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
    • followed Noram Conquest
  • fragmented Italy and Spain over rulers (inc. pope) and Christian v Muslim territories
    • Crusades
• 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

1. music consisted of a single melodic line (monophony)
2. vocal melody was linked to rhythm and meter of text
3. music was improvised according to convention (not notated)
4. philosophical connections to nature, order, and thought
5. scientifically based acoustical theory (Greek)
6. scales used tetrachords (Greek)
7. 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

• 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
  • 1250: Sumer is icumen in
• 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

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

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

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
  • Nuper rosarum flores

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