Midterm Flashcards
What is the basic difference between the repertoire of the troubadours and the trouvères?
- Trouvères were much more formulaic in their writing
What are the formes fixes?
- Repetitive, formulaic patterns in song
- Meant for dance
- Enticing to composers as a challenge
What are the forms of the formes fixes?
- Ballade - aabC*
- Virelai - AbbaA
- Rondeau - ABaabAB
*small letter = repeated music, large letter = repeated music & poetry
How does the German tradition compare to the French?
- Many of the same musical choices
- Germans wrote Crusade Songs
How does Walter von der Vogelweide’s “Palastinalied” compare to “A chantar”?
- Same mode
- Both are syllabic
- Primarily stepwise motion
- Similar ornamentations
- Aab (aab?) stanza form
- Range varies at different parts of the song
What is the Music Enchiridis?
- Contains the earliest surviving examples of polyphony
When does the Musica Enchiriadis date from?
- Second half of the 9th centruy
What type of organum is in the Musica Enchiriadis?
- Parallel organum
What is parallel organum?
- The doubling of a melody at a perfect interval
- Perfect intervals were used for their simple mathematic ratios
- May have originated from the need to accommodate young boys with high voices
What was the importance of Paris in the 12th century?
- An intellectual center of the time
- A large city for the time
- University of Paris
- King became politically…?
- Gothic architecture (Notre Dame)
What is the Magnus Liber Organi?
- “The Big Book of Organum”
- Contains the polyphony for the church year at Notre Dame
Who was Leonin?
- Author of the Magnus Liber Organi
- A poet devoted to the church
When did Leonin live?
- fl.* 1160-1190
*flourit - “he flourished”
What are the two types of polyphony written by Leonin?
- Melismatic (florid) organum
- Sustained tenor with a melisma over every note
- Discant clausula
- Rhythmic modes with 2-3 notes over every tenor note
Leonin wrote polyphony based on what types of chants?
- Responsorial chants
- Graduals, alleluias, office responsories
Leonin wrote polyphony for which sections of chants?
- Soloist sections
Why is the voice with the chant called the tenor?
- tenere: to hold
- “Holds onto” the chant
Why does Leonin alter between chant and polyphony?
- The choir did not sing polyphony
When were the different styles of polyphony used and why?
- Melismatic organum - when the original chant was syllabic
- Maintained interest
- Discant clausula - when the original chant was melismatic
- Prevented the chant from becoming too long
What was the major development in rhythmic notation in the second half of the 12th century?
- Franco de Cologne described and codified shapes to distinguish note length
How does the polyphony of Perotin compare to Leonin’s?
What parallels exist between the architecture of Notre Dame in Paris and the early polyphony in the late 12th and early 13th centuries?
*
Why is a motet called a motet?
- “mo” - French for “word”
From what and how did the motet develop?
- Developed from discant clausula
- Formed by textually troping the chant
What are the primary features of the motet in the first half of the 13th century?
How did the motet change in the second half of the 13th century?
- Additional text(s) added on top of chant
- Fewer breaks - continuous motion through staggered phrases
- Greater independence in voices
- Chant fragments repeated later in piece
Who is Franco of Cologne and what were his major contributions?
- Music theoriest
- Advocated the use of shapes to distinguish note length
- Described and codified shapes in a treatise
What is the historical background to the 14th centruy?
- The church was losing authority
- Criticized for being too political/indulgent/corrupt
- Pope moved from political instability to Southern France
- Division lead to the appointment of a 2nd and 3rd pop in Italy - Papal Schism
- 100 Years War - England encroaching on French territory
- The Black Death - bubonic & neumonic plauges cut through Europe in 1348
- Half of the population died
- Remarkably cold/rainy weather disrupted agriculture and the economy
Why is the 14th century referred to as the “Ars Nova”?
- “New Art” - new musicial ideas introduced
What is new about Ars Nova?
- Introduction of duple division
- Development of meter
Why is the life of de Vitry typical of late medieval composers?
- Musician, theorist, and composer
- An intellectual (astronomer)
- Educated through the church
- Held a position of authority in the church (bishop)
- Political advisor to the King of France
What is an isorhythmic motet?
- The standard method for organizing a motet
- Employs a repeated rhythmic pattern, talea, and color
What is a talea?
- A rythmic portion of a pattern set to chat
- Usually found in the tenor
What is a color?
- The melodic pattern in the tenor
- A section of the chant that is repeated
How is de Vitry’s motet “In arboris” organized?
- Talea repeated 6 times
- Color repeated 2 times
- Shifts to perfect mood at the end of each talea
What types of compositions did Guillame de Machaut compose?
- Primarily secular songs about his personal interests and courtly love
- Used the formes fixes
Why does Machaut’s “Mass of Notre Dame” have historical significance?
- Wrote polyphony for movements of the Mass Ordinary
- All four voices sing the same text
- All part move independently
- Very rhythmically active
What is the Ars Subtilior?
- Fascination with technique
- Taking given procedures to new extremes
- Accompanied by intricate manuscripts, red and black notes, and new notation
What style features are associated with the Ars Subtilior?
- Rhythmic complexity
- Voices move in contrasting meters and conflicting groupings
- Beats are subdivided differently
- Phrases are broken and suspended
- Harmonies are blurred through rhythmic disjunction
How are style features associated with the Ars Subtilior evident in Caserta’s “En remirant”?
- The phrase in the cantus is shifted off the beat by two eighth notes in the beginning
- Syncopations produced across beats
- Duple divisions create hemiolas with the contratenor
- Notes in different voices rarely coincide - very independent
- Mensuration signs change frequently
What is the Trecento?
- The fourteenth century in Italy
What are the general differences between French and Italian music of the 14th century?
- Italian music was rarely notated
- Tenor line is untexted and in slower motion
What is a caccia?
- Italian for “hunt”
- Trecento form featuring two voices in canon over a free, untexted tenor
Who is Landini?
- Leading composer of ballate and foremost Italian musician of the Trecento
- Wrote 140 ballate
- Organist and chaplain of a monastery
