Music History I

1
Music History I

• Lecture Notes 11

2
The French Ars Nova

• New art to composers and theorists of the 14th
  century
• Poets wrote in the vernacular
• Composers gained a new level of prominence
• Rhythmic flexibility became a central feature of
  the music

3
Guillaume de Machaut

• French poet/composer
• As a member of the clergy, he held a position as
  canon
• Duties included singing in the Offices and a
  minimum number of Masses in a given year
• Facts learned from his poetry (see my syllabus,
  16.25, p. 29)

4
More About the Ars Nova

• Regional differences in musical style began to
  emerge in the 14th century
• More music with vernacular texts
• Composers identified by name
• Vitry treatise mostly about rhythmic notation
• Alla breve a vestige of early 14th c. mensural
  notation

5
Francesco Landini

• Machauts younger Italian contemporary whose
  music was included in the Squarcialupi Codex

6
Mensural Notation

• Imperfect Tempus/Major Prolatio
• 6/8 in modern notation

7
Le Roman de Fauvel

• The Fauvel acrostic
• Flattery (Flaterie)
• Avarice (Avarice, greed)
• Villainy (Uialanie)
• Inconstancy (Variété), fickleness
• Envy (Envie)
• Cowardice (Lacheté)

8
An Example of Isorhythm

• Garrit Gallus/In nova fert by Vitry
• The talea in the tenor mm. 1, 26, 51, 76, 101,
  126 (i.e. 6 times)
• The color mm. 1 and 76 (2 times)
• Range of
• Tenor (f d)
• Duplum (b c)
• Triplum (a c)

9
Messe de Nostre Dame

• Tune Source for the tenor the plainchant Kyrie
  of Cunctipotens Genitor Deus (Ex. 9, p. 19)
• Isorhythmic features
• Tenor first Kyrie t7,c1 Christe t3,c1
• Contratenor Kyrie t2,c1 t3 t2
• Melodic contour (unusual intervals)
• Machauts use of the double leading tone cadence

10
Pope John XXII on the Ars Nova

• Promoted wantonness at the expense of devotion
• Two many notes of small value
• Leave plainchant melodies alone
• Opposed hocket technique
• Freely composed parts patterned after secular
  melodies
• Lack of strict adherence to church modes
• More lenient on feast days and solemn celebrations

11
The Machaut Ballade

• Je puis trop bien ma dame comparer
• Overall form AAB (Bar Form)
• Rhyme scheme ababccdD
• Ballade one of three fixed forms of secular
  music of the 14th century
• The other two rondeau and virelai

12
Ma fin est mon commencement

• Vocal parts reflective of the title
• mm. 21 40 a retrograde of mm. 1 20 in the
  contratenor cantus and tenor in retrograde of
  each other form ABaAabAB

13
Ars subtilior

• Composers saw this music as an object of
  contemplation to challenge the intellect as well
  as the art of sound.

14
Machauts First

• The first composer to produce a polyphonic
  setting of the five sections of the Ordinary of
  the Mass

15
The Great Schism

• Began in 1378 and ended in 1417
• Split in the Catholic Church the result of which
  was rival popes, one in Rome, the other in
  Avignon
• Counsel of Pisa (1409) divided the schism three
  ways for a short time

16
Tout par compas

• Each voice begins at 11 oclock on each circle
  almost noon on the inner circle (p. 87 in HMWC
  21 in the HMWC anthology, pp. 38-40)

17
The Caccia by Firenze

• Where does the composer use the device of
  imitation? (Ex. 24 in the HMWC anthology,
  beginning on p. 43)

18
Sumer is icumen in

• Oldest known canon in Western music shows the
  English predilection for thirds composed ca. 1250

19
Composer playing the portative

• Pictured in the illumination on p. 90 of HMWC
• And his name is?

20
Instruments in Medieval Music

• Most of our information comes from written
  accounts and visual images like sculpture and
  paintings

21
Psalm 150

• One biblical source to justify the use of
  instruments in ancient time.
• What did you find?

22
Instrument Classifications

• Strings
• Vielle, rebec, harp, lute, psaltery
• Winds
• Shawm, recorder, flute (panpipes, whistles,
  double pipes), trumpet, slide trumpet
• Percussion
• Bells, cymbals, timbrels, tambourines, many drums
• Keyboard
• Organ (portative positive), hurdy-gurdy
• High and low had to do with volume