MUFHL481 — Textbook Notes
early overview
- vocal music constitutes the majority of remaining preserved antique music
- antique vocal music is mostly produced by elite and literate classes in antique society
- opinions on singing reflected cultural changes
- ancient Greece stressed vocal music over instrumental due to ethos
- middle age Christian conflict over vocal sensuality
- 16thc significance in Italy for grace, nobility, and cosmic link/harmony
- ancient Near East (Babylonia, Mesopotamia, regions between Mediterranean and Persian Gulf) were similar to modern music: wedding songs, funeral dirges, military marches, work songs, nursery songs, dance music, tavern songs, banquet music, devotion/ceremony music, stories/hymns
- Plato: ideal state is founded on suitable, select music
- Timotheus with four additional strings alarmed citizens/law
- “lawlessness in art → anarchy in society”
- Greek musical thought transferred via Boethius west; most revered authority in music
- rule of Saint Benedict preserved classical learning and spread Latin civilization → literate Gregorian chant formed
- Carolingian rulers in the 8th century → no secular religious separation
- → Charlemagne crowned by pope of Western Roman Empire in Rome
- Roman chant was imported from Italy across the Alps through the empire alongside Roman art, architecture, manuscript
- Gregorian chant was “imposed” on Christian liturgy and specifically preserved
- notation, polyphony, etc. originated in church music; most were trained via Church-led schools
- notation in 9thc; developments in church increased accuracy of notation
- three successors to the Roman Empire
- Byzantine Empire in Asia Minor and SE Europe — direct successor
- preserved Greek/Roman science, architecture, culture + writings/scribe copies
- Arab — strongest and most vibrant: modern Pakistan thru SWANA + Spain
- extensions of Greek philosophy and science
- fostering trade/industry
- contributions to medicine, chemistry, technology, mathematics
- patronage for the arts
- western Europe — weakest, poorest, most fragmented
- Charlemagne
- Holy Roman emperor
- promotion of learning/art; improved education
- sponsorships; court centers for culture and intellect
- modern nations emerged in west Europe following death of Charlemagne’s son, Louis I the Pious
- west: France + noble regions
- east: German → Holy Roman Empire
- included Netherlands and north Italy
- regional nobility competed via musical arts, fueling development from 9c – 19c
- centralized kingdom: England
- fragmented Italy and Spain over rulers (inc. pope) and Christian v Muslim territories
- prosperity and scholarship of tremendous arts advancements
- 11-13c: cathedrals and abbeys (monastic churches) in the Romanesque style: frescoes, sculptures
- 12c: Gothic architecture; soaring, large buildings/architecture
- paralleled polyphony in the Notre Dame in Paris; 13c
- 1200: laymen independent schools; growth of secular culture and popular literacy
- universities formed in Bologna, Paris, Oxford → liberal arts, theology, law, medicine
- Aristotle study as books were translated, though banned on natural science in Paris'
- Scholasticism critical thinking: reconciled theology with philosophy
- vernacular language production of knighthood and chivalry literature; courtly love
- poetry was sung; a monophonic repertoire for medieval song
- 14thc decline via famine, war, plague, scandals/power struggles
- 100y war
- spurred advances in science and technology
- realism or imagination of greater realism incorporated into art
- preoccupation with structure and pleasure in genres
- courtly love extended to polyphonic realm
- elaborate textures and rhythmic complications implied ostentatious Avignon pleasures
- polyphonic church music flourished in cathedrals, kingdom courts, etc.
antiquity music
- Western music developed through Near East and Mediterranean civilizations
- only ~45 Greek songs and hymns survived
- Greco-Roman musical heritage transmitted via images and descriptions in other arts: antique painting/sculpture artifacts
- commonalities between Greek music and Western music
- used in religion, entertainment, and dramatic accompaniment
- Greek music theory, esp. pitch. passed onto Romans in 1-2c
- expectation to be educated in language and music
- Nero, other emperors
- incomplete transference via church father and scholar writing/preservation/study
- spread from Jerusalem → Asia Minor → Africa and Europe while collecting elements from Mediterranean region
- standardization increased as prestige declined; authority of Rome regarding faith and doctrine
- regulation and standardization of liturgy and repertoire of Gregorian chant
greek music
- divine origin of music; gods and demigods invented it
- healed sickness, purified soul, worked miracles
- connection to Hebrew Scriptures’ portrayal of music
- surviving examples mostly derived from late periods
- Epitaph of Sekilos: 1CE on a tombstone
- scolion made by Sekilos on a tombstone
- close connection to theory and practice
- monophonic with instrumental embellishments → heterophonic
- mostly improvised; linked to poetry sound and meter
- no evidence of continuity between Greek and early Christian musical practice besides vague minor similarities; compare to strong evidence of influence via philosophy and theory
- Plato: melos was made of speech, rhythm, and “harmony”
- lyric: poetry sung to a lyre
- tragedy: ode → art of singing
- hymn, etc: musical terms
- contours of melody matched the changing inflections of the words
- music influenced ethos: ethical character
- Pythagorean view influenced: human soul was kept composite/harmonmic via numerical relationships, including music and harmonia comparison
