Exam 1

Question 1

Alleluia

Answer 1

A highly melismatic responsorial chant from the mass. Alleluias are commonly identified by the first few words of their verses, such as Alleluia Justus ut palma.

The form of the alleluia is complicated:
- Alleluia (sung by the soloist)
- Alleluia + jubilus (sung by the choir)
- Verse (sung by the soloist, with the choir joining at the very end)
- Alleluia + jubilus (sung by the choir)

Question 2

Mass

Answer 2

The major service of the Catholic church, commemorating Christ’s sacrifice. The mass is divided into the proper (items with texts that change from day to day) and the ordinary (items with unchanging texts).

Question 3

Office

Answer 3

A series of religious services spread throughout the day that involve prayer, readings and the recitation of psalms. The daily cycle of services consists of Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline.

Question 4

Neume

Answer 4

The name for a musical sign in plainchant notation which designates a very small melodic gesture sung to a single syllable. Standard neumes contained from one to three pitches, though some conglomerate neumes had four, five, or even six pitches.

Question 5

Mode

Answer 5

a system of classifying pieces based on the organization of pitches. In the middle Ages, mode was defined through a combination of range and final. If melodies were above the final, they were authentic, if they ranged both above and below the final, they were plagal. Mode also had melodic implications–each mode had characteristic intervals and musical gestures.

Question 6

Recitation Tone

Answer 6

A recitational chant is syllabic and has a melody that repeats a single pitch; melodic inflections (up, down or both) provide punctuation.

Question 7

Cadence

Answer 7

The end of a musical phrase. A cadence typically has some kind of closing gesture and a concluding note; its finality is judged by the relationship of the concluding note to the final (that is, to the central pitch of the piece).

Question 8

Syllabic

Answer 8

A musical setting is syllabic if there is only one note for each syllable of the text.

Question 9

Neumatic

Answer 9

A musical setting is neumatic if there are two to seven notes per syllable. (In practice, some syllables of a neumatic chant will likely receive only one note.)

Question 10

Melismatic

Answer 10

A musical setting is commonly deemed melismatic if it has two or more melismas and if the rest of the setting has several notes per syllable.

Question 11

Francesco Landini - Birth and Death

Answer 11

A) 1325-1397

Question 12

Madrigal

Answer 12

An Italian secular genre using the form a a b or a a a b. If polyphonic, the top line is often more florid than the bottom. Not related to the sixteenth-century madrigal.

Question 13

Caccia

Answer 13

A fourteenth-century canonic piece (literally, “chase”) on an Italian text; the text often deals with hunting or nature and may include bird calls, hunting fanfares, etc.

Question 14

Ballata

Answer 14

a fourteenth-century Italian secular genre which follows the form A b b a A; related to the French virelai.

Question 15

Ars subtilior

Answer 15

A modern term referring to music from late fourteenth- and early fifteenth-century France. Characteristics include intricate rhythms, exotic harmonies, and erudite poetry.

Question 16

Canon

Answer 16

Literally, “rule”; a technique in which one line is repeated in its entirety by another following a pre-established rule (e.g. “wait four beats then play the melody starting at the same pitch”). The instructions do not have to be written out–they can be left as a puzzle for the performer to solve.

+) In music, a canon is a contrapuntal (counterpoint-based) compositional technique that employs a melody with one or more imitations of the melody played after a given duration (e.g., quarter rest, one measure, etc.).

Question 17

Rondeau

Answer 17

The most long-lasting of the French formes-fixes, cultivated in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries; it has the form A B a A a b A B, where a capital letter designates a refrain text and lower case designates new text. Each of the two musical sections had a refrain text which came back at the end of the poem, but the two halves of the refrain had to be separable, for in the middle of the poem three statements of the opening music appeared together. Thus, the medial cadence marking the end of the first (A) section had to be able to lead forward to the contrasting B material or lead back to the beginning of the first section. Poets and musicians alike enjoyed playing with the subtle reinterpretation of material over the course of a piece generated by this elaborate structure.

Question 18

Virelai

Answer 18

One of the French formes fixe, cultivated in the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. A strophic piece with an internal structure of A b b a A, where a capital letter designates a repetition of both text and music and lower case designates new text. The virelai typically had three stanzas; its refrain could easily lead into the new text of successive stanzas or serve to conclude the piece.

Question 19

Ballade

Answer 19

One of the French formes fixe, cultivated in the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. A strophic piece with an internal structure of a a b X where a capital letter designates a refrain text and lower case designates new text. Ballades could be love songs, but were frequently so-called occasional pieces, with texts designed to fit a particular state occasion.

Question 20

Formes fixes

Answer 20

Standardized musical and poetic forms (the virelai, ballade and rondeau) used in French secular music sporadically during the thirteenth century and consistently during the fourteenth and early-to-mid fifteenth centuries.

