middle ages declarative knowledge

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Middle Ages Declarative Knowledge

Comparison between Middle Ages and Renaissance

Middle Ages Renaissance

Melody Long, asymmetrical

Texted melodies often melismatic

Shorter, balanced

Texted melodies often syllabic

Rhythm Restless and active Smoother, more regular

Often tied to rhythm or words

Harmony Based on fifths and octaves

Unexpected, pungent dissonances

Based on triads Dissonance less harsh, usually on weak

beats More adventurous in late Renaissance

in portraying emotions

Sound Voices and instruments mixed

Bright colors, freely mixed

Often a cappella or purely instrumental

Softer tone colors, ensembles of similar instruments (consorts)

Texture Monophonic and polyphonic

Non-imitative Mostly polyphonic

Often imitative

Form

Often based on cantus firmus or isorhythm

Vocal refrain forms (virelay, rondeau)

Some isorhythm, but usually based on text or dance forms

Through-composed vocal pieces (madrigal and motet)

Sacred Music of the Middle Ages

I. Liturgy: Set Structure of Christian Church Service

1. Pope Gregory the Great (r. 590–604) codified church music

2. Gregorian chant (plainchant, plainsong)

1. vocal monophony, nonmetric, sung in Latin, conjunct melody

2. over 3,000 melodies anonymously composed

3. text settings: syllabic, neumatic, melismatic

4. early chant: handed down through oral tradition

5. notated by neumes: square notes on four-line staff

6. modes: precede major and minor scales

II. The Mass: Reenactment of the Sacrifice of Christ

1. Most solemn ritual of the Catholic church

1. Proper: variable portions

2. Ordinary: fixed portions

3. offices: not part of the Mass, worship in monasteries


III. A Gregorian Melody: Kyrie

1. Kyrie: first in the Ordinary

1. Greek prayer in three parts

2. often sung antiphonally

2. Listening Guide 2: Gregorian Chant, Kyrie (10th century)

1. conjunct, nonmetric, monophonic, a cappella

2. Three phrases, each sung three times: represents the trinity

IV. Life in the Medieval Cloister

1. Life devoted to the Catholic church

1. religious seclusion devoted to prayer, scholarship

2. available to men and women

V. The Music of Hildegard of Bingen

1. Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179)

1. poet and prophet

2. daughter of a noble couple

3. given to the church as a tithe

4. music resembles Gregorian chant

2. Listening Guide 3: Hildegard of Bingen, Alleluia, O virga mediatrix (Alleluia, O

mediating branch),(late 12th century)

1. A cappella choir and soloist

2. Mass Proper: plainchant celebrating the Virgin Mary

3. expressive leaps of a fifth: “holy womb,” “flower,” and “chastity”

VI. The Rise of Polyphony

1. Polyphony: combination of two or more simultaneous musical lines

1. regular meters

2. requires more exact notational system

3. composer derived from Latin componere,” to put together”

2. Organum: earliest polyphony, 12th and 13th centuries

1. second voice added to plainchant

2. Léonin (fl. 1150–c. 1201): composer at Cathedral of Notre Dame

1. compiled Great Book of Organum (Magnus liber organi)

3. Pérotin (fl. c. 1200): Léonin’s successor

1. expanded organum to three, four, or more voices

3. Listening Guide 4: Notre Dame School, Gaude Maria virgo (Rejoice Mary,

virgin) (Early 13th century)

1. probably composed by Pérotin

2. prayer in praise of the Virgin Mary

3. three-part polyphony, alternates with monophonic chant

4. upper two voices melismatic, in rhythmic mode

1. rhythmic mode: fixed pattern of long and short notes

5. third voice sustained below


VII. The Early Medieval Motet

1. Texts added to upper voices of organum

1. motet: mot is French for “word”

2. sacred and secular texts combined

PIECES:

Hildegard of Bingen, Alleluia, O virga mediatrix

Notre Dame School, Gaude Maria virgo

Secular Music of the Middle Ages

I. Medieval Minstrels

1. Minstrels

1. wandering actor-singers

2. versatile entertainers

2. Troubadours and trouvères

1. French poet-musicians

2. court musicians

3. members of aristocracy and royalty

4. poems: chivalry, unrequited love, political and war songs, Crusades

5. Minnesingers: German counterpart

II. A Troubadour Chanson

1. Raimbaut de Vaqueiras (c. 1155–1207)

1. courtly troubadour for marquis of Montferrat

2. Listening Guide 5: Raimbaut de Vaqueiras, Kalenda Maya (The First of

May) (late 12th century)

1. estampie: troubadour dance song

2. six-stophe poem in Provençal

1. love song to Beatrice, Marquise of Montferrat

2. return of spring; courtly love

3. instrumental accompaniment: guitar, rebec, nakers

4. strophic: same melody for each stanza

3. Listening Guide 6: Anonymous, Sumer is icumen in (Summer is come) (c. 1250)

1. six-voice, a cappella round

2. two voices repeat bass pattern

3. upper voices: two-voice, then four-voice round

1. long-short-long-short rhythmic pattern

4. Middle English text

III. The French Ars nova

1. New musical style, early 14th-century France, then Italy


1. significant developments in rhythm, meter, harmony, counterpoint, and

notation

2. more refined and complex than Ars antiqua (old art)

3. secular themes

2. A Chanson by Machaut: Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300–1377)

1. foremost composer-poet; also cleric

2. worked at French courts

3. sacred and secular compositions

1. favored chanson: courtly love poems

2. poetic forms: rondeau, ballade, and virelai

3. Listening Guide 7: Machaut, Puis qu’en oubli (Since I am forgotten) (mid-14th

century)