- theory of imitation: Aristotle; music affects behavior and imitates passion of the soul, so it can form a habitual behavior
- avoid melodies expressing softness and indolence and instead listen to melodies that imitate courage and stronger virtues
- gymnastics and music
- Plato use of two modes: Dorian and Phrygian; not other modes
- deplored current styles that used too many notes, complex scales, and incompatible combinations; deplored changing musical conventions
- Mixolydian: mournful and restrained
- harmoniai had differences
- Dorian: composure, midway state
- Phyrgian: men divinely suffused
- Aristotle:
- music can be used for amusement and intellect and education
- however, music is powerful enough to arouse and relieve given emotions in a person (pity and fear) through catharsis
- ancient Greek musical thought
- Pythagoras
- rhythms, poetic meter, etc. inseparable from numbers
- octave, fifth, and fourth were consonances generated by simple numeric ratios
- Aristides Quintilianus
- pitches and numerical relationships, systematic descriptions of musical elements and patterns in composition
- led to developments towards notes, intervals, scales, modes
- Aristoxenus, 320 BCE Harmonic Elements
- Cleonides
- recognition of consonants and the tetrachord
- four notes that lasted a fourth interval
- three genera of tetrachord: diatonic, chromatic, enharmonic; wide variation of expression and nuance
- enharmonic: smaller than semitone intervals
- harmonia: the unification of parts into an orderly whole
- harmonics: study and discipline of ppitch
- numerical proportions underlie systems of musical intervals and heavenly bodies; modes/notes corresponded to planets, distances, and movement
- Plato: “the music of the spheres” ; unheard music produced by harmonious relationships among planets while revolving
- later: Middle Ages defined music as discipline which deals with numbers as related to sound; proportion and number were connected to theological understanding
- learning that led to the contemplation of philosophy
- place of honor alongside astronomy; explained observations of the senses, things known through speculation, and things too divine to be known (sound, movement of heavenly bodies, mysteries of human soul)
- persisted through Renaissance into modern era influencing astronomers, physicians, architects, poets
- ties to astrology
- Venus and Mercury hold sway for musical attributes of humans in astrological symbolism; musical instruments depicted in medieval/Renaissance work
roman music
- 200 bce – 500 ce
- greek island → roman province in 146 bce
- lyric poetry was sung
- music incorporated into public religious, military ceremonies, theatre and entertainment, education
- imported Greek culture into Rome; virtuosos, large choruses and orchestras, grand music festivals/competition
- economic decline and lack of production countered any importance on European developments
- splintered into fragments
early Christian Church
- grew during decline of Roman Empire
- civilizing and unifying peoples; writing in Greek and Latin on the power of music to inspire divine thoughts and influence imitation in character
- establishment of the papacy’s strength
- majority believed music was not enjoyed just for sounds; platonic principle that beautiful things exist to remind of divine beauty
- some believed pagan arts were allowed but concerned over pleasure in listening; Augustine
- ancient theory and philosophy following invasion and collapse of Roman Empire was transmitted to West during early Christian era: Martianus Capella and Boethius
- The Marriage of Mercury and Philology
- seven liberal arts: grammar, dialectic/logic, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, harmonics/music
- first three: trivium; last four: quadrivium: verbal arts and mathematical disciplines
- music numeric relationships explained the universe and cosmic harmony
- Boethius
- 480-524 ca
- De institutione musica: Fundamentals of Music
- compiled from Nicomachus treatise and Ptolemy’s Harmonics
- based on statements in Greek mathematics and music theory
- three types: musica mundana, musica huymana, musica instrumentalis
- mundana: cosmic music; inaudible numeric relationships of cosmic harmony, planetary movement, seasons, combining elements
- humana: harmonizing and unifying the body and soul
- instrumentalis: audible music; exemplifies same principles of order as the other types of music due to numerical ratios
- music had an important place in the education of the young: both in its own merit and as an introduction to advanced philosophical studies
- instrumentalis was the third and lowest category; music was primarily seen as a science and examining the diversity in sounds through the reason and senses, less as a practice
- a true musician is a theorist and critic who could use reason
- early church practice (2-3c): music was the servant of religion; not cultivated for enjoyment or public spectacles
- incorporate facets of Greek music and other cultures on the border of the Mediterranean Sea
- wanted to wean music and converts away from pagan past; 1000+ years of Christian music composed of unaccompanied singing
- Christian observances derived from Jewish traditions
- Scripture chant, psalm singing, praise poems in Old Testament Book of Psalms
- parallels between Jewish temple service and Christian Mass through sacrifice of burnt offerings and metaphorical bread and wine
- vocal music used as worship; banned after destruction of second temple in 70ce for mourning
- Last Supper in Mass; festive Jewish Passover Seder → psalm-singing
- singing psalms on certain days: central element in Christian observances
- absorbed other influences: Jerusalem, Asia Minor, North Africa, Europe
