 12th c.

• the early medieval European 'art' polyphony -- in contrast to other European polyphonic 'folk' traditions that may have existed in the same period -- developed in northern France
• this period has been also named as the Ars antiqua, L. the 'old art', to differentiate it from the Ars nova, the 'new art', a style of polyphonic music that developed in the 14th century France (see below)
• however, it was the writers of the Ars nova, such as Jacques de Liège, who retrospectively gave the name Ars antiqua to this early style of French polyphony

• Six rhythmic patterns or modes constructed on the metrical feet used in French or Latin poems, and roughly corresponding to or basing on the ancient Greek poetical meters
• Each mode is based on either short, long or a combination of short and long durations
• Mode I (trochee) -- long-short (longa-breve)
• Mode II (iamb) -- short-long
• Mode III (dactyl) -- long-short-short
• Mode IV (anapest) -- short-short-long
• Mode V -- long-long
• Mode VI -- short-short-short
• Perfectio: a threefold unit of measure as the basis of the system of rhythmic modes
 

1. Léonin, in Latin also known as Leoninus (ca. 1135-1201)
2. Pérotin, also known as Perotinus (1180-ca. 1238)
• both composers were singers in Notre Dame

Léonin (Leoninus, ca. 1135-1201): Organum duplum

• a book of organums, not any more in existence, believed to have been compiled by Léonin
• consists of a cycle of two-part Graduals, Alleluias and responsories for the entire church year
• the organum pieces in this book are set to solo portions of the responsories, i.e. responsorial chants, in the Masses and Offices
• "Alleluia" is such a portion in the responsorial solo, and the famous example of "Alleluia" in Magnus liber organi is Alleluia, Pascha nostrum, "Alleluia, our Pascha"

Clausula

• Lat. sing. clausula, pl. clausulae, a 'clause, period, ending'
• Clausula is a 'closed form' in discant style of organum, in which the slow moving melismas of the chant melody, usually on just a few syllables, are repeated twice in tenor
• The form is called clausula since it usually uses the closing word or syllables from the chant text, such as "no-strum" from the "Pascha nostrum," and then elaborates it melismatically in a slow moving rhythmic pattern
• The clausula also ends on a full cadence, i.e. finalis of the mode
• While the tenor sings the clausula, the duplum, as the upper and rhythmically lively, i.e. more freely moving, part sings the text from a strophic poem, in strict poetic and  musical meters and rhythm (following a chosen rhythmic mode), and with a set rhyme
• 13th century: organum purum is gradually replaced by discant
• clausula, which developed within discant style of organum, becomes an independent piece and evolved into a new late medieval musical form, motet (see below)

 
• Music Example  -- Notre Dame compound form (chant-organum-discantus-motet) (NRAWM CD1:32-41)
• Alleluia, Pascha nostrum, "Alleluia, our Passover," attributed to Léonin
• A plainchant for the Easter Mass, with organum duplum, discantus and the motet
• From the collection Magnus liber organi
• Music analysis:
• Alternation of polyphony and monophony
1. Plainchant, sung by the choir in unison
2. Organum duplum, sung by the soloists
3. Plainchant
4. Organum duplum
5. Discantus - Organum triplum -- Motet, sung the the soloist in a measured rhythm, using the clausula
• The text of the duplum (NRAWM 16d) is a poem in six stanzas, prefaced by a separate 11-syllable line ("Gaudeat...")
• Each stanza ends with a refrain
• Stanzas differ in the number of lines: first stanza consisting of three lines plus refrain; the second, two lines plus refrain; the next three stanzas have only one line followed by a refrain
• All refrains are pentasyllabic
• The first stanza is octosyllabic; the second, heptasyllabic; stanzas three through five are again octosyllabic
• The last stanza consist of two heptasyllabic verses, without refrain
• The rhyme structure is the following:
• first stanza: aaab
• second stanza: bbc
• third through fifth stanzas: ac
• sixth stanza: dc
• Musical form is dictated by the clausula and it is: AB
• the A sections is two measure longer than the B section
• Musically, i.e. melodically, while both sections have almost identical tenor part, their duplum melodies slightly differ
• The section A embraces the first two stanzas of the duplum text, including their separate refrains, and the separate line at the beginning ("Gaudeat"), because of which this section is longer than the B section
• The B section comprises the remaining stanzas and their refrains
6. Organum duplum
7. Discantus - Organum triplum -- Motet
8. Organum duplum
9. Plainchant
10. Organum duplum
11. Discantus - Organum triplum -- Motet
12. Plainchant
13. Discantus - Organum triplum -- Motet

 
• Important for class discussion:  In their explanation of the original notation of Alleluia, Pascha nostrum, Grout and Palisca (1996:83) state:

 
The original notation suggests a free, unmeasured rhythm.  The fluid melody -- nonperiodic and loosely segmented -- smacks [emphasis mine] of improvisatory practice.  Nevertheless, some scholars have applied modal rhythm to such passages of organum purum, and their transcriptions are seen in many editions and heard in some recordings  (1996:83).
Again, the authors' wording reveals their stance and attitude towards notation as opposed to improvisation and oral tradition.  The word 'smacks' is strongly suggestive and may lead the reader to a conclusion that it is notation which was of utmost importance in the development of European 'art' music and that improvisation was something European tradition was against. Partially it is true, but the history of European 'art' music is full of examples of improvisation which, as an important technique of musical expression, became abandoned only in the 18th century.  So, the Grout-Palisca statements may be understood as being conceptually grounded in a scholarly tradition which bases its conclusions and truths on the artistic and scholarly tradition that evolved in the West only after the 18th century.
    The second sentence is a good opportunity for you to think about the issue of notation, the input -- or maybe 'impute' -- of scholars and their transcriptions, the ways in which the modern transcriptions have influenced and shaped recent recordings of medieval music.  Some of these points might help you in writing your own essay on the Medieval Period.  Can you find an example of this and then discuss it on your own?

Pérotin (Perotinus, 1180-ca. 1238): Organum triplum / Organum quadruplum

• new emphasis on combining measured rhythm of discant type with the drone-like long-held notes of tenor
• discant clausulas play a prominent role in organums by Pérotin and other musicians at Notre Dame, slowly replacing the older florid organum
• Substitute Clausula: a new type of clausula in definite and stylized rhythmic patterns or modes

 
• Tenor melodies:
• Pérotin used shorter notes than Léonin did, and the tenor melodies, thus becoming livelier and rhythmically more diverse, had to be sometimes repeated to fit a longer section

 
• Repetition in tenor melodies:
• Melodic, i.e. repetition of the melody
• Rhythmic, i.e. repetition of rhythmic modes

 
• The increase of voice parts:
• organum triplum -- three-part organum, in which the third voice is called triplum
• this organum became the standard in Pérotin's time
• organum quadruplum -- four-part organum, in which the fourth voice is called quadruplum
• These two types of organum, i.e. triplum and quadruplum, composed by Pérotin and his generation at Notre Dame, are the climax of the 13th century polyphony in northern France

 
• Johannes de Garlandia (13th century?)
• De mensurabili musica, "On the Measurements of Music"
• a treatise on the rhythmic practices at Notre Dame

