Medieval Flashcards
What did Pope Gregory the Great do that helped with the evolution of music?
He codified liturgical music, creating the Gregorian melodies (over 3,000).
Who composed the Gregorian melodies?
They are marked as anonymous because the belief was that all music came from God, which meant no man could take credit.
What is liturgy?
The set order of the church service.
What are numes?
The notes in plainchant. Squares are long notes. Diamonds are short notes. The staff also has 4 lines and 3 spaces
What is the structure of plainchant?
- Single-line melodies.
- Free flowing and non-metric.
- Follows the inflection of Latin text.
- Gentle contours.
- Contained the predecessor of the major and minor scale.
What does syllabic mean?
1 note per syllable.
What does neumatic mean?
2-3 notes per syllable.
What does melismatic mean?
4+ notes per syllable.
How is the mass of a church structured?
- A reenactment of The Last Supper (The most solemn ritual in the Catholic Church).
- Mass liturgy-Divided into the ordinary and proper.
- Gregorian melodies.
What is the ordinary?
The fixed portions of the service.
What is the proper?
The variable portions that change by the seasons in the church.
What is Kyrie?
- The first chant in the ordinary that is a Greek prayer for mercy.
- In three parts to represent The Trinity.
- Sung a capella.
- Conjunct and wave-like.
- Starts neumatic but becomes melismatic.
Where did most of the music come from during the Medieval period?
Monasteries
Who was Hildegard of Bingen?
A poet-prophet who wrote music similar to Gregorian chants but that had expressive leaps. Her music was melismatic and her poetry contained brilliant imagery and creative language. Wrote Alleluia, O virga mediatrix.
What is Alleluia, O virga mediatrix?
A song written by Hildegard of Bingen as a prayer to the Virgin Mary to be used on special occasions. Three-part structure. Responsorial in nature (leader-group-leader-group). Expressive leaps and melisma.
What is considered to be the single most important development in western music?
Polyphony.
What happened to polyphony during the Romanesque era?
It was notated with precise rhythm and pitch indications.
What happened to polyphony during the Gothic era?
Individual composers began to gain recognition. Although mostly clergy wrote it, music was becoming a profession.
What did Organum do to polyphony?
It added a second voice to Gregorian melodies. The lower voice chants and has extremely long notes. The upper voice is freely composed and moves rapidly.
Who are the Notre Dame composers?
The composers who were at the forefront of creating polyphonic music.
Who was Leonin?
The leader of the Notre Dame composers and the compiler of the Great Book of Organum. The first polyphonic composer whose name we know.
Who was Perotin?
The sucessor of Leonin. Expanded organum to 3 and 4 voices.
What is Gaude Maria virgo?
A three-part polyphony that is a prayer of praise of the Virgin Mary.
What happened to music once a fascination with puzzles and riddles arose?
Music began to be crafted to have hidden meetings that were revealed with careful listening. Was considered to be part of a well-rounded education.
Who were minstrels?
Wandering musicians/entertainers that lived on the fringes of society. Arose as music became secular.
Who were troubadours and trouveres?
French-Poet musicians that live in aristocratic courts and entertain the court with poems and songs about loves, adventure, and politics.
Why was the Ars nova important to the development of western music?
- Led to rhythm, counterpoint, harmony, and meter developments.
- Led to an interest in the regularity and complexity of musical patterns.
- Contained secular themes instead of strictly religious ones.
When was the Ars nova developed and who developed it?
- Early 1300’s in France.
2. Machaut.
Who was Machaut?
Was a cleric-courtier who worked in various French courts and eventually the church as a composer-poet of both sacred and secular (especially chansons) music. Is well-known due to collecting and organizing his works. Introduced new freedom of rhythm, duple and triple meter interplay, and syncopation.
What is Ma fin est mon commencement (My end is my beginning)?
A chanson written by Machaut that is performed as a three-voice a capella with non-imitative polyphony, duple meter, syncopated rhythm, hollow cadences, and long melismas. Contains palindromes and alternating A and B sections.