- Syrian churches and monasteries: psalmsinging and strophic devotional songs/hymns
- singing of devotional songs: earliest recorded musical activity of Jesus and followers
- psalms and praise traveled via Syria → Asia Minor Byzantium → Italy Milan → other Western centers
- 395 CE division into East/West empires (Byzantium/Rome) → East/West church
- West → Roman Catholic Church + pope bishop of Rome
- diffusion of Latin liturgy and music: 5th and 6th centuries
- texts were preserved; melodies changed
- large independence across local churches; different reception of Roman heritage/origin including Latin liturgies
- different melodies (chants) in modern Italy, France, and Germany btwn 5-8c; chant dialects
- Gaul (modern France) → Gallican chant
- southern Italy → Beneventan
- Rome → Old Roman
- Spain → Visigothic/Mozarabic
- Milanic area → Ambrosian
- most were absorbed into uniform Romanized practice between 13th to 16thc; Roman Catholic church central authority
- preserved chant through Frankish monk and nun preservation (modern-day Switzerland, France, western Germany) via song practice and manuscript notation
- melodies were preserved as Gregorian chant
- Byzantium (Constantinople, Istanbul); Europe–Asia Minor crossroad; capital of E.E. for 1000+ years until 1452 invasion by Turks; cultural center on northern rim of Mediterranean Sea
- blend of Western, African, Eastern civilizations
- Byzantine church → Orthodox churches
- Greek rites → north Slavic cultures; Russian and Slavic Orthodox churches
- variation in liturgies across Eastern Empire
- Byzantine musical practices → Western chant through classification of repertory into eight modes/melody types and several hymns borrowed by West in 6 and 9c
- music consisted of a single melodic line (monophony)
- vocal melody was linked to rhythm and meter of text
- music was improvised according to convention (not notated)
- philosophical connections to nature, order, and thought
- scientifically based acoustical theory (Greek)
- scales used tetrachords (Greek)
- developed musical terminology (Greek)
- many of these hereditary elements were common among other cultures in the ancient world
- transferred through Christian Church and writing
western medieval music
- sacred repertory (plainchant/Gregorian)
- ceremonial use; communal liturgy, or public worship
- musical prayer or praise
- secular monody
- courtly and elite repertory
- popular and traditional repertory
- entertainment and emotion
- often improvised
- all monophonic, originated in oral culture, aural
- christianity sprang from jewish roots → westward
- stable texts and fluid repertoire
- classified into church modes based on boethius
- theorists and church teachers created medieval musical theory
- newly invented sightsinging
- secular monody included liturgical dramas and epic/lyric songs
- troubadour and trouvere songs based in french dialect
- sensual subject, coded language, coterie audience
chant/liturgy
- plainchant based on ritual
- simple recitation to elaborate melody; dependent on function or singer, which is dependent by position in the liturgy
- liturgy: sacred worship service; texts and rites needed to glorify god and the saints, teach the gospels, and exhort worship
- yearly cycle of reading from bible, weekly from psalms
- office and mass
- office → divine office → canonical hours: 8 prayer services observed by religious community
- monastery or convent structure; prayers, recitation, songs
- psalms featuring an antiphon, sung chants, lessons with responsories, hymns, canticles, prayers
- Matin and Vesper
- mass: ritualistic commemoration of last supper in addition to readings and prayers
- focal point of medieval religious life
- source of instruction for the mass; inspiring and evoking awe
- aka eucharist, liturgy, holy communion, lord’s supper
- practiced since ~1200
- liturgy of mass → three successive parts
- introduction: introit → kyrie → gloria → collect
- introductory prayers
- introit: psalm
- kyrie: threefold invocations; greek, origins in byzantine procession
- gloria: song of praise
- collect: collective prayer and intonation
- liturgy of the word: epistle → gradual → alleluia → sequence → gospel → credo
- epistle/gospel: bible recitatiohns
- gradual, alleluia, sequence: florid chants
- credo: belief/teachings summarized in faith
- sermon: meditation on message
- hebrew scriptures, apostles, gospel new testament intoned
- liturgy of the eucharist: offertory → sanctus → pater noster → agnus dei → communion → ite missa est
- words to actions; last supper distribution
- offertory: florid chant on psalm verse performed during distribution
- sanctus: holy, holy, holy; exalt to lord
- agnus dei: lamb of god, petitions lord
- communion: psalm chant
- ite missa est: dismissal
- variable texts: proper of the mass
- introduction: introit, collects
- word: epistle, gradual, alleluia, gospel
- eucharist: offertory, communion
- unchanging texts: mass ordinary
- may sing to different melodies, but text is same
- introduction: kyrie, gloria
- word: credo
- eucharist: sanctus, agnus dei, ite missa est
- standardized in late 8th to 9thc; coincided with frankish political campaign using trained missionaries
- legend of saint gregory → “gregorian” chant
- developed officially before 9th century; important developments occured north of alps
- muslim conquest of syria, north africa, and spain into 719 left southern christian regions vulnerablee
- rise of cultural centers in western and central europe
- irish/scottish monasteries established schools abroad in germany and switzerland
- development of saint gall monastery, switzerland
chants
- classified via
- biblical/nonbiblical and prose/poetry texts