Copula: Organum triplum

• Garlandia's De mensurabili musica describes an intermediate style of organum, between the type of Léonin's
• organum purum in three voices (triplum), in which the lower voice holds long notes while the upper two voices have a freedom of melodic movement and embellishments, and
• discant, in which the upper two voices move in strict and measured rhythmic patterns
• this style of organum Garlandia calls the copula

 

Sederunt: Organum quadruplum

• Music Example  -- Notre Dame organum quadruplum (NRAWM CD1:42-44 [CD1:11-13])
• Sederunt (organum quadruplum) by Pérotin
• with technical features of the copula
• This organum is the music composed on a single word "Sederunt" of the Respond of the Gradual for St. Stephen's Day.  It is 3'43" long and is only a segment from a longer composition whose performance takes about 20 minutes
• Music analysis:
• The sparsity of text -- just three syllables of a single word "se-de-runt"-- is complemented by abstract and purely musical structuring, which seems to be a novelty in medieval music
• voice exchange and exchange of motives between the voices: duplum and triplum, or duplum and quadruplum
• motive repetition
• coupling of phrases
• de Garlandia (see above) calls this technique of organum the copula
• the "Sederunt" segment ends with a plainchant

II. Polyphonic Conductus -- Notre Dame: The early 13th c.

• Like the 11th-12th century conductus, which was a type of monophonic liturgical drama, probably performed while a priest was formally led, 'conducted', to another church for the performance of the Liturgy, Mass, the 12th-13th century conductus is based on quasi-liturgical genres
• Text:
• with time, the texts of conductus became secular
• Latin metrical poems, like the Aquitanian versus
• Polyphonic Texture:
• conductus became polyphonic, usually in two, three or four voices, resembling organum of Pérotin and other musicians at Notre Dame
• Range: narrow
• Melodic movement: crossing of voices
• Intervals: octaves, fourth, fifths, but also the thirds
• Rhythm:
• Homorhythmic texture ('same rhythm' throughout)
• Syllabic treatment of melody

 
• Cauda:
• Lat. sing. cauda, pl. caudae, 'tail', pronounced as "kha-oo-dha / kha-oo-dhey"
• passages without text, probably instrumental, introduced at the beginning and at the end of conductus, or at cadences
• caudas introduced a variety of rhythm among the voices, resulting in a mixture style between organum and conductus

 
• Tenor:
• newly composed, instead of being taken from a plainchant
• thus, like versus, conductus is an early form of polyphonic music that did not borrow from plainchant or other sources, but was rather a newly composed piece

 
• Music Example  -- Notre Dame conductus (NRAWM CD1:45)
• Ave, virgo virginum, "Hail, virgin of virgins"
• Music analysis:
• transparent harmonies between the voices
• impression of lightness, coupled with the syllabic treatment of the melody
• Text:
• several stanzas with nine lines
• strict poetic meter in each line: odd numbered lines are heptasyllabic (4+3=7) and they interchange with hexasyllabic even numbered lines (4+2=6); line seven is exception since it is tetrasyllabic as may be understood as a poetic refrain
• rhyme is of the following structure: ab ab ab c ab, where c is the refrain
• Music:
• the same music is repeated for each stanza
• strict rhythm and meter
• short melodic phrases
• the form is: AABC: first two lines form the A structural element which is then repeated in the next two lines; section B is a variation of section A with slight motivic changes; section C further develops motivic material from section B
• Rhythm: nearly homorhythmic, which is in striking contrast with the late Notre Dame organum of Pérotin (compare it with Sederunt)
  • this style of homorhythmic writing is also known as conductus style

III.  THE MOTET -- 13th Century

• 1250: around this time, Notre Dame organum and conductus are slowly replaced by a new form of polyphonic music, motet
• Because the upper voice sang the text using words in Latin or French, the new form got the name motet, 'little word,' a diminutive form from French le mot, 'word'
• Clausulas -- originally introduced by Léonin in his discants (discant style organums) and then heavily used,  as so-called Substitute Clausulas (see above), by Pérotin and his circle at Notre Dame -- got detached from organums and became separate pieces which slowly evolved into motet
• The tenor part of substitute clausulas became troped with new texts, first in Latin and later in French
• Eventually all parts got a different text so that motet is not only polyphonic in music, but also in text, the latter being not only polytextual but also polylingual (multilingual)
• Titles of motets: the titles would contain the initial word or words of each motet part (see Ex. 3.12 in Grout and Palisca 1996:91)

 
• Motetus, the Latin for motet, but also for the second voice, i.e. the duplum of organum, in motets with three or four parts
• the third and fourth voices remained to be called triplum and quadruplum
• thus, the voice names in three- or four-part motets are:
1. tenor
2. motetus (duplum)
3. triplum
4. quadruplum

 
• Manuscripts of motets:
• thousands of motets were composed in 13th century France and Europe, some of which are contained in the following three manuscripts:
1. Montpellier Codex -- 345 motets
2. Bamberg Codex -- 108 three-part motets
3. Las Huelgas Codex, at a monastery near Burgos, Spain
• Separation of Motet from Church Music
• Substitute clausulas undergo change when composers discard their older upper voices and replace them with newly composed melodies
• The old tenor part is kept, but its church function as a plainchant firmly connected to church ritual is lost
• Motet as Secular Musical genre and its Text
• Although they stem form typically church polyphonic forms, organum and its clausulas, motets are sung outside of church
• While the text of the tenor part might still have Latin religious texts, the texts of the upper parts of motets are vernacular
• Cantus firmus and the Motet Tenor
• Cantus firmus: Latin for 'plain chant'; cantus, 'chant', firmus, 'plain' (?); pl. cantus firmi, 'plainchants'
• Cantus firmus becomes an instrumental part of motet:
• The tenor part was originally a cantus firmus, but later when the new vernacular texts started to be used in the upper voices of polyphonic music, cantus firmus lost its purpose and became either abandoned or played on instruments

Thus, after loosing it original function as plainchant sung by tenor, cantus firmus became simply the lowest, i.e. the tenor part in polyphonic music, with no relation to church music
• Motet Texts
• The texts of polyphonic music cantus firmuses were short, sometimes just a word, like "nostrum" in Léonin's Alleluia, Pascha nostrum (see above)
• The reason for this brevity of text in cantus firmus is in the technique of clausula, a 12th century Notre Dame technique of musical troping, i.e. adding new melismatic section to a word or just a few syllables of an old plainchant
• This is also the reason why the early motet tenors usually have a very short text
• The motet tenor texts were in Latin and drawn from the clausula tenors contained in Léonin's Magnus liber organi
• Thus, all the duplum parts of discants in example Alleluia, Pascha nostrum (see above) have received a new Latin text, which is metered and sometimes nonreligious, standing against the rhythmically free and strictly religious plainchant text of the tenor part consisting of a single word "nostrum."  In this case all organums of the discant type become motets
• The upper parts of motet, either in Latin or in French, and sometimes even combining two languages -- with triplum, for example, singing in Latin and quadruplum in French
• In Ex. 3.13 in Grout and Palisca (1996:92), there is a motet in three parts, each part having its own separate text in a separate language: Greek, Latin, French:
• Tenor sings a typical and church related plainchant, Kyrie eleison, "Lord, have mercy," in this case in Greek, but otherwise it would be Latin
• Duplum sings a secular text in Latin -- the topics are love, human heart, carnal affection, i.e. 'affection of the flesh'
• Triplum is in French, again with secular topic of love, as well as that of honor and loyalty
• While the tenor part, cantus firmus, was often played by instruments -- even if it was sung, its abbreviated and minimalist Gregorian chant text would be in striking contrast to the poetic texts of the upper parts -- the texts of the upper parts of motet, i.e. motetus (duplum) and triplum, were poetic, often on a theme of pastoral love and with secular character
• Strophic form (stanzas), like troubadour and trouvèr tradition
• An example of this is motet Amours mi font / En mai / Flos filius eius, "Loving makes me / In May / (?) Son" (see Table 1, below):
• Its tenor part sings a plainchant Latin text Flos filius eius, which is a portion of a responsorial verse to the Virgin Mary
• The French text of the motetus (duplum) is is a secular song that tells about nature, love, a brunette without lover
• The text of the triplum is also in French and is another lovesong which tells about "my lady" and the pain caused by her unreturned love
• French motets included textual refrains