Question 21

Double-leading tone cadence

Answer 21

A) The single defining characteristic of Ars Nova
B)

Question 22

Occursus

Answer 22

Cadence to unison

Question 23

Hocket

Answer 23

A) A late-thirteenth- and fourteenth-century technique in which two or more voices fill in one another’s silences to make a composite melody. The term may also be applied to a musical work which relies extensively on the technique, such as Machaut’s Hoquetus David.
B) From latin for “hiccup”
C) Sounds like the voices are jumping between each other

Question 24

Guillaume de Machaut - Birth and Death

Answer 24

A) 1300 - 1377

Question 25

Talea

Answer 25

A rhythmic pattern (longer than a motive) which is repeated exactly in an isorhythmic tenor. One refers to the “number of talea” when determining the structure of the isorhythmic voice. The talea may be augmented or diminished as long as the rhythmic proportions stay the same.

Question 26

Color .b

Answer 26

A) A pattern of pitches (longer than a motive) in an isorhythmic voice which is repeated verbatim one or more times, though perhaps in different rhythms. One refers to the number of “statements of the color.”
B) Timbre

Question 27

Isorhythm

Answer 27

A technique for musical organization used during the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries in which the tenor repeats a certain pattern of pitches (the “color”) and a certain rhythmic pattern (the “talea”). The color and talea may be different lengths. Used commonly in the motet; also used in some mass settings, for example in the Messe de Notre Dame by Guillaume de Machaut.

Question 28

Perfection .b

Answer 28

A) Mathematical
B) Using perfect intervals (unisons, thirds, fourths, fifths, and octaves)

Question 29

Roman de Fauvel

Answer 29

The Roman de Fauvel is not merely a lavishly decorated satirical poem. It is also a beautiful musical manuscript! In all, it contains 169 pieces of music.

Question 30

Ars nova

Answer 30

A term used to designate the music of fourteenth-century France; characteristics include the use of duple as well as triple meter, the use of the minim (a very short note value) and in some works the use of isorhythm. The term was also used as the title for a treatise reflecting the teachings of Philippe de Vitry.

Question 31

Petronian notation

Answer 31

A notation system for motets which divides the breve into more than three shorter notes, following the notational innovations of Petrus de Cruce (fl. ca. 1290). Effectively, this results in a patter song in which the top voice sings as fast as it can, the motetus moves somewhat more slowly and the tenor seems to move in slow motion.

Question 32

Franconian notation

Answer 32

A notation system for motets which capitalizes on the mensural notation of Franco of Cologne (fl. ca. 1250-1280), showing a shift away from modal rhythm. The voices are usually rhythmically stratified, with each voice in the texture somewhat faster than the one below.

Question 33

Mensural notation

Answer 33

A system of rhythmic notation (late thirteenth century - ca. 1600) in which each shape stands for a particular rhythmic value. The commonly used noteshapes were the long, breve, semibreve and (by the fourteenth century) minim. Each value could be worth either two or three of the next value down and was called imperfect or perfect, respectively. Mensural music is distinct from music employing the rhythmic modes in which the context-dependent notation limited rhythmic flexibility, and from unmeasured music in which no set rhythmic values were employed.

Question 34

Cauda

Answer 34

The second section of a troubadour canso; in the cauda, a composer is free to create whatever internal structure seems appropriate to the poetry. The cauda ends with a conclusive clos cadence, and may involve musical rounding (repeating the music of the clos phrase of the pes as its final phrase, for example).

Question 35

Perotin

Answer 35

A) Member of the Notre Dame School
B) Wrote organum
C) Revised Leonin’s work

Question 36

Leonin

Answer 36

A) Member of the Notre Dame School
B) Wrote organum

Question 37

Polytextual motet

Answer 37

A) Secular street music where everyone sings something different

Question 38

Motet

Answer 38

From the French term “mot” (word). The medieval motet is a polyphonic genre which originated in the thirteenth century in which the upper voice or voices are texted (usually syllabically) and the bottom voice, the tenor, is untexted. The tenor is usually an excerpt from a solo section of chant (though a few are drawn from secular models), but the excerpt has been provided with rhythm and may be repeated or manipulated. Though early motets are sacred, by the end of the thirteenth century the newly-created texts of the top lines often deal with secular topics such as love.

Question 39

Clausula

Answer 39

A passage (or several passages) composed as a replacement for a segment of Notre- Dame organum. Thus, it employs a short excerpt of plainchant in the tenor and new material in the organal voice(s). Such clausulas often employed rhythmic modes (using copula or discant). Since the tenor usually came from a melismatic portion of the plainchant, the clausula seemingly had no text (or only one or two syllables). The clausula could be plugged back into the original organum setting, but evidently may also have had an independent musical existence. The clausula was the immediate forerunner of the early motet.

Question 40

Rhythmic modes

Answer 40

Rhythmic patterns governing the performance of measured sections of Notre Dame organum and, by extension, polyphonic conductus and early motets (late twelfth-thirteenth centuries). All patterns employ triple meter. In the following short-hand descriptions, “Dah” is worth three units, “duh” two units and “dee” is a single unit; while the vertical stroke act like modern-day barlines showing groupings of three beats.

mode 1: trochaic (duh dee) – duh dee | duh dee | duh dee | ….
mode 2: iambic (dee duh) – dee duh | dee duh | dee duh | ….
mode 3: dactylic (Dah, dee duh) – Dah | dee duh | Dah | dee duh | ….
mode 4: anapestic (dee duh, Dah) – dee duh | Dah | dee duh | Dah | ….
mode 5: spondaic (Dah, Dah) – Dah | Dah | Dah | ….
mode 6: tribrachic (dee dee dee) – dee dee dee | dee dee dee | ….