- manner of performance: antiphonal, responsorial, or direct
- antiphonal: alternating
- responsorial: choir and soloist
- direct: one choir
- musical style: syllabic or melismatic
- mass and office mostly chanted to recitation formulas
- simple melodic outlines
- some use fully formed/complex melodies
- chant proclaims text; contours are strophic and follow inflection
- in florid chants, melodic curve takes precedence: melismas on weak syllables
- most important words/syllables have emphasized syllabic treatment over ornamentation
- plainchant only repeats based on the text
- rarely realized emotional/pictorial effects
- melodic phrases and periods correspond to text
- many arched following natural inflection, including with smaller arches
- some start on high note then descend gradually
- three main forms of chant
- psalm tone, with two balanced phrases corresponding to two halves of psalm verse
- strophic form of hymns, same melody for several stanzas
- freeform
office chants
- psalm tones: formulas adapted to all psalms
- one tone for each of eight church modes
-
- tonus peregrinus; wandering tone
- psalm sung to tone that matches antiphon as prescribed
- five separate elements:
- intonation: first verse
- reciting tone/tenor: rising element for first and second half-verse
- mediant/semicadence: bend at the midpoint
- cadence/termination: final desceent
- final verse leads into lesser doxology
- expression of praise to trinity
- “christianizes” Hebrew/Jewish inherited psalms/liturgy
- Glori Patri; fitted to same psalm tone
- new antiphon through the year for each psalm changing based on time in calendar
- antiphonal singing: “sounding against”
- alternating choirs; two choirs or small and full choir
- imitates ancient Syrian models
- antiphon repeated after every verse; eventually, only opening sung before psalm and antiphon performed after
- antiphons most populated in chant types
- most use same melody with few variations
- syllabic or slight florid; intended to be sung by groups
- stepwise melodic movement, simple rhythm, limited range
- mostly sung responsorially; office responsories with full/partial repetition
chants of the mass proper
- antiphonal and responsorial psalmody
- introit and communion: antiphonal chants
- introit was initially full psalm and antiphon, but is now shortened into the original antiphon, a single psalm, doxology with elaborate psalm tone, and repeated antiphon
- communion: ends mass as counterpoint to introit; short chant with one scrriptural verse
- most developed chants: gradual and alleluia
- gradual: carries gospel from altar to lectern in procession
- came to frankish churches from evolved forms in rome
- certain recurring melismatic formulas: intonations, internal cadences, terminations
- some melodies entirely consist of formulas; based on oral/memorized notation
- alleluia: respond text is alleluia with a melisma effusive(jubilus)
- soloist/solo group sings alleluia up to asterisk; chorus repeats and continues to jubilus
- soloist sings psalm verse, chorus joins on last phrase
- repeat alleluia
- carefully planned/composed; musical rhymee
- created through middle ages
- created the sequence and new important forms
- both florid with similar structures
- occurs at contemplative moments without ritual action
- responsorial: alternate between choir and soloist
- one psalm verse with an elaborate melody accompanying or a respond frame (separate melody and text)
- offertory: as melismatic as gradual; only includes response
- performed during offering with choral response and 2-3 soloist ornate verses
- mass ordinary started as simple syllabic melodies and later replaced by developed ornate settings for choral works
- syllabic style kept in gloria and credo (longest texts)
- kyrie, sanctus, and agnus dei have 3-part sectional repeating texts which frame identical sections; threefold repetition
- kyrie: antiphonal half-choir performances
- extend final kyrie via an additional phrase to join together choir for eleison
- antiphons composed for new feasts as well as non-psalmodic tones for processions and special occasions
- marian antiphons are independent composition from later date
- expanded chant via tropes and sequences
- tropes": expansion of chants via:
- adding new words/music before and between chant/phrases
- most common; used with introits
- extending melismas or adding melismas to the melody
- adding text to existing melismas
- tropes increased and enlarged solemnity of chant and increased creativity
- added a gloss that interpreted chant for the occasion
- composition flourished in monasteries in 10/11c; tuotilo at saint gall
- eventually banned by council of trent 1545-1563 to standardize liturgy
- sequences: followed alleluias; variations of tropes that became independent compositions
- notker balbulus; written under long melismas as text syllables
- 10 to 13c; imitated in secular genres later
- banned by council of trent
- five surviving sequences used in liturgy; dies irae for requiem and victimqe paschali laudes in easter
- syllabic and arranged in couplets; second line repeats first line’s melody
- liturgical drama: originated via troping
- performed on holy days by the altar
- quem quaeritis in sepulchro: 10thc dialogue that preceded the introit for easter mass
- sung in responsorial and acted out
- quem queritis in presepe: christmas trope
- play of daniel, beuavis, 13thc
- play of herod, fleury
- staged with clergy performance/production
- hildegard of bingen: nonliturgical and sacred music drama named ordo virtutum
- 82 songs composed both melodies and poetic verse
- morality play with allegorical characters: prophets, virtues, happy/unhappy/penitent soul, devil, etc.