 

 
• 1275:  from this time on, the melodies for the motet tenors were taken not only from Léonin's Magnus liber organi, but also from other religious sources, such as Kyrie, hymns, antiphons, as well as from nonreligious secular songs and dance instrumental pieces, such as estampie

1.  The Franconian Motet: The second half of the 13th century

• Franconian Motet got its name after this musician
• Its main characteristic is that its upper parts became distinguished and treated as separate entities, as two (or three) independent parts, thus giving motet a more polyphonic character
• For Franco of Cologne's contribution to the development of medieval notation in the 13th century see below
• Text:
• The triplum has a longer text than motetus (see Table 1, above)
• Melody:
• The tenor melody became more flexible and slowly assumed a more independent role, thus moving away from its cantus firmus, plainchant, character

 
• Music Example  -- The Franconian Motet (NRAWM CD1:46 [CD1:14])
• Amours mi font / En mai / Flos filius eius, "Loving makes me / In May / (?) Son"
• Music analysis:
• Text (see Table 1, above):
• Tenor in Latin
• Motetus in French
• Triplum in French
• poetic meter and rhyme irregular
• Music:
• Tenor in the Hypodorian mode: finalis on D, tenor (reciting tone) on F
• Motetus and Triplum in the authentic Dorian mode
• Intervals: both consonant (perfect octave, fourth, fifth, unison) and dissonant
• Rhythm: first rhythmic mode (long-short)
• the longa and the breve are broken up into shorter durations, a technique known as fractio modi, 'breaking up of the mode'

2.  The Petronian Motet: The late 13th century

• Petronian Motet got its name after this musician
• Its main characteristic is that its triplum assumed a more lively melody, while its motetus part moved more slowly
• the tenor part had a uniform rhythm, in longas (longs), while the upper voices had shorter notes, semibreve and breve
• The Petronian Motet is rhythmically more lively than the Franconian Motet,. using more shorter durations

• Consonant intervals were required on the strong beats, i.e. the beginnings of each measure
• the octave and the fifth remained as consonant intervals -- the fourth became treated more as a dissonant interval
• Dissonant intervals included the thirds, which was nevertheless treated as a favored dissonant interval

• The Motet Tempos
• Three tempos of speeds in the performance of motets:
1. Slow motet
2. Moderate motet
3. Fast motet, also known as hocketus

3.  Hocketus -- Hocket: The 13th and 14th centuries

• while one voice pauses during the rest, another fills in these silences and continues the melody of the pausing voices
• the resulting effect is a melody which shifts from voice to voice

Notation: 13th century

• ca. 1280: Franco of Cologne's treatise, Ars cantus mensurabilis, "The Art of Measurable Melody [Music?]'
• fixed relative durational values of note, ligatures, and rests
• became suitable for writing down various rhythmic modes
• the basic note values were:
1. the double longa (the double long), which equaled to two longas
2. the longa, which consisted of two breves
3. the breve (the short), was the basic time unit, equivalent to the modern beat
• the double longa and longa had stems pointed down and attached to the square or rectangular shaped 'note-head' from the right (see illustration in Grout and Palisca 1996:95)
• this system of notation remained in use until the first quarter of the 14th century, and parts of it until the mid-16th century
• the breve (the short) was divided into two or three semibreves (the 'half-shorts')
 
• Important for class discussion:  In their "Summary" to Chapter 3, Grout and Palisca state:

 
One genre especially, the late-thirteenth century motet, mirrored at once the philosophical rationalism [emphasis mine] and the cultural diversity [emphasis mine] of the time.  Here a motley [emphasis mine] collection of love songs, dance tunes, popular refrains, and sacred hymns was held together by rigid rhythmic molds and plainsong tenors   (1996:97).
The authors' wording clearly reveals their philosophical and ideological stance.  Like Huizinga, for whom the Medieval Period was the time of preparation for the "advent" (his word used in the final chapter of The Waning) of the "Rational Spirit" and the "Soul of Western Christendom," that would by necessity outgrow medieval forms and modes of thought, Grout and Palisca see the development of medieval polyphony in similar fashion.  For them, the thirteenth century motet mirrored and imbodied two extremes ideological perspectives: the "Rational Spirit," or as they say "the philosophic rationalism," on the one side, and the amorphous motley of cultural diversity, on the other.  To Grout and Palisca it seems obvious that these two incongruent philosophies could not possibly co-exist, and that the more rational approach in polyphonic music was about to happen -- in the next century, a precursor of the Renaissance.  This scheme points to a straight line of development in which the "progress" is the key word -- progress from the simple to the complex, from the unwritten to the written, from oral to literary and philological, from the seemingly unruly to the very much ruled and controlled.  In the above paragraph it seems as if "cultural diversity" is not "rational" enough and needs to be smothered and controlled by the ever-controlling "rational Spirit."

The Fourteenth Century Arts and Literature

• The 14th century arts and literature:
• Alighieri Dante
• Divina commedia, 'The Divine Comedy', 1307
• Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1374)
• Decameron, 1353
• Geoffrey Chaucer
• Canterbury Tales, 1386
• Giotto (ca. 1266-1337)

I.  Ars Nova --  The 'New Art' -- 14^th Century France

• Musical Treatises Introducing and propagating the Ars Nova:
• Philippe de Vitry (1291-1361)
• Ars nova, 'The New Art' (1322-1323)
• Jehan des Murs (Johannes de Muris, ca. 1300-ca. 1350)
• Ars nove musice, 'The Art of the New Music' (1321)

 
• Musical Treatise Defending the Ars Antiqua:
• Jacques de Liège
• Speculum musicae, 'The Mirror of Music' (ca. 1325)
• defended the Ars antiqua, 'the old art' of polyphonic music practiced in France in the late 13th century
• the Notre Dame organum style is also known as the Ars antiqua

 
• Important for class discussion:  Read a vignette in Grout and Palisca (1996:106) on Jacques de Liège's critique of the Ars Nova and his defense of the Ars Antiqua

