Chapter Five:Medieval Music, 476-1450

The Middle Ages (476-1450)

• The “Middle Ages” was the time between the fall of Rome and the Age of Discovery

• The Roman Catholic Church was the dominant spiritual and administrative force in Medieval Europe

• The Church and the court vied for political control

• Profound spirituality

Music in the Monastery• Religion was centered in rural monasteries

(for monks) and convents (for nuns)• Mass: the most important service in the

church cycle– A symbolic reenactment of the Last Supper– Gregorian chant was the music used

• Gregorian Chant: A unique collection of thousands of religious songs that carry the theological message of the Church– Sung in Latin– Named for Pope Gregory the Great (c. 540-

604)

• Musical notation- Around 1000, musicians started putting notes on a grid of lines and spaces that were identified by note names

Gregorian Chant

• Unaccompanied vocal music• Also called Plainsong• Monophonic texture: All voices in unison• Free flowing style creates a timeless,

otherworldly sound– Lack of meter or regular rhythm

• Syllabic singing: only one or two notes for each syllable of text

• Melismatic singing: many notes sung to just one syllable of text

Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179)

• A woman of extraordinary intellect and imagination

• A playwright, poet, musician, naturalist, pharmacologist, and visionary

• Advised popes and kings• Founded a convent• Had visions which she

transformed into poetry and chant

O rubor sanguinis (O Redness of Blood)

• Composed circa 1150• Example of Gregorian chant• Starkly vivid text honoring Saint Ursula• Syllabic and Melismatic singing

Music in the Cathedral

• 1150-1350: “The Age of Cathedrals”– Started in northern France– Large, urban cathedrals that served as houses

of worship and municipal civic centers– Built in the Gothic style

Music in the Cathedral: Polyphony• Polyphony - multiple independent musical voices• 13th-century Paris was the first home of the new

Gothic Polyphony centered at the Cathedral of Notre Dame

• Master Leoninus (fl. 1169-1201) and Master Perotinus (“the Great,” fl. 1198-1236)

• Magnus liber organi – book of religious music written by Leonitus; revised and added to by Pertoninus

• Created a new style of music: organum: one, two, or three voices are added on top of an existing chant– Creative spirit breaking free from ancient chant

Perotinus: Organum Viderunt omnes

(All the End of the Earth)• Four voice organum• Tenor: The sustaining line of the borrowed chant

– From Latin tenore meaning “to hold”• Mensural notation: “Measured notation” to specify

musical rhythm as well as pitch– Began in the 13th and 14th centuries

Notre Dame of Reims

• Rivaled Notre Dame in Paris in both music and architecture in the 14th century

• 100 east of Paris• Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300-1377): Most

important composer of his day; also an esteemed poet– Over 150 works survive

Musical Portions of the Mass

Machaut: Messe de Nostre Dame (Mass of Our Lady - c. 1360)

• Best known work of medieval music– Kyrie

• Alternation between chant and polyphony• Disaprity between rhythm and harmony• Interplay between dissonant and consonant

chord

Music at the Court

• 1150-1400: The court emerged as center for patronage of the arts

• Popular song and dance

• Women were able to participate in court entertainment

Troubadours and Trouvères

• Poet-musicians of France• Name from French trouver – “to find”– “Finders” or inventors of the chanson

• Chanson: “song;” new genre of vocal expression– Several thousand chansons were created – Mostly monophonic love songs– Ideals of faith and devotion

• Countess of Dia (mid twelfth century)

A Battle Carol for the English Court

• Henry V (1386-1422): Most illustrious English king in the late Middle Ages

• Hundred Years’ War: Took place between the French and the English on French soil

• Battle of Agincourt (October 25, 1415): Henry’s greatest victory

• Celebrated in song – Carol: a song in the local

language; usually in strophic form

Medieval Musical Instruments• Pipe organ: principal instrument of the monastery and

cathedral– Was the only instrument admitted by church authorities

• More variety of instruments at court– Haut: Loud instruments; often used for dance music

• Sackbut, shawm, cornetto– Bas: Soft instruments

• Flute (recorder), fiddle (vielle), harp, lute• Vielle: Distant ancestor of the modern violin