+) Written in 6/8

Question 41

Discant

Answer 41

A) The top voice in a polyphonic texture; the label implies that the voice is composed against another important line, usually the tenor.
B) A style of Notre Dame organum in which the all voices are measured (following the rhythmic modes).

Question 42

Tenor

Answer 42

A) A structural voice near or at the bottom of the musical texture in polyphonic works. During the Middle Ages, the tenor is the part which is most likely to have borrowed material (a plainchant excerpt, for instance). It is also the part which is most likely to employ melodic repetition or to use isorhythm. It also provides part of the contrapuntal harmonic foundation for compositions;

B) A high man’s voice; also, a voice part which falls into that register. During the fourteenth century, the “tenorista” was often a highly-paid soloist.

C) a reciting tone for a particular mode, that is, a note that can be repeated as many times as is necessary for the number of syllables in a given line of text. The tenor for each mode is included on the table of modes.

Question 43

Notre Dame School

Answer 43

A) School of thought for writing organum
B) Members included Leonin and Perotin

Question 44

Quadruplum .b

Answer 44

A) In organum, a piece which has a fourth “quadruplum” line can be called an “organum quadruplum” or “quadruplum” for short. Perotin wrote two quadrupla: “Viderunt omnes” and “Sederunt.”
B) The fourth voice to be composed; in organum and the early motet, it is found above the triplum, duplum/motetus, and tenor.

Question 45

Triplum

Answer 45

A) In organum, a piece which has a third “triplum” line can be called an “organum triplum” or “triplum” for short. Perotin wrote a number of tripla.

B) The third voice to be composed. In organum and the early motet, it may share the range of the duplum/motetus, but usually has a higher tessitura (being the top note at cadences, for instance). In the fourteenth century, however, the triplum is often a countermelody which is found above the primary cantus line at the top of the texture regardless of the total number of voices.

Question 46

Duplum

Answer 46

In organum, the voice above the tenor line which was the second to be composed. In early motets, this line is often called the “motetus.”

Question 47

Magnus Liber Organi

Answer 47

A collection of organa for various special occasions throughout the church year, said to have been composed by Leonin (fl. ca. 1163-90) with additions by Perotin (fl. ca. 1200)

Question 48

Vox organalis

Answer 48

A new line added to an existing plainchant in organum

Question 49

Vox principalis

Answer 49

A) Original plainchant line
+) Term used in organum

Question 50

Organum

Answer 50

A polyphonic composition based on plainchant. In organum, a new line (the vox organalis) is added to the original plainchant line (the vox principalis) and uses the same text as the original. In settings of organum, sections of a chant that were originally sung by the choir remain as plainchant, so an alternation of polyphony and monophony results.

Question 51

Trobar clus

Trobar clar

Answer 51

A) Troubadour poetry that had a hidden, deeper meaning

B) Troubadour poetry that had a clear meaning

Question 52

Canso .b

Answer 52

A) A strophic troubadour song with the musical form a a b (pes pes cauda) for each stanza. The pes has two phrases, the first inconclusive or “open” and the second conclusive or “closed”; music of the pes is then repeated to new text. The cauda is musically free, though in some cases the composer rounded the form by repeating musical material at the end of the cauda. Following the last complete stanza of poetry, the composer may include a partial stanza known as the envoy.

B) Any troubadour song.

Question 53

Cantiga

Answer 53

Monophonic Spanish vernacular songs from the thirteenth century. Many are devoted to the Virgin Mary.

Question 54

Trouvere

Answer 54

A) Contemporaries to troubadours
B) Sang in northern French dialects
+) Troubadours sang in southern French dialects
C) Trouvère chansons–which were strophic–often followed the internal a a b form of the troubadour canso, but could also be through-composed (without any set musical structure) or follow one of the formes fixes.

Question 55

Trobairitz

Answer 55

A) Female troubadour

Question 56

Troubadour

Answer 56

A) Courtly poet-composers in Southern France

Question 57

Sequence .b

Answer 57

A) a melodic pattern that is repeated at successively higher (or successively lower) pitches.

B) A syllabic genre which follows the Alleluia in the mass. Both text and music were newly composed. The typical sequence has a deliberately irreglar structure, in which a series of couplets of various lengths are combined. Musically, this structure can be summarized as a b b c c d d … The presence of internal subdivisions within each line and the tendency towards motivic unity normally complicate the structure, and some sequences dispense with the couplet structure altogether. Most sequences were banned by the Council of Trent (1545-63), and only five survive in modern-day practice.

Question 58

Hildegard von Bingen - Birth and Death

Answer 58

A) 1098-1179