 
• Roman de Fauvel
• a satirical poem (1310-1314) containing 34 polyphonic motets
• its motet texts are critical of the 14th century clergy, denouncing its lax morals (see de Vitry's motet Garrit gallus..., below)
• five of the three-part motets in this collection are by Philippe de Vitry

1.  Philippe de Vitry (1291-1361)

• Isorhythmic Motet
• the tenor part is in isorhythm, from Gr. isos, the 'same, equal', i.e. 'equal rhythm'
• the isorhythmic tenor-part was based on a rhythmic formula that was repeated throughout the piece; after a while, i.e. after several repetitions it could have been changed and varied
• the tenor slowly lost its specificity as a separate melodic line
• the tenor became the fundament for the upper fast moving parts and the fundament for the whole polyphonic structure of the piece

 
• Color and Talea
• the color, a melodic feature of the 14th century motet, consisted of a repeated series of pitches
• the talea, meaning a 'cutting' or segment, a rhythmic element of the 14th century motet, consisted of a repeated rhythmic unit
• motets that featured the color and talea were understood as being in the 'same rhythm', i.e. isorhythmic

 
• Music Example  -- The Isorhythmic Motet (NRAWM CD1:47-52)
• Garrit gallus / In nova fert / Neuma, "The cock [the French] babbles / Into new... / Neuma," a motet from Roman de Fauvel by Philippe de Vitry
• A motet from from Roman de Fauvel
• Music analysis:
• Text:
• The texts of both the duplum (motetus) and the triplum parts are Latin nonstrophic songs with a series of lines in strict poetic meter: decasyllabic (10-syllabe) lines
• Although shrouded in metaphors and allusions, both with Biblical themes or themes pertaining to the antiquity, and although written in Latin, the texts are sharp critiques of contemporary social and political order and political power
• Music:
• Talea:
• The tenor part, Neuma, consists of a rhythmic pattern which extends over 25 measures in transcription.
• Important for class discussion: On the recording (NRAWM 1, CD 1:47-52), the tenor part is played by an instrument (harmonium?), a customary practice in the late 13th century motet (see cantus firmus, above).  Grout and Palisca, however, refer to the tenor in this motet as being "sung," without giving any further information about the recording itself, nor explaining why the tenor part in this recording of the motet is played on an instrument!
• This rhythmic pattern is then literally repeated three times, each time with different pitches / melody, making a total of 75 measures in transcription
• Then the whole segment is rhythmically repeated in another 75 measures
• The talea of this motet has three segments (see Ex. 4.1. in Grout and Palisca 1996:105):
• the first and third segments are in triple meter (3 x 6/8 in transcription)
• the middle segment of the talea is in duple meter (2 x 6/8 in transcription) and its notes were originally written in red ink, to warn the "singer" (or rather the "player") of the meter change in these segments.  At a closer look one may see that these 'colored' segments are rhythmically symmetrical, with two groups of three notes each, separated by a rest and mirroring each other
• This rhythmic complexity was a new technique of music structuring and an outstanding feature of Ars Nova
• Color:
• The 75 measures, or a half of motet, consisting of the threefold repetition of the same talea, i.e. rhythmic pattern, make up a single tenor melody called color
• This color is then repeated literally for the duration of another 75 measures, completing the piece
• The whole piece then has 6 identical rhythmic patterns, taleas (3+3), and 2 identical melodic lines, colors, with each color spreading over 3 taleas
• If we represent a talea with the letter a, and the color with the letter A, then the rhythmic and musical structure looks like this:
||: A [aaa] :||
• Important for class discussion: This structural feature reminds me of Turkish usûls, rhythmic patterns and units whose sizes and rhythmic complexities vary, from very simple ones with three beats each to a rather complex usûls with as many as 128 beats.  Like de Vitry's taleas, Turkish usûls are then repeated.  The melody composed to such usûls is like de Vitry's color, often being dictated by the rhythmic pattern, in this case the talea.

I.  Ars Nova --  France -- Continued

2.  Guillaume de Machaut (ca. 1300-1377)

• Born in Champagne, northern France
• Both a renown musician and a poet
• His compositions combined and mixed both conservative and new styles
• There are 23 known motets by Machaut
• The cantus firmus, i.e. the tenor part, in his motets is instrumental and liturgical, meaning its melodies were based on plainchants
• In comparison with the late 13th century motets, Machaut's motets are:
• longer,
• their texts more secular
• and their musical texture filled with even more complex rhythm
• the rhythm is actually pan-isorhythmic, meaning that all three voices follow the 'same' rhythm, i.e. are isorhythmically structured
• hocketus technique is abundantly used
• Monophonic Musical Forms
• Machaut continued the secular monodic tradition of troubadours and trouvèrs:
1. Lai
• a 12th century secular monophonic form similar to the 9th-10th century sequentia
2. Virelai
• a secular monophonic form also known as the chanson balladée, the 'balladed' song, i.e. chanson
• Like the troubadour and trouvèr chanson, virelai had a strophic structure with refrains

 
• Formes Fixes
• Formes Fixes, 'fixed forms', in which music and text have fixed patterns and segments that are repeated following poetic structure
• In these forms Machaut further developed the use of duple rhythm, moving even further away from the older triple division of musical time called perfectio (see also Rhythmic Modes and Franconian Notation, above)
• Polyphonic Parts:
1. Cantus: the 'singing' or melody part, one of the top parts that became the main voice and was provided with text (this cantus should not be confused with the earlier cantus firmus ot the tenor part in motet, see above)
2. Triplum: another top part, which would embellish the melody or exchange the motives with the cantus
3. Tenor: this part was supporting the whole structure with its slower moving melody in longer durations
4. Contratenor: the countertenor, in the same lower range as the tenor, which would complement the tenor's movement
• Intervals:
• The third and sixth become more prominent and understood as consonant intervals

 
• Important for class discussion: Grout and Palisca state:

Although we still hear parallel fifths and many pungent dissonances in works by Machaut, the pervading milder sonorities [emphasis mine] of the third and sixth and their orderly succession distinguish his music from that of his predecessors (Grout and Palisca 1996:107).

The authors are offering another value judgment in the above sentence.  Instead of stating the fact about the new use of new intervals in polyphonic music, those of the third and sixth, for them it seems more important to state that these sounds are "milder."  They do not even make any comparison of a type "milder to what?"  They probably have in mind the earlier 'hollow' sounding intervals of the parallel fifths, fourths and octaves of organum.  Had they put the word 'milder' under quotation marks, the reader would know that the authors are not expressing their own value system but are rather quoting from the value system of the period they are writing about and adhering to the later development of the meanings implied in the concepts "consonance" and "dissonance."
    The next sentence of Grout and Palisca gives yet another opinion based on their own value system:

A new lyricism speaks through the finely wrought, flexible, melodic line in the solo voice with an accent of sincerity [emphasis mine] that imparts warmth even to the stylized language of chivalric verse (Grout and Palisca 1996:107).