- all characters sing in plainchant; devil only speaks – separation from god
- reputed for direct communication with god; claim of divine inspiration
- rhine region of germany, 1098–1179
- benedictine monastery of disibodenberg; prioress of convent in 1136
- famed for prophecies; scivias and books on science and healing
medieval music theory/practice
- best reflected via treatises during charlemagne and late middle ages vs. speculation in earlier writings
- boethius reverently spoken; mathematical fundamentals
- established eight modes or toni/tones; developed into 11th century
- sequence of tones and semitones in a diatonic octave based on a finalis, usually being the last note in the melody
- identified via numbers and grouped in pairs; authentic and collateral/plagal modees
- pairs shared same finals (bracketed whole notes in modern notation) but had different ranges; authentic rose above final, plagal below
- analogous to white-key octave scales on a modern keyboard from defg vs. fourth lower plagals
- not absolute pitches, but convenient ways to distinguish interval patterns unique to each pair of modes
- second characteristic tone: tenor/reciting tone, like the psalm tones
- tenor placement depended on ranges of modes
- greek names for church modes
- not conforming to modal theory
- sightsinging: guido of arezzo
- ut re mi fa sol la syllables
- hexachords
- beginning on CGF; solmization
- semitone falls between third and fourth steps, and other steps are whole tones
- do for ut and ti above la in english solfeggio
- guidonian hand by followers; intervals sung while pointing to different joints on an open left hand, with each joint standing for twenty notes; other notes were “outside the hand”
- early musical notation developed
- note symbols/neumes placed above text at varying heights to indicate relative size and direction
- changed to scratching horizontal line corresponding to note and orienting neumes around line
- guido 11c: arrange lines and spaces to form modern staff
- freed from need for oral transmission
medieval secular monody
- oldest written secular text is with Latin text
- goliard songs from 11th and 12thc
- composed by students/clerics; libertine, scurrilous, satirical workers
- preserved in manuscript collections
- wine, women, and satire
- early manifestations of secular literacy before mass transcription of vernacular languages
- work songs, dance songs, lullabies, laments, chansons de geste, praise songs, love songs/court songs lost from middle ages
- jongleurs and minstrels sung secular songs
- itinerants/servants to lords
- jongleurs: traveled alone or in small groups performing for money
- social outcasts denied law and sacraments
- minstrels in 11c organized into brotherhoods, then musician guilds (ala conservatories)
- troubadours and trobairitz: poet-composers in 12c in southern france
- provencal; langue d’oc/occitan
- trouveres were equivalent in northern france
- theory: troubadours took inspiration from arabic love poetry spread in moorish spain while trouveres spoke langue d’oil, medieval french dialect leading to modern french; troubadour inspiration then spread northward
- no well-defined group; varied between castle/nobility, courts, craftsmen and jongleurs in aristocratic circles
- sang songs by self or gave performances to minstrels
- preserved in chansonnier songbooks; 2,600 survive; ⅒th with melodies
- ⅔ of 2100 trouvere poems have music
- none others with large repertoire survived
- varied/ingenue structures; simple, dramatic, miming and dancing
- dance songs included refrain sung by a chorus
- refrain: line or 2 lines of poetry which returns across stanzas with unique music
- troubadours wrote complaints on love, politics and morality, stories, and debates/arguments on esoteric chivalric/courtly love
- particular genres: alba (dawn song), canso (love song), and tenson (debate song)
- occitan old songs openly sensual or hid via fine amour (refined love/coded language); lofty and unattainable image
- courtly example: Can vei la lauzeta mover, Bernart de Ventadorn
- typical text was strophic, syllabic with short melismas, opportunity for improvised ornamentation/variation
- narrow range; sixth to an octave
- finals on CDF; coherence amongst troubadour texts
- no particular rhythm known; free/unmeasured or long-short based on inflection were possible; now often transcribed like plainchant, neutral without bars
- poetic lines received unique melodic phrases and formed one whole melody/one whole stanza
- other texts included AAB free style
- modified phrases with repetition with echoes of earlier phrases
- A chantar by Comtessa Beatriz de Día; ababcdb 4 melodic phrases
- troubadours were model for German knightly poet-musicians: Minnesingers
- flourished between 12-14c
- love was Minne; Minnelieder → love song
- abstract love with religious undertones; sober tones
- some melodies written in church modes, some in major scales; commonly believed to be common rhythm and triple meter
- commonly strophic songs, but organized through melodic phrase repetition
- bar poetic form/pattern; aab
- melodic phrase A (Stollen) and remainder B (Abgesang) longer and sung once
- included depictions of glow/freshness of spring, dawn songs against illicit lovers, Crusade songs
- Cantigas de Santa María
- collection of 400+ cantigas in Galician-Portugese to honor Virgin Mary; 1270-1290 by King Alfonso el Sabio of Castile and Leon (NW Spain) in 4 illuminated manuscripts
- related miracles by the venerated virgin
- Non sofre Santa Maria
- refrains in each song; sung by responsorial group and soloist singing verses
- associated with dances and dancelike rhythm
Renaissance Music
- 1453: end of the 100y war btwn france and britain
- 1453: fall of constantinople to turks (byzantine)
- rise of western europe as world power
- end of economic turmoil; stabilized 1400
- renaissance began in italy
- geography: close to learning/art that inspired movement
- commercial dominance: byzantium trade, wealthy families, secular princes
- prioritization of earthly matters and personal fulfillment
- rediscovery of ancient texts via grecian language/classics
- intellectual movement of humanism
- revival of ancient learning: grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history, moral philosophy in latin and greek writings
- development of mind, spirit, ethics
- replaced medieval scholasticism (logic and authority) and religious monopoly; church borrowed from and funded classical studies
- art and architecture revived classical antiquity, nude beauty, individual beauty, realism and naturalism
- perspective drawing and depth
- orderly, clarity, clean lines and symmetry vs gothic ornate facades
- parallels to music: lower and higher expansion of ranges, imitation, and clarity; tributes to art and composers as individual artists
- liberal arts
- humanism renewed a rebirth of interest in music theory’s greek origins
- 1424: boethius classical text
- emigration from byzantium and italian manuscript
- theoretical works of aristides quintilianus, claudius ptolemy, cleonides, euclid, plato, aristotle
- translations into latin
- rediscovery of musical modes, ethos (accidental comparison to church modes and effects)
- four new modes: aeolian and hypoaeolian (final on a), ionian and hypoionian (final on c)
- heinrich glarean in Dodekachordon (12-string lyre, 1547)
- music and poetry was virtually inseparable; strengthened one another
- common expressive goal of sound and projection and imitation
- cadences of finality placed according to punctuation
- expression of intention
- following natural vernacular/accent in Latin and vern.