1. three-voice, a cappella polyphonic chanson

2. low range: male voices

3. slow, syncopated rhythm

4. text: rondeau by Machaut

IV. Early Instrumental Music

1. Instruments supported vocal music

1. accompanied singers

2. instrumental arrangements of vocal works

3. prominent in dance music: rhythm

2. Music improvised: not notated

3. Some instruments originated in Middle East

4. Soft (bas), indoor instruments

1. recorder, pipe, lute, harp, psaltery, hammered dulcimer, rebec, vielle

5. Loud (haut), outdoor instruments

1. tournaments, processions

2. shawm, sackbut

6. Other instruments

1. crumhorn, cornetto

2. percussion: tabor, nakers

7. Organs

1. church organs

1. performer; second person to pump bellows

2. small organs: portative and positive

PIECES:

Anonymous, Sumer is icumen in

Machaut, Puis qu'en oubli


IB Time Band 4 (1550 - 1700)

Preface: The Middle Ages

o Gregorian Chant [ex: Haec Dies PMG “Gregorian Chant #16/NS Vol I p1]

o Troping around: Parallel organum / free organum / melismatic organum:

o [ex: Alleluia Justus ut palma NRAWM CD1#30/no score]

o Perotin, Leonin (The Notre Dame School)

o [ Perontin, Sederunt - Gradual for St. Steven’s Day NRAWM CD1#42-

44/PMG NAWM Vol I p 56]

o Motet: tenor (chant streched out) + duplum + triplum

o Secular songs and dances-monophonic: troubadours (s.Fr) and trouveres

(n.Fr) - aristocratic poet/musicians

o [Adam de la Halle Robins m’aime NRAWM CD1#20/PMG NAWM Vol I p 36]

o Ars Nova (1300) Guillaume de Machaut (French c1300-c1377) more flexible

rhythm, more polyphonic, fuller harmony.

o [Mass: Agnus Dei NRAWM CD1#56/PMG NAWM vol 1 p 82]

o Style:

Form imitation, homo rhythm, cantus firmus, text-dominated forms

Melody relatively conjunct, contrapuntal lines, word painting

Tone Color families or consorts of instruments, blend

Harmony interval of the third; firmly regulated treatment of dissonance

Rhythm smooth regular flow, or restless. Dance music strongly metrical, but in

general complex interlocking phrases without emphasis on meter. Syncopation.

o Genres:

mass - settings of the mass ordinary; this is where composers showed off their

virtousity.

[Palestrina: Pope Marcellus Mass, Credo NRAWM CD 1#14-18/ PMG

NAWM vol 1 p 200/listening guide in PMG MFOT p 155]

motet - polyphonic vocal work set to a sacred Latin text. More opportunity for

experimentation in expressing different texts.[Josquin: Tu solus, qui facis

mirabilia NRAWM CD2 # 23-26 / PMG NAWM p 111]

chanson - Fr. for song. Our meaning here: French secular polyphonic song of the

14 - 16 centuries. [ Claude Le Jeune (c1600): Revecy venir du printans NRAWM

CD2#61-69/no score]

madrigal - secular polyphonic vocal work for 4 to 6 voices; imitative sections

contrast with chordal ones; intimately tied to the text, with word painting evident;

avoids fixed form. Sung at upper middle class social gatherings. Began in Italy and

moved to England.[Italian: Willaert, Aspro core e selvaggio e cruda voglia,

NRAWM CD2#42-46/PMG NAWM vol 1 p 242] [English: Farmer, Fair Phyllis PMG

Quink English Madridgals#12/NS vol 1 p75]

o Instruments:

crumhorn - capped double reed instrument with soft but very reedy tone.


cornett - instrument made of wood or ivory, with a cup shaped mouthpiece.

lute - fretted, plucked string instrument with bent neck; strings tuned in pairs.

sackbut - a mellow, softer precursor of the modern trombone.

rackett - low pitched double reed instrument; coiled lengthy tube in a small box.

recorder - wooden, just like the plastic one you played in grade school.

shawm - harsh loud precursor of the oboe.

viol - bowed stringed instrument with a fretted neck; six strings tuned a fourth

apart w/a major third in the middle. (A d g b e’ a’). Held upright in front of player.

o Vocabulary

ayre - air, or song - a type of English madrigal. Often printed in three directions so

performers could sit around a table.

a cappella - the ideal of Renaissance vocal music. Unaccompanied.

academy - a “learned society” for the purpose of furthering the arts, literature, or

science.

ballett - like a madrigal but dance-like, strophic, homophonic and with falala

refrain.

cantus firmus (Medieval) - chant or chant fragment on which polyphony is based.

consort - different pitched family of like instruments.

chorale - Protestant hymn; tunes frequently used as cantus firmi.

canzona - instrumental counterpart of the chanson.

cori spezzati - divided choirs; often associated with the widely seperated choir

lofts of St. Marks in Venice. Gabrieli was the master of the polychoral motet.

fauxbourdon - Dufay compositional technique for 3 voices using the interval of a

6th; creating basically 1st inversion triads.

frottola - Italian secular precersor of the Madrigal. Lighter.

lied - here, German polyphonic song of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance.

pedal point - sustained note in the bass, over which harmonies move.

pavane - galliard - commonly paired Renaissance dance set. Pavane = slow

duple/galliard = fast triple

ricercar - basically an instrumental motet.

word painting (or tone painting) - intimate link between text and music,

sometimes subtle, sometimes obvious. “As Vesta Was Descending” forms a

descending line melodically.

middle ages declarative knowledge

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