In this sentence, the authors are clearly saying that the "language of chivalric verse" is somehow not sincere in comparison to the new 'language' of Machaut.  The authors are not telling us whose viewpoint and whose sensitivities are they expressing here.  Are they writing from the standpoint of the sensitivity of our time or from the perspective of machaut or from some other angle?  Stated as it is, this sentence implies that the formal and highly stylized chivalric poetry is somehow less warm and less emotional.  It all depends how one understands it.  Certain artistic genres and forms may be highly ritualized, formalized, ceremonial, stylized, yet with a strong emotional impact and warmth.  However, if a writer who describes such genres and forms understands them as cold and as lacking in sincerity and personal touch, then that writer should state that he or she is expressing his/her own understanding and sensitivities, not universally understood or agreed upon values.
    These two quotes may help Chris in his discussion on the concepts of consonance, dissonance and tonality; Roger, in his discussion of the Battle of Agincourt; and Theresa, in her discussion on the concept of chivalry and how it was understood, constructed and maintained from the Middle Ages to the present.
 

• The Ballade or Cantilena Style
• A style in which the top voice carries the melody and dominates the three-part structure of the piece
• the two lower voices became instrumental accompaniment

 
• Polyphonic Forms
• Virelai
• Machaut also wrote several polyphonic virelais, in which the vocal solo is accompanied by an instrumental tenor part
• Ballade
• the form, partly based on the trouvèr ballade, had three or four stanzas, each to the same music and each with a refrain
• a typical ballade of Machaut is with high tenor solo or duet with two lower parts
• Rondeau
• like the virelai,  the rondeau had only two musical phrases with a refrain sung at the beginning and the end
 
• Music Example  -- The Rondeau (NRAWM CD1:53-55 [CD1:15-17])
• Rose, liz, printemps, verdure, "Rose, lily, spring, greenery" by Guillaume de Machaut
• Music analysis:
• Text:
• A stanza of 13 lines
• The first (1-3) and the last three lines (11-13) are the refrain, R
• Lines 6-7 are a truncated refrain, r, consisting of its first two line only (lines 1-2 or 11-12)
• The remaining lines (4-5, 8-10) seem to have a sole function of connecting the lines of the refrain and do not stand as being independent, either textually or musically
• The rhyme is: abb ab ab abb abb, and it closely follows the musical structure, abc ab ab abc abc, represented in Table 2 below
• Music:
• The music consists of two sections: A and B, which are repeated (see Table 2, below)
• Section A, which is sung to two lines of the stanza/refrain is twice as long as section B, which spans over one line of the text
• Because of this, the section A can be understood as consisting of two segments, a and b, each embracing a single line of the text
• The section B then can be represented as a musical segment c
• The form is AB A A AB AB:

  

Music:	A   B	A	A	A   B	A   B
	a-b c	a b	a b	a-b  c	a-b  c
Refrain:	R		r		R
Lines:	1-2--3	4-5	6-7 (1-2)	8-9--10	11-12-13 (1-2--3)

Table 2 -- Musical Form of Machaut's Rondeau
• the cantus and the triplum occasionally exchange motives (measures 13-16 in NRAWM 1:82, Palisca 1996:82) and cross each other
• 'syncopated' rhythm -- the effect of hemiola
• long melisma

2.  Guillaume de Machaut -- Continued

• Polyphonic Forms (Continued):
• Mass
• Machaut composed one of the earliest polyphonic settings of the Mass, Messe de Notre Dame, using in it the standard five parts from the Missa ordinaria, the Ordinary of the Mass

1. Kyrie
2. Gloria
3. Credo
4. Sanctus / Benedictus
5. Agnus Dei
• this was one of the earliest if not the first known example of the musical composition of the Mass in which all movements were composed as one single composition, unified by the same mode
• the earlier, 12th-13th century practice was to compose individual movements of the Ordinary and keep them as separate entities in manuscripts, sorted according to their titles: all musical setting of the Credos would be kept in one section of the manuscript, all Glorias in another, etc.
• when needed, the church music director, choirmaster, would choose these individual musical settings for their liturgical performance in the Mass, without paying attention to their modal unity
• New features of the Mass as Musical Form
• modal unity with the focus on certain modal pitches that tonally hold the movements of the Mass
• unity of style
• each movement of the Mass has its own cantus firmus, a feature that differs from other polyphonic setting of the Mass from that period, in which the whole piece and all its movements were based on a single cantus firmus
• the four-part texture
• control of consonance and dissonance
• isorhythmic structure

 
• Music Example  -- The Mass (NRAWM CD1:56-58 [CD1:18-20])
• Agnus Dei, "Lamb of God," from the Messe de Notre Dame, "The Notre Dame Mass," by Guillaume de Machaut, written probably in the early 1360s
• Music analysis:
• Text:
1. Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis
2. Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis
3. Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem
1.  Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us
2.  Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us
3.  Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, give us peace
• Music:
• the four-part texture
• the tenor uses the plainchant melody for the Agnus Dei, -- in Liber usualis, this melody is listed as no. 17
• the tenor and contratenor parts may have been played or doubled by instruments
• tripartite form: ABA (see Table 3 below)
• First and third Agnus Dei, section A, are identical
• Sections A, i.e. the first and third Agnus Dei, consists of two segments:
• segment a, on the words Agnus Dei
• segment b, on the remaining words beginning with the qui tollis
• Contrasting section B, the second Agnus Dei, also has two segments:
• segment c, on the words Agnus Dei
• segment d, on the remaining words beginning with the qui tollis
• isorhythmic structure is on segments b and d (qui tollis) in all three sections
• The tenor of the segment b (qui tollis) in section A represents the first color of the piece, fifteen measure longs
• The first color consists of two taleas, each eight measures long
• The two taleas are conjunct: the last measure of the first is the first measure of the second talea
• The tenor of the segment d (qui tollis) in section B represents the second color, which is nineteen measures long, i.e. four measures longer than the first color, owing to the more melismatic treatment on the words miserere nobis
• The second color consists of six shorter taleas, each three measures long and with four notes and two rests

 

Section	A		B		A
Segment	a	b	c	d	a	b
Color		Color I		Color II		Color I
Talea		2 Taleas		6 Taleas		2 Taleas

Table 3 -- Musical Structure of the Agnus Dei
 (Messe de Notre Dame by G. de Machaut)
• unity of style
• tonal focus on D and F, the modal pitches that tonally hold the whole movement
• This piece clearly reveals the intellectualist play with music as a continuation of Philippe de Vitry's similar play with isorhythm and the color and talea
• This intellectualist play with rhythm and other musical and extramusical elements, such as calligraphy, will be continued in France in the late 14th century by Baude Cordier and will be given the name Ars subtilior (see below)

 
• the 14th century saw the decline in the production of religious music
• this was also the century in which the Catholic Church went through its 'Papal Schism', when the pope moved from Rome to Avignon, in France, and resided there

