Medieval Period Exam Terms

Question 1

courtly love

Answer 1

An idealized love for an unattainable woman who is admired from a distance. Chief subject of the troubadours and trouveres.

Question 2

rondeau

Answer 2

French forme fixes with a single stanza and the musical form AbaAabAB; capital letters indicating the lines of refrain and lower case letters indicating new text set to music from the refrain.

Question 3

Minnesinger

Answer 3

A poet-composer of medieval Germany who wrote monophonic songs, particularly about love, in Middle High German.

Question 4

troubadour

Answer 4

A poet-composer of southern France who wrote monophonic songs in Occitan (langue d’oc) in the twelfth or thirteenth century.

Question 5

trobairitz

Answer 5

a female troubadour

Question 6

trouvere

Answer 6

A poet-composer of norther France who wrote monophonic songs in Old French ( langue d’oil) in the twelfth or thirteenth century.

Question 7

trope

Answer 7

Addition to an existing chant, consisting of 1) words and melody; 2) a melisma; or 3) words only, set to an existing melisma or other melody.

Question 8

hymn

Answer 8

Song to or in honor of a god. In the Christian tradition, song of praise sung to God.

Question 9

monophonic

Answer 9

A type of texture consisting of a single unaccompanied melodic line.

Question 10

cantus firmus

Answer 10

in Latin “fixed melody” an existing melody, often taken from a Gregorian chant, on which a new polyphonic work is based; used especially for melodies presented in long notes.

Question 11

melisma

Answer 11

A long melodic passage sung to a single syllable of text.

Question 12

florid organum

Answer 12

Twelfth-century Style of two-voice polyphony in which the lower voice sustains relatively long notes while the upper voice sings note groups of varying length above each note of the lower voice.

Question 13

parallel organum

Answer 13

Type of polyphony in which an added voice moves in exact parallel to a chant, normally a perfect fifth below it. Either voice may double the octave.

Question 14

free organum

Answer 14

Style of organum in which the organal voice moves in a free mixture of contrary, oblique, parallel, and similar motion against the chant (and usually above it).

Question 15

plainsong

Answer 15

A unison unaccompanied song, particularly a liturgical song to a Latin text.

Question 16

liturgical drama

Answer 16

Dialogue on a sacred subject, set to music and usually performed with action, and linked to the liturgy.

Question 17

neume

Answer 17

A sign used in notation of chant to indicate a certain number of notes and general melodic direction (in early forms of notation) or particular pitches (in later forms).

Question 18

motet

Answer 18

polyphonic vocal composition; the specific meaning changes over time. The earliest examples add a text to an existing discant clausula. Thirteenth-century examples feature one or more voices, each with its own sacred or secular text in Latin or French, above a tenor drawn from chant or other melody. Most Fourteenth-century and some Fifteenth-century examples feature isorhythm and may include a contrtenor.

Question 19

bar form

Answer 19

Song form in which the first section of melody is sung twice with different texts (the two stilles) and the remainder (the abgesang) is sung once. AAB

Question 20

polyphony

Answer 20

Music or musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody.

Question 21

clausula

Answer 21

In Notre Dame polyphony, a self-contained section of an organum that closes with a cadence; interchangeable with substitute examples of this form and are typically in discant style (both parts move about the same rate).

Question 22

reciting tone

Answer 22

The second most important note in a mode (after the final), often emphasized in chant and used for reciting text in a psalm tone.

Question 23

Papal Schism

Answer 23

The Babylon Captivity was followed by this period from 1378-1417 when there were rival claims to the papacy in Rome, Avignon and later Pisa.

Question 24

musica ficta

Answer 24

In early music, notes outside the standard gamut; in polyphony of the 14th and through the 16th century, the practice of raising or lowering by a semi-tone (half step) the pitch of a written note, particularly at a cadence, for the sake of a smoother harmony or motion of the parts.

Question 25

Ars Nova

Answer 25

Style of polyphony from fourteenth-century France distinguished from earlier styles by anew system of rhythmic notation that allowed duple or triple division of note values, syncopation, and great rhythmic flexibility.

Question 26

color

Answer 26

In an Isorythmic composition, a repeated melodic pattern, as opposed to the repeating rhythmic pattern.

Question 27

talea

Answer 27

“cutting” IN isorhythmic composition, and extended rhythmic pattern repeated one or more times, usually in the tenor. Compare color.