- aligning words with music as much as possible
- various arts and ideas
- Joan of Arc
- Sandro Botticelli
- Leonardo da Vinci
- Nicolaus Copernicus
- Isabella d’Este
- Ludovico Ariosto
- Michelangelo Buonarroti
- Thomas More
- Baldassare Castiglione
- Martin Luther
- Titian
- John Calvin
- El Greco
- printing press in mid-15th century expanded musical distribution
- radical change and expansion of musicians; institutions and support, court chapels and hires, performances for church and secular
- training 15th and 16th century composers as choirboys and hired as singers
- cathedrals’ choir schools also taught music theory, grammar, mathematics, etc.
- Cambrai, Bruges, Antwerp, Paris, Dijon, Lyon
- later Rome, Venice, other cities in Italy
- most earlier composers from 15-16 were from Flanders, Netherlands, and northern France; later on were Italy
- only male children admitted; women took opportunities in convents or individual distinction
- courts employed instrumentalist apprentices; protected by guilds
- “trade secret” barely notated
- competitions for best hired performers; display of wealth and power
- Franco-Flemish and Medici: Henricus/Heinrich Isaac, Jacques Arcadelt
-
- Italian artists (Donatello, Botticelli, Michelangelo)
- Sforza: Josquin des Prez and Leonardo da Vinci
- Ferrara (Este): Josquin, Jacob Obrecht
- Isabella d’Este’s court in Mantua
- churches using music to resolve Papal Schism
- synthesis of English, French, Burgundian, Italian traditions via song: 16thc new national vernacular work and cosmopolitan growth of multilingual songs
Anglo-France Influence
- English victories in 100y War → strong English presence in France
- conquerors brought cultural arts for religion and secular purposes
- impression of “lively consonances” and “marvelous pleasingness” that made music “joyous and remarkable”
- close connections of English music to folk: imperfect consonances and parallel motion
- emphasis on canons and rounds (rota)
- English carols: strophic forms with refrains
- new inclusion of simultaneous thirds and sixths in parallel motion
- bright, harmonious sounds
- 13th century into Continent
John Dunstable/Dunstaple
- ~60 known compositions
- emphasis on standard polyphony: isorhythmic motets, Mass Ordinary, secular work, and three-part settings of liturgy
- continuance into Renaissance days
- heavy use of isorhythm
- expressive lyrical melodies and harmonic profile
- liturgies used antiphons, hymns, Mass movements, and other liturgy texts: most important works
- use of cantus firmus in tenor, ornamented chant melody in treble, florid treble lines and borrowed melodies in middle voice, movement of thirds and sixths
- some not based on existing melody
Quam pulchra es
- three-voice liturgical setting
- three homorhythmic, syllabic voices with a melisma in Alleluia
- consonant vertical sonorities and cadence suspensions
- phrases were molded by the rhythm of words
- attention to text declamation
- only compared to medieval origin via double-leading tone cadences
- classification as a motet: pieces that add text to the upper part of a discant clasula → any work with upper text above a cantus firmus regardless of type
- isorhythmic motet was considered old-fashioned
- 1200s: polyphonic piece derived from discant clasula
- 1200s–1300s: polyphonic piece with 1+ upper voices in Latin or French above a borrowed chant/tenor
- 1310–1450: isorhythmic motet
- 1400s+: earlier definition
Renaissance Music Theory
- redefining octave, fifth, and fourth consonant
- generated by Pythagorean ratios
- imperfects sounded rough vs. fourth/fifth; permissible cadential sonorities
- Liber de arte contrapuncti: A Book on the Art of Counterpoint by Johannes Tinctoris, 1477
- Flemish, court of Naples
- more consonant than dissonant
- humanism
- only last two generations of composers were worth imitating
- empirical evidence based on sensory perception
- consonants were based on “degree of sweetness” vs. use of dissonance
- use dissonances only on passing and neighbor tones on unstressed beats and syncopated passages (suspensions) at cadences
- these rules refined in later treatises; Le istitutioni harmoniche 1558, Gioseffo Zarlino
- initially, Modernists learned about ethos and were unable to hear/recreate its ability
- Bernardino Cirillo and disappointment with artful polyphonic music vs. the ancient/classical arts
- musical Renaissance was seen as a general cultural movement/state of mind that rapidly eevolved
- musical Renaissance was mainly centered in Low Countries and other areas of western Europe
Masses
- replaced motets for important events
- polyphonic settings
- standardization of Ordinary set as a whole; “polyphonic mass cycle”
- showcase of musical ingenuity
- commissioned for services (ex. Savoy patrons)
- tradition of setting masses to L’Homme arme by Order of the Golden Fleece
- European noblemen associated by Good
- calls of a new crusade
- cyclic masses linked by various ways
- composing Ordinary with the same style freely composed or paraphrased in upper voice/cantus firmus
- liturgical association
- compositional procedure
- thematic reuse
- motto mass: uses a head (beginning) motive/motto that signals a section belongs with other sections in the Ordinary
- cantus firmus/tenor mass superseded/combined with motto: rearrange with the same borrowed melody which was placed in the tenor
- written earlier by English, adopted on Continent
- four-voice texture
- avoided medieval-motet tradition and abstract mathematical principles
- addition of a contratenor bassus (bassus) and a contratenor altus (altus)
- highest part was the treble: cantus, discantus, or superius
- 15-16c masses without a cantus firmus were named by particular conventions:
- modes that they were written in: M. quinti toni, mode 5
- first notes of the voice, or the motto: M. mi-mi
- structural features: canons, any modes
- Missa sine nomine
Canons
- Latin for rrule
- two musical meanings:
- compositional technique of obtaining 2 or more voices from one notateed voice
- instruction/rule on how parts were derived
- inversions, retrograde, homorhythmic, double/puzzle
- calling to Scholasticism more than humanism
Music Printing
- Musica transalpina 1588: madrigals
- movable type; Johannes Gutenberg in 1450
- musically first used in 1470s for liturgical books with chant notation
- much more practical use
- 1501 Venice, Ottaviano Petrucci (1466–1539)
- triple-impression process: once for staffs, once for words, once for notes/florid
- triple-impression resulted in clarity and accurracy; high survival rates
- collected as luxury iteems
- monopoly on music printing in Venice forr 20y
- Odhecaton canti A was for secular song; short pieces for three or fourr parts that could be performed at home
- B and C in 1502 and 1504
- 1523: 59 volumes and reprrints of vocal/instrumental music
- prrinting first by John Rastell in 1520 and laarrgescale in 1528 by Pierre Attaignant in Paris
- non-continuous lines with imperfect joining and broken, wavy texture
- most ensemble music at 16c wwas in rectangular part-books forr separate voices; used in home or social gatherings
- church choirs continued to use handwritten choirbooks
- handcopying continued thrrough 16c
Burgundian Influence
- Burgundian lands dominated in middle of 15th century
- chapels included up to 30 professionals and members of the court: Philip the Good, Charles the Bold, etc.