 
• The Great [Papal] Schism began in the events after the death of Pope Gregory XI in March 1378. The people of Rome were determined not to allow the papacy -- which had been absent at Avignon for 70 years and dominated by French influence -- to leave Rome upon the election of the new pope. The result was a loud and controversial conclave with cries for a Roman or at least an Italian pope. The man chosen, Urban VI, was not a cardinal, but he had served in the curia.
• Soon the cardinals realized the mistake that they had made in electing Urban. He disdained the advice of others, could be ruthless if opposed or questioned, and was committed to reform through an extreme reduction of the powers of the cardinals, who for decades had been almost corulers with the popes in Avignon. The result of this clash was tragedy for the church.
• Led by the French, the majority of cardinals gradually withdrew from the papal court. They met at Anagni and declared Urban's election null and void because, they alleged, their votes had been made under pressure and fear for their lives. They then elected one of their own as Pope Clement VII. For the next three decades the church was divided along national, political, and religious lines between the papal claimants -- the Roman line of Urban VI, Boniface IX, Innocent VII, and Gregory XII, and the Avignon line of Clement VII and Benedict XIII --until, after various proposals and repeated failures, the cardinals from both obediences abandoned their claimants out of despair of getting any cooperation from them toward unity.
• The Conciliar Epoch, which led eventually to the healing of the schism, began in 1409 when the cardinals called the Council of Pisa. The council deposed both Gregory XII and Benedict XIII and then elected a third claimant, Alexander V (to be succeeded shortly afterward by the medieval John XXIII). The Pisan claimants received the support of most of Latin Christendom, but the schism continued until the Council of Constance (1414-18) removed all three claimants and elected the one pope accepted by just about all -- Martin V--on Nov. 11, 1417. At the Council of Basel (1431-49) another schism occurred with the election of "Antipope" Felix V. He abdicated, however, in 1449 (Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, 1997).

 
• Thus, in the period between 1378 and 1418, there were several papal claimants, with pope in Rome and 'antipope' in Avignon
• this church struggle for power and dominance was not solved until the mid-15th century, by which time the first Protestant movements and anti-Church dissent spread through Europe north of the Pyrenees, Alps, and the Danube
• During the same period music and its excessive use in liturgy were attacked by the Church itself
• This attitude discouraged many Italian composer to write polyphonic church music

II.  Trecento -- 14^th Century Italy

• the history of Italian art in the late Middle Ages and during the Renaissance is divided according to the centuries, thus:
• duecento, 1200s
• trecento, 1300s
• quattrocento, 1400s
• cinquecento, 1500

• The Catholic Church, undergoing its own crisis and papal schism (see above), issued a series of ecclesiastical pronouncements against music and its extreme use in church rituals
• The Church deemed that excessive music might blur the liturgical text and incline believers to enjoy in its aesthetic beauty rather than in the meaning of the text of liturgy
• This standpoint of the Church discouraged many Italian composers from writing polyphonic music in which the text is sometimes pushed into background and abstract treatment of polyphonic parts brought to the foreground
• Think of the 13th and 14th century polyphonic forms in France, such as the clausula and Pérotin's Sederunt at Notre Dame, or de Vitry's motet, in which the text became subordinate to the music
• 1324:  From Avignon, a city in southern France in which popes resided for the most part of the 14th century (see above), Pope John XXII issued a decree on polyphonic music in church services, giving precise instructions on the intervals, types of chanting, and the ways of performing church music during the mass (see quote in Grout and Palisca 1996:111)

 

• Bologna, Padua, Modena, Milan, Perugia, Florence
• Two literary works are written in Florence, describing the role of music in Italian everyday life:
• Decameron by Boccaccio
• Paradiso degli Alberti, 'The Paradise of the Albertis', by Giovanni Gherardi da Prato (ca. 1367 - ca. 1444)
• Like Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and especially Boccaccio Decameron, da Prato's Paradiso is a collection of short stories, novellas (It. pl. novelle), written around 1425 and describing events from the year 1389
• Francesco Landini (see below), the most outstanding 15th century florentine composer, features as one of the main characters in Paradiso

• a manuscript compiled, or copied from an earlier source, around 1420 and named after its owner and the 15th century Florentine organist Antonio Squarcialupi ['squahr-chah-loo-pee'] (1416-1480)
• contains 354 pieces of trecento (14th century) and early quattrocento (15th century) polyphonic music, mostly  two- and three-part polyphony, by 12 composers
• Three types of Italian polyphonic musical forms appear in this codex:
1. madrigal
2. caccia
3. ballata

1.  The Madrigal: 14th century

• 14th century Italian polyphonic form, a precursor of the 16th century madrigal (see below)
• Text:
• Metered poems with several stanzas
• Each stanza contains three lines followed by a closing pair of two lines called the ritornello, which function as a kind of a refrain to the whole song
• Topics: idyllic, pastoral, satirical, or lovesongs
• Music:
• two voices
• rhythm and meter are strict and simple
• the music of each stanza is the same, A
• the ritornello has different music and different meter, R
• Melisma appear at the end of poetic lines
• the upper part is more embellished, with more melisma
• although incomparably more lively, the lower part nevertheless resembles the inertia of the 13th and 14th century tenor part in French polyphony
• occasionally, the voices behave in the style of the hocketus, beginning the melody at different points and exchanging motivic material
 

Jacopo da Bologna: 14th century

• a 14th century Bolognese composer of the madrigals

• Music Example  -- The Madrigal (NRAWM CD2:1)
• Fenice fù, "A phoenix was," by Jacopo da Bologna
• Music analysis:
• Musical Form: A A R, where the A is the music for three-line stanzas, and R the music for the two-line ritornello

 

---




2. The Caccia

• 14th century Italian polyphonic form, especially from 1345-1370
• the name comes from It. caccia, 'hunt' or 'chase'
• in France this form of polyphonic music was known as chase
• the name implies both the musical and textual/metrical pursuit, i.e. 'chasing'
• textually, the caccia describes a hunt or some other lively and animated scene: fishing, marketplace, a party of girls, a battle, etc.
• musically, these textual details were emphasized and paralleled by the use of the hocketus technique, which would include shouting and other outbursts, sometimes creating an echo effect
• two equal voice parts
• voices move in the strict canon and in the unison
• additional third voice played on instruments and in slower tempo, a feature similar to de Vitry's motet (see the musical example Garrit Gallus.., above)

3. The Ballata

• Italian polyphonic form that appeared somewhat later than the madrigal and caccia
• influenced by the 14th century French ballade style
• originally, the word ballata signified s song to accompany dancing, It. ballare, 'to dance'
• surviving 14th century ballatas are dating from after 1365 and are in two or three voices
• in its form, the ballata resembles the French virelai

The Late 14th Century in France

• Continuation of chivalric tradition of the troubadours and trouvères
• Aristocratic art
• Secular music
• Secular Musical Forms for solo voice and instrumental accompaniment in the tenor and contratenor:
• ballade
• virelai
• rondeau
• Lovesongs
• Colorful harmonies
• Calligraphic art and Ars subtilior:
• Fanciful music manuscripts, with artful decorations, illustrations, and featuring colored notation in black and red notes
• this late 14th century feature French polyphonic music is known as Ars subtilior, 'the subtle art'
• Parallels with Sufis and Islamic calligraphic art:
• Observe the illustration of a rondeau Belle, bonne, sage by Baude Cordier in the Chantilly manuscripts (Grout and Palisca 1996:120)
• The piece is written down in a form of drawing whose shape is that of heart, Fr. cor -- a witty allusion to the composer's name, Cordier
• Many drawings in many tekkes, Sufi lodges, in Turkey are full of similar drawing in a from of heart or a flower (lili) -- these drawings are usually the verses, ayas, from the Muslim holy book, the Kur'an
• One drawing in the Cerrahi Tekkesi, the lodge of the Cerrahi Order in Istanbul, especially attracted my attention: the name of ^cAli, the fourth caliph, i.e. successor to the Prophet Muhammed, is written in a beautiful Arabic calligraphy in the shape of the Treble Clef!  I really like that!

