lecture 5 early music. terms minnesingers alba pastourelle strophic form estampies organum melismas...
TRANSCRIPT
Lecture 5
Early Music
Terms
• Minnesingers• alba• pastourelle• strophic form• estampies• organum• melismas• motet• Ars antiqua• Ars nova
More Terms
• ars
• isorhythm
• hocket
Objectives
• Hear how elements and structures of music were typically used in the Middle Ages
• Identify and follow principle types of music written in the Middle Ages: plainchant, troubadour songs, Notre Dame organum, and ars nova motets
When?
• 476 C.E. (A.D.) or the fall of the Roman Empire to 1400.
• What do you know about this period?
• Seen anything in movies?
Stuff you should know
• Europe was invaded all the time. Huns, Goths, Vikings, Mongols, Islamic armies.
• European access to international commerce and communication dropped off.
• So the economy shifted to feudalism• Mass migration, invasions, famine, plagues.• Average person lived in primitive brutal
conditions• Greco-Roman advances lost.
General Observation
• Polyphony and music notation were the major musical achievements of the era.
Plainchant
• Roman Catholic Church was the primary patron of all things musical.
• Standardized liturgy led to a standardized was of writing music, called notation.
• By 1000 music was notated.• Singing heightened speech to the glory
of God.
Plainchant Characteristics
• Called “plain” because it is an unaccompanied, monophonic, unmetered, and non-rhythmic.
• Not constructed on major/minor system• Modes around D(Dorian), E(Phrygian),
F(Lydian), G(Mixolydian).• Describe the mood of In Paradisum• Look for characteristic uses of musical
elements.
Characteristics
• Smooth legato melody
• Moderate dynamic level
• Monophony
• Easy tempo
• Mode is Mixolydian
But what is most striking is what is not there . . .
• Lack of meter• Lack of strong cadences• Lack of clear symmetrical phrase
relationships• Creates floating otherworldlyness,
passionate yet serene.
Next . . . Recitation
• Vere dignum
• Simplification of melody.
• Text is more important rather than mood.
• Greater rhythmic feeling.
• Solo.
• Mode is Dorian
Plainchant sequence
• Columba aspexit
• Series of short melodies sung twice. Once by the soloist, once by the choir and modified.
• Drone.
• A A’
Music at Court
• 12th and 13th century.• Troubadours in southern France, Trovères in
northern France and Minnesingers in Germany. All were of noble birth
• Jongleurs were song writers of common station.
• Alba was a “dawn song”.• Pastourelle, seduction song of knight on
horseback and a maiden.
Evolution of Polyphony
• Organum is the earliest type of polyphony (900)
• Tradition plainchant with another person singing a different tune at the same time to the same words.
• Polyphony “evolved” in the period between 1000-1200
Evolution
• Each note accompanied by another single note (counterpoint). Parallel organum. Same interval same melody.
• Then the lines became more independent• Then they started to embellish. The
embellishments became so many that the original tune became long a drawn out.
• Then two counterpoints were added.• Then then it was metered
The two organum guys in Paris, 1163-1235.
• Léonin
• Pérotin
• Lets listen to Alleluia. Diffusa gratia.
• Melisma
Later Medieval Polyphony
• After 1200 polyphony distanced itself from the church.
• Upper lines given their own words. Now they were called a Motet from the french word ‘mot or word.
Ars Nova
• Started around 1300 with “new heights” of sophistication in motet writing.
• This motet writing was known as the “new technique” or Ars Nova and the old was organum or Ars Antiqua.
• Turbulent time in the world• Rhythm was the main pre-occupation of
the composers most notably . . .
Guillaume de Machaut (c.1300-1377)
• The Motet “Quant et moi”• Based on plainchant, played underneath the
singers in this case by a viol.• Isorhythm-successive lengthy passages to
identical rhythms but to different melodies.• Hocket is a hiccup.