- northern France, Flanders, and Low Countries musicians
- also a band of minstrels maintained: trumpeters, drummers, viellists, lutenists, harpists, organists, bagpipes, shawms — were from France, Italy, Germany, Portugal
- cosmopolitan nature of the Burgundian court
- constant shift of musicians and esteem/prestige that influenced other musical centers through im/migration
- 1475: Flemish theorist’s writing → stimulation of centers
- four basic types:
- secular chansons with French texts
- motets
- Magnificats and hymn settings for the daily Offices
- Mass Ordinary settings
- three-voice pieces with textures that resemble 14th-century French chansons and Italian ballata
- cantus up to a tenth
- tenor/contratenor share narrower ranges
- distinct roles with a main melody in the cantus, contrapoint tenor, and harmonic filler in contratenor
Guillaume Du Fay
- 1397–1474
- organal music; sacred music
- most famous composer of time
- Antonio Squarcialupi: “greatest ornament of age”
- Belgium near Brussels; studied at Cambrai in NE France and became choirboy in 1409
- multitraveled; French, Italy, English, Burgundy influence; combining styles in pieces
- cosmopolitan style
- almost 100 manuscripts copied between 1420s–16thc in Spain, Poland, Italy, Scotland
- chansons assimilate national traits
- various styles: three-voice motets and Office pieces used chanson textures
- fauxbourdon: bright consonances of music imported from England; tenor parallel sixths and a middle voice unwritten paralleling melody
- 6/3 sonorities between cadences
- a style in which several voices moved in parallel motion, creating a sweet consonant sound.
- occasional isorhythmic motets for conservative, solemn events: ceremony, state
Resvellies vous
- 1423
- for Italian patron, Malatesta
- French ballade characteristics, rhythmic complications (syncopation), dissonant ornamental notes
- Italian characteristics: smooth melodies, virtuosic vocal melismas on last accented syllables
Se la face ay pale
- court of Savoy
- English influence: short, tuneful, marked phrases
- consonant harmonies
- tenor mass
Missa Se la face ay pale
- based on own ballade tenor: Se la face ay pale
- humanist inspiration of individuality and marking works as one’s own to show to others
- like tributes: Ockeghem and Binchois
- doubled the note of ballade tenor values in the Kyrie, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei
- cantus firmus in Gloria and Credo heard three times: triple values, double, then original
- melody is thus only recognizable on the third hearing
- largescale application of the isorhythmic motet
- first found in “Adoramus te”, Gloria; then “Qui tollis peccata mundi” to “miserere nobis”; last “Cum sancto spiritu”
- builds momentum towards end “Amen”
- layered texture: independence of melodic and rhythmic logic/function
- top two voices (superius and contratenor altus) have smooth melodic contours and occasional motif shared
- contratenor bassus is harmonic foundation
- consonance and dissonance carefully controlled
- most dissonances: suspensions resolving downward
- led to proper practice in 16thc/standardization
- other dissonances pass quickly between beats
- favoring thirds and sixths sounding with octaves, fifths, fourths
Gilles de Bins (Binchois)
- 1400–1460
- harped music; secular songs and chansons
- court of Good from 1420s to 1453
- consistent style based on Suffolk (English-France influence): contenance angloise
- 50+ chansons including great stars of 15thc
- chanson denoted polyphonic settings for French poems
- love poems: fine amour
- rondeaus, De plus en plus
- standard of chansons
De plus en plus
- English influence
- full, consonant harmonies
- triadic melodies
- treble style
- melodic contours
- subtle syncopations
- new cadence formula and expansion; “Landini” embellishment
Franco-Flemish Influence
- Northern composers: French, Franco-Flemish, and Netherlandish
- a generation succeeding DuFay
- music migrated across the Alps to Italy
- 1460–1480 chansons show use of imitative counterpoint betweeen superius and tenorr as well as all three parts
Jean de Ockhegem
- ca. 1420–1427; known in Italy only by reputation
- singer, composeer, mentor
- included Josquin
- “good father” of composers
- born/raised in Hainaut, France
- serrved in Antwerp, Charles I’s chapel, Frrench royal court from 1451 to 1464
- never visited Itaaly, with little Italian influence; “leess cosmopolitan” than Du Fay
- 13 masses with resemblances in sonority
- 4-voice masses
- contrrapuntal texture with independent melodic lines
- Requiem Mass, 5 motets, 21 chanson
- downward eextension of the bass to G, F, and C
- full, thick texturre with a dark, homogenous sonority compared to prior generations
- may have studied with Binchois
- contemporary: Antoine Busnoys
- formes fixes of courtly poetry
- rondeau was particularrly popular; ballade and virelai declined
Missa De plus en plus
- Cylic mass
- Unified movements: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei are based on same borrowed tenor line
