Middle Ages - Music

Coral music without instrumental accompainment

High Male Voice

Sustained pitch for harmonic support

Scale patterns with unique order of tones and semitones

earliest form of notation from directional to shapes

One line of melody - no harmony

Two or more melodic lines

Usual book for Mass - Abbey of Solesmes

Earliest book of Polyphony - featuring parallel organum

Religious leader in Rupertsberg, Germany. 1098AD Wrote music and poetry. Advised leaders. Wrote Ordo Virtutum (Play of Virtues)

Gregorian Chant or Plain Chant

Anonymous

Gradual from Proper Easter Sunday Mass

Psalms 118: 1/24 Old Testement

Latin - Joyful message of Easter

• Soloist and Unison Choir - responsorial singing
• Solo: "Haec Dies" - Chorus: "quam fecit"

• Monophonic
• 3rd interval is the widest on "eius"

1 note per syllable

2 - 4 notes per syllable

many notes per syllable

Dorian

Melismatic on "Haec" "Dominus" "Exsultenus"

• Leonin - 12th century - composer of polyphony as 2 part organum
• Perotin - 13th century - composer of 3 & 4 part organum and substitute clausulae

• "New Art" - notation of rhythm
• Phillipe de Vitry

• Mass of our Lady by Guillaumede Machaut
• 4 voices - earliest polyphony Mass

• "Songbook of the King"
• earliest example of dance music

• Indoor
• Dulcimer(struck box), Lute(guitar), Psaltery(plucked box), rebec(violin), recorder, vielle (violin)

• Outdoor
• Cornetto(trumpet), crumhorn(J-shaped oboe), sackbut(trombone), shawm(oboe)

• Portative(organ w/pipes & bellows)
• Positive(small & portable 1 keyboard w/pipes)
• Regal(reeds instead of pipes/like accordian)

• Nakers(pair)
• Tabor(Bass Drum)
• Tamborine(wooden frame w/metal disks)

• Roman Catholic Church in power -1000 years
• music is sacred
• knighthood and devotion to Virgin Mary raised the status os women
• Crusades to reclaim Jerusalem from Muslims(lasted 200yrs)
• Fall of Roman Empire - Dark Ages (plagues & war)
• Contact w/Islamic culture expanded knowledge of astronomy, mathematics and medicin
• Gregorian Chant from Pope Gregory Iin 600AD - organized chants for Mass - evolved from Hebrew chanting

Evolution from Monophony to Polyphony

Development of notation from recording chant melodies to representing both pitches and rhythmic values

Began with very narrow steps and as the writing evolved the melodic range increased

Unmeasured rhythm and plainchant evolved to polyphony with the development of notation

Anonymous (style of Leonin)

1175AD (12th century)

Old Testement (Psalms)

Latin

• Soloist (tenor)
• Choir

• Polyphonic - 2 voices
• cantus firmus - foundation is lower voice
• Upper voice - newly composed & more rhymically active

Perfect 4ths, 5ths and octaves

Original chant has faster rhythmic values

Upper voice has faster note values

• original polyphony
• new melodic lines add to existing Gregorian chant

• defined section within discant-style organum
• highly melismatic

"Haec Dies"

"Domino quonium"

"Domino" and Quonium"

13th Century

Polytextual Motet

Anonymous

poems in praise of Virgin Mary and Haec Dies

Latin

• Polyphonic - 3 voices
• Top Voice - Triplum - "O Sweetest Virgin Mary"
• Middle Voice - Duplum - "Virgin of Virgins"
• Bottom Voice-Cantus Firmus (melismatic)-"This is the Day"
• Top & Middle Voice in Same Range - syllabic & neumatic
• Triple metre effect - Holy trinity

Perfect 4ths, 5ths, and octaves

Mid 13th century

Monophonic Chanson

Moniot d'Arras - Trouvere from Northern France

Secular Poem about the narrator watching a Knight court a Lady. When they approach the narrator to ask why he is watching them, the narrator explains that he has lost his lady and the Knight and Lady say they will pray for him.

Old French w/solo singer

Monophonic

• Strophic (same music repeated w/every stanza of poem)
• 5 verses w/12 short lines in each verse
• No relationship between sad text and happy music

Mid 14th Century

Polyphonic chanson

Guillaume De Machaut

Secular poem by Machaut (Rondeau-4verse w/refrain)

Old French

Since I Am Forgotten By You

Polyphonic w/syncopation

• 3 male voices - triple meter (top voice has more rhythm)
• Syllabic and Neumatic text setting
• 2 lower voices share same range

Poet complains to person he loves, but they have rejected him. He complains that he will never find love again.

Late 13th Century

Dance Music

Anonymous

• Monophonic w/some heterophony(2 or more instruments elaborate same melody simultaneously)
• Narrow melodic range

sectional w/open and closed endings

• variable instruments
• Shawn, Tamborine, Pipe, Vielle

Stamp Your Foot