 

---


Optional

Rhythm

• Flexibility of rhythm
• The solo cantus part sings in a rubato-like manner
• Intellectualist play in music and its graphic representation as notes in manuscripts
• A similar intellectualist approach to music we have seen in the treatment of isorhythm, the color and talea in the music of Philippe de Vitry and in Guillaume de Machaut's Agnus Dei from the Messe de Notre Dame

Baude Cordier

• In the rondeau by Baude Cordier (see below), the rhythmic complexities are notated in 'colored' notation
• notes written in red ink point to the shifts in rhythmic meters
• the word cor, 'heart', in the text is replaced with a drawing of a red heart, and the entire piece is written, i.e. drawn, in the shape of a heart (see calligraphic art, above)

 
• Music Example  -- The Rondeau (NRAWM CD2:5)
• Belle, bonne sage, "Beautiful [woman], good, wise," by Baude Cordier
• Music analysis:
• combination of different meters performed in different voices simultaneously
• hemiola effect
 

Musica ficta

• Musica ficta, 'feigned' or 'fictive' music, as opposed to musica vera, 'true music', and musica recta, 'correct music'
• this music was called 'ficta' because of the late medieval practice among composers and scribes to separate between musical notation, i.e. written music, and musical practice, i.e. music as it was actually performed in everyday practice
• notated music had to conform to the existing system of hexachords, developed in the 11th century by Guido d'Arezzo, and it was this music which was considered vera, true, and recta, correct
• according to this theoretical system, the only permitted pitches were those found in hexachords and on the Guidonian hand, with only three half steps between E-F, B-C and A-B-flat (B was often lowered to B-flat to avoid an interval of the augmented fourth between F-B, known as diabolus in musica or tritonus in the church modes and later in organum)
• In actual practice of the 14th century, composers and musicians used many pitches which did not conform to the hexachordal system, and these pitches were not notated in the written version of the piece
• Because of this scribal practice to avoid recording of real practice and writing down of true pitches as they were performed on everyday basis, music which fit the rules of hexachordal theory was called musica vera or musica recta
• The real practice was therefore understood as something 'feigned', 'untrue', and 'incorrect'
• Important for class discussion: 14th century Musica ficta is a good example of how certain CONSTRUCTS may influence practice and the way things are interpreted and certain 'truths' perpetuated.  History as a discipline (and this also includes history of music), is not immune to this perpetuation of constructs.  That is why it is necessary to read history deconstructively.  Sometimes, we are not aware that certain constructs are the sole basis of our knowledge, scholarly conclusions, judgments, opinions.

Notation: the 14th century

• 14th century music notation continued to further develop representation of ever increasing rhythmic flexibility
• Important contribution of Franconian notation in the 13th century was in developing the rhythmic modes and dividing longer durations into shorter values, such as breve and semibreve
• 14th century notation found ways how to represent both triple and duple division and subdivision of longer durations
• Two systems of notation developed:
1. Italian system of notation: Marchetto da Padua, in his Pomerium, 1318
2. French system of notation
• In the early 15th century, scribes began to separate between the 'white' and 'black' notes, introducing the system still in use today, where the 'white' notes, i.e. notes whose heads are not filled in, represent longer durations (whole and half notes), while the 'black' notes represent shorter durations (quarter notes and all other shorter durations)



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Instruments
• The trend of playing the cantus firmus on instruments in the 13th century motet, as well as the tenor and contratenor parts in the 14th century motet in France, continued throughout the 14th century
• However, relying on the existing manuscripts, it is not certain whether the tenor part was sung, played on instrument, or maybe performed both vocally and instrumentally
• New type of outdoor ensembles
• Ensembles consisted of a combination of instruments of contrasting timbres
• Instruments were distinguished according to their loudness as:
1. Haut, 'high', i.e. loud sounding instruments
• shawm
• cornett -- hollowed-out wood, with fingerholes and a brass mouthpiece
• slide trumpets
• sackbuts -- early trombones
2. Bas, 'low', i.e. soft sounding instruments
• harp
• vielle
• lute
• psaltery
• portative organ
• transverse flute
• recorder
3. Percussions
• kettledrums
• small bells
• cymbals
4. Keyboards -- invented in the 14th century but did not became commonly used until the 15th century
• clavichord
• harpsichord
• organs:
• portative organ
• positive organ
• organetto
• large organs in churches

I.  ENGLAND: 15th century

• following the trends started in 14th century Italy, music of the 15th century continued to move towards international style
• secular music and the cantilena style of 14th century France dominated the scene
• following the example of Machaut (in his formes fixes and the Messe de Notre Dame), the Mass and motet of the 15th century become more and more secularized
• Features of English music:
• Preferences:
• homophony, the movement of voices in chords rather than independently as is the case in polyphony (from Gr. homos, 'same', and fonos, 'voice')
• major tonality instead of the modal system
• consonance and the intervals of the third and sixth
• parallel thirds or sixths
• Disinterest in:
• dissonance used in the French motet
• polyphonic textures
• abstract theories and intellectualist play in music, as they were used by Machaut in 14th century France and throughout Europe in the late 14th century
• The medieval English chant:
• based on the Sarum use as it developed in the Cathedral of Salisbury
• the chant melodies used in the Sarum Rite differed somewhat from the Roman chant
• rather than using the Roman plainchants, the 15th century English composers used the Sarum versions of chants as the cantus firmus in their compositions
• Musical Forms:
1. Rondellus -- English type of motet
2. Conductus -- English type
• similar to the 13th century polyphonic conductus of Notre Dame, but with parallel thirds and sixths
3. Fauxbourdon
4. Carol
5. Motet

Fauxbourdon

• a style or rather a technique of polyphonic music in which a chant melody is sung in the upper voice, called treble and accompanied in parallel sixths in the tenor
• this move of chant melody from the tenor to the treble (i.e. cantus, as this part was known in the formes fixes of 14th century French music) was obviously influenced by the French ballade or cantilena style and it represented a radical departure from the previous understanding of polyphonic parts -- now both the tenor and treble have become equally important in melodic and rhythmic movement
• a third voice, contratenor, was added below the treble, forming with it intervals of parallel fourths
• this technical feature created a new sound, with thick homophonic and homorhythmic textures, opening the way for harmonic and chordal treatment of music
• Music Example  -- Carol (NRAWM CD2:7)
• Salve, sancta parens, "Hail, holy parent"
• Music analysis:
• parallel movement of all three voices
• parallel sixths between the tenor and treble
• parallel fourths between the contratenor and treble
• parallel thirds between tenor and contratenor

John Dunstable (c. 1390-1453)