- Tenor mass
- Cantus firmus: Binchois’ tenor voice in chanson
Missa prolationum
- Double canon using four prolations of mensural notation
- Each notated voice has two clefs and two mensuration signs
- Observation of symbols
- Soprano: superius in C clef on lowest staff in imperfect time, minor prolation
- Alto: C clef on second staff in perfect time, minor prolation
- Tenor and bass read contrra identically for bottom lines of transcription
“Next Generation”
- Low Country early experience
- widely traveling; cosmopolitan mix of northern and southern elements
- north: serious tone, formal structure, intricate polyphony, subtle flowing rhythm
- south: spontaneity, simple structure, homophonic texture, dancelike rhythm, articulation of south
- Innsbruck, ich muss dich lassen
- music communicated the meaning of the text: vernacular musical stress and comprehension
- less florid, more direct syllabic
- chanson and Italian genres
- 1520: paraphrase and parody techniques dominated
- source continued to be chosen to suit religious holiday/saint, patron, or convey meaning
Odhecaton
- First printed anthology of chansons
- showing northern music’s effects in Italy
- works from 1470–1500 from Burgundy and Franco-Flemish
- Harmonice musices odhecaton A-C, and more anthologies by French/Franco-Flemish composers
- over half of the chansons are 3-voices written in older style; 4-voice chansons show fuller texture, imitative counterpoint, harmonic structure, and greater equality of voices
- replacing triple meter with duple meter
- parody or single voice
Josquin des Prez
- emulated by contemporaries through the late 16thc
- Petrucci’s printing press: recopied and recirculated for a century after his death (vs. few decades)
- attributed works by other composers to him for marketing
- abandoned formes fixes for strophic text and 4-5 line poems
- polyphonic chansons unified by imitation
- structural equality vs. cantus-tenor supremacy
Mille regretz
- similar voices causing homophonic, imitative, homogenous texture
- 4 voices alternating with 2-3 voices
- unique treatment — humanists
Ave Maria… virgo serena
- 1485
- one of best-known pieces
- vernacular accention; each segment has a unique musical treatment with a concluding cadence on C
- mainly constrructed by imitation/point of imitation
- equalized voices
- congruity and similar effect to perspective
- overlapping voices avoid a cadence until full grammatical stop in cadence
- natural declamation
- longer and higher notes for accented syllables
- reinforrcement via music
Missa L’homme arme super voces musicales
- transposition of cantus firmus to successive degrees/musical syllables of scale
- C for Kyrie
- D for Gloria
- mensuration canon in Agnus Dei
Missa Hercules dux Ferrariae
- Ercole/Hercules I: duke of Ferrara and previous employer
- soggretto cavato dalle vocali cantus firmus: subject drawn from vowels of duke’s name and title
- each vowel indicated a corresponding scale syllable
Missa Pange lingua
- one of Josquin’s last masses
- paraphrase mass
- Pange lingua gloriosi plainchant hymn is paraphrased in whole/part in all four voices
- adapted phrases as motives
- treated via points of imitation or declaimed homophonically
- opening of Kyrie, quoted and imitated
- dissolving via paraphrase process
- anticipation of corporis mysterium
Missa Malheur me bat
- parody/imitation mass; based on existing polyphonic work
- borrows from all voices, not just tenor
- reworks characteristic motives, points of imitation, and structure
- parody mass apprroach especially successful when using a new, imitative/homophonic motet/chanson: no voice is a cantus firmus
- resemblancee is typically strongest at ends; skill via variations of material
- resulted in a cyclic mass
Jacob Obrecht
- Dutch; Bergen op Zoom
- died in Italy of plague
- worked in ducal chapel in Ferrara
Henricus Isaac
16th Century
- Focal national styles: secular vocal music
- Vernacular poetry, distinctive forms
- Amateur songs and national style via printing; interest in singing own language
- Spanish villancico, Italian frottola, French chanson: simple, strophic, syllabic, homophonic, easy to sing songs
- Italian madrigal
- Renaissance peak of humanism and individualism
- madrigals influenced French and English music alongside lute song
- first lead of Italians through 17th century
Italy
- after north arrived; other types developed in 16thc
- Petrucci: 13 collections of frottole/laude in 10 years in early century
- no influence from Franco-Flemish, but may have influenced French chanson
Frottola
- early native song
- frottole
- strophic
- four-part
- homophonic
- refrains
- melody in upper voice
- simple diatonic harmonies
- syllabic, rhythmic text
- performed at sophisticated Ferrara/Mantua courrts
- highbrow earthy, satirical street music
Lauda
- laude
- early native song
- strophic
- four-part
- homophonic
- refrains
- melody in upper voice
- simple diatonic harmonies
- syllabic, rhythmic text
- semi-public gatherings for faith; religious and devotional
Villanella