• Lived and worked in France, during the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453), when England was the feudal overlord of France
• The fact that Dunstable worked in France only further contributed to the continuation of international style
• Wrote motets, sections from the Missa ordinaria, other religious and secular three-part compositions
• Important:  the 15th century motet is motet only in name and its style and polyphonic treatment radically differ from the isorhythmic motet of Philippe de Vitry
• Harmonic sonorities: parallel thirds and sixths (see above, fauxbourdon)
• Isorhythm
• Music Example  -- Motet (NRAWM CD2:6 [CD1:24])
• Quam pulchra es, "How beautiful [woman] you are," by John Dunstable
• Music analysis:
• musical texture resembles that of polyphonic conductus (see Ave, virgo virginum)

The Carol

• a two- or three-part polyphonic setting of religious songs, sometime both in Latin and English
• consists of several stanzas and a refrain called burden
• all stanzas have the same music
• the burden has its own music and is sung at the beginning of the piece and then at the end of each stanza
• Music Example  -- Carol (NRAWM CD2:7)
• Salve, sancta parens, "Hail, holy parent"
• Music analysis:
• see fauxbourdon, above

II.  BURGUNDY (Fr. Bourgogne): 15th century

• the duchy of Burgundy was established in 1363 when the French king John II (1319-1364, king 1350-1364) gave it to his second son, Philip the Bold, making him the first duke of Burgundy
• the dukes of Burgundy were:
1. Philip the Bold (1342-1404, duke 1363-1404)
• married Margaret, the countess of Flanders
2. John the Fearless, (1371-1419, duke 1404-1419)
• son of Philip the Bold and Margaret
• in 1396 he was a leader of a crusade against the Turks that ended disastrously at Nicopolis (now in Bulgaria)
• in 1405,  after the death of his mother, John inherited the title of  the count of Flanders, thus becoming the leading prince of the Low Countries
3. Philip II the Good (1396-1467, duke 1419-1467)
• son of John the Fearless
• 1420-1443: already count of Flanders and Artois, titles he inherited from his father and grandmother,  Philip successively acquired Namur, Hainaut, Brabant, Holland, Zeeland, and Luxembourg
• famous for his patronage of chivalry and arts (read Huizinga!)
• kept a band of minstrels at his court
4. Charles the Bold (1433-1477, duke 1467-77)
• the last of the four Valois dukes, i.e. dukes of Burgundy
• unified the Low Countries
• 1477: his death marks the end of the duchy of Burgundy
• himself an instrumentalist and composer (see vignette in Gout and Palisca 1996:140)
• at this time, Burgundy, as a powerful vassal state, included much of Flanders and Low Countries, i.e. today's Holland, Belgium, and Luxembourg, as well as Alsace and Lorraine, in northeastern France ( an area much disputed between Germany and France)
• Burgundy's northern territories, the Netherlands, passed to Habsburg rule while the duchy itself was annexed by the French king, Louis XI

1. Mass
2. Magnificat
3. Motet
4. Chanson
5. Ballade

• major sixth to octave, similar to Landini cadence

• triple meter, hemiola, cross-rhythms

Burgundian Chanson

• solo songs, i.e. lovesongs, with instrumental accompaniment and with French secular texts
• usually in the form of rondeau (see Machaut's rondeau, above), with a two line-refrain, but sometimes consisting of four, rondeau quatrain, or five lines, rondeau cinquain

1. Gilles Binchois (c. 1400-1460)

• a master of chanson and especially rondeau at the Burgundian court (see above)
• the songs of Benchois, both chansons and rondeaus, as well as some of his ballades, were used by other composers, such as Johannes Ockeghem, in their Masses (see below)

Burgundian Ballade

• vocal style is more melismatic and ornamented than that of chanson
•  
  • long melismas appear at the end of textual lines

  2. Guillaume Dufay (c. 1400-1474)

  • Born in Cambrai, northern France
  • During his lifetime he served at the Burgundian court, then moved to Italy and lived in Pesaro, Rome (where he was a member of the papal chapel), Bologna and Florence, served in the meantime at the court of the duke of Savoy (France), and back to Cambrai
  • Dufay's is a typical example of a 15th century composer moving from place to place and contributing to the establishment a truly cosmopolitan and international style of music making that existed in Europe at that time
  
   
  • Music Example  -- Ballade (NRAWM CD2:8-10)
  • Resvellies vous et faites chiere lye, "Awake and be marry," by Guillaume Dufay
  • Written in 1423, for the marriage of Carlo Malatesa and Vitorria Colonna, niece of Pope Martinus V, when Dufay served in Rimini and Pesaro, Italy
  • Music analysis:
  • treble melody dominates the musical structure
  • Musical form: AAB
  • refrain: the last line of each stanza
  • unusual long-held chords and fermatas on the words "Charles gentile" ('noble Charles')

  Burgundian Motet

  • The melody of Gregorian chant moves to the treble and becomes ornamented
  • this feature was in contrast to the 14th century French motet in which the plainchant melody was in the tenor, slow moving and often unrecognizeable
  • Occasionally, Dufay and other Burgundian composers wrote isorhythmic motets for more solemn ceremonies
  • Dufay wrote such a ceremonial motet, Nuper rosaarum flores, 'Recently, roses [caame]', for the 1436 dedication of the dome, known as the Duomo, of the Church of Santa Maria del Fiore, built by the famous 15th century architect Filippo Brunelleschi (see vignette in Grout and Palisca 1996:145)
  
   
  • Music Example  -- Hymn (NRAWM CD2:11-12)
  • Conditor alme siderum, "Bountiful creator of the stars," by Guillaume Dufay
  • Music analysis:
  • fauxbourdon style
  • like in the Burgundian motet, this hymn has the chant melody in the treble part, other parts fill in the harmony based on the chordal treatment of texture

  Burgundian Mass

  • In the 15th century and specifically in Burgundy, the Ordinary of the Mass became a unified piece consisting of several connected movements
  • The connecting thread was the invention of a cyclical form of the Mass to achieve musical unity

Types of the 15th century Masses:

• Missa Choralis or Plainsong Mass
• each movement from the Ordinary would have a separate plainchant taken from the Graduale
• this was a liturgical and not a musical unity of the Mass
• Motto Missa
• beginnings of each movement would have the same melodic motive, 'motto', usually in the treble, which gave the Mass a partial musical unity
• Cantus Firmus Missa or Tenor Missa
• this type of the Mass had all movements with the same cantus firmus, i.e. same plainchant melody in the tenor

 
• Voices:
• since the tenor was the fundament of the 14th century motet, its plainchant melody was moving slowly in long-held notes
• the four-part structure
1. Contratenor bassus -- in order to make the tenor melody more flexible and yet have a fundament, another voice, below the tenor, was added, called the contratenor bassus, and later simply bassus, today's bass
2. Tenor
3. Contratenor altus -- a voice above the tenor, also known as the altus
4. Cantus or discantus or superious -- the highest voice

 

• Music Example  -- Ballade & Missa (NRAWM CD2:13, 14-19 [CD1:25, 26-31])
• Se la face ay pale, "If my face is pale," by Guillaume Dufay
1. Ballade
2. Gloria from the Missa
• Music analysis:
• for this Mass, Dufay used the tenor melody of his ballade, Se la face ay pale, making it the cantus firmus
• the tenor is then heard or melodically and rhythmically recognizable in several movements of the Mass
• 'Rational Control' of Dissonaance and Consonance