Quiz #1 Prep Flashcards
when was medieval period
450-1450
Difference between sacred versus secular chant
Sacred music can only be sung in worship services - if it is not sacred it is secular
Viderunt Omnes - Anonymous
Text = LATIN (function) SACRED
Texture = Monophonic
Ensemble = acapella
Direct Performance
genre = plainchant
Alleluia! O Virga mediatrix - Hildegard of Bingen
Text = Sacred (function) Language (Latin)
Texture = Monophonic
Performance practice (ver 1 is a direct performance with a woman soloist, ver 2 is a responsorial performance)
Ensemble = acapella and women accompanied by harp
A chantar m’er de so qu’ieu non volria - Beatriz de Dia (La Comtessa)
genre=canso
language = occitan - secular
ensemble = female soprano, vielle bowed string, flute
texture - monophonic/homophonic?
Viderunt Omnes - Perotin the great
Genre = four voice florid organum
text = latin (language) sacred
texture = non-imitative polyphony
ensemble = acapella
Sol oritur ocassus - Herrad of Landsburg
Genre = conductus
text = Latin/sacred
texture = two-part parallel motion
form = strophic; three verses - sung the same melody
Responsorial performance
ensemble = acapella
A Virgen Santa Maria todos a loar devemos - Anonymous
genre = cantiga
language = Galician/Portugeuse
texture = notated monophonically - prob performed homophonic-ally
form = strophic
Helas! Pitie envers moy dort si fort
genre = rondeux
texture = non imitative polyphony
language = provencal
ensemble = tenor voice w viol and lute
style = ars subtilior
Agnus Dei From Notre Dame Mass - Guillaume de Machaut
Genre - mass movement (ars nova)
text = latin sacred
texture = non imitative polyphony 4 voices
ensemble = accapella
style = ars nova
Roman catholic liturgy - 2 forms of settings for worship
Divine Office - private to be observed by the cloistered community
in a monastery or convent. 8 daily scheduled services.
Mass - public worship
What is an important structuring principle of the liturgy?
the division of material into those parts of the text that always remain the same (ordinary) and those that change according to the particular day in the
liturgical year (proper) (usually sung by choir or solo).
Mass ordinary’s 5 musical settings of 5 movements
- Kyrie
- Gloria
- Credo
- Sanctus
- Agnus Dei
(most frequently set to music)
Plainchant
text intended for worship services in Mass or the Divine Office
church modes’
the scales (a hierarchical and limited set of musical pitches) that served as the basis for the harmonic language of Medieval music
——-> A mode is a limited collection of pitches that are organized within a piece of music
to emphasize one particular pitch, called the FINAL.
Modal harmony
the modal harmonic system also allows the construction of cadences of various strengths, allowing the motion of the music to accentuate the meaning and structure of the
text that it sets.
a. Cadence: a ‘resting place’ in music, usually on the FINAL in modal music, if it is a
very strong and conclusive cadence. In plainchant, the location and relative strengths
of all cadences were determined by the syntax of the sacred text, which in all cases
existed before the music was composed
Performance Practices
9th century manuscripts also include theoretical treatises that describe various aspects of how to compose and perform this music.
1. Direct performance: solo or unison performance of the music throughout—i.e., one person or multiple people singing the same thing together (not in alternation).
2. Responsorial singing: in which a solo singer or ‘leader’ performs verses of the text and
the choir and/or congregation answers each verse with the following verse or with a response
or refrain. Common responses were the simple Hebrew words amen (an expression of
affirmation) and hallelujah (‘praise Jahweh’), but others were more expansive.
3. Antiphonal singing: in which singers were divided into two groups that take turns singing
phrases of text in alternation (with no individual ‘leader’).
Gradual plainchant and Alleluia plainchant
A gradual is part of the Mass Proper and is sung after the reading or chanting of
the Epistle and before the Alleluia. fr example - viderunt omnes
A plainchant Alleluia, part of the Mass
Proper, usually performed before the reading of the
Gospel to accompany the procession of the minister and
book of Gospels.
12th century developments
- earliest extant manuscripts of secular vocal music in Occitania (Aquitania)
- Medieval secular texts often deal with courtly love and chivalry, as well as war,
weaving, and other aristocratic activities & concerns. Many were humorous, bawdy or
vulgar satires.
- Secular pieces by these troubadours and trouvères functioned as entertainment
in royal courts. - earliest extant manuscripts of instrumental music (various genres of dance)
- A few manuscripts of instrumental music from the 12th
century survive. These manuscripts were recognizable as
instrumental music because (1) there is no text associated
with the music, and (2) the pieces are notated in a manner
that suggests a consistent rhythm or meter (because
nearly all of these early instrumental works are dances).
- As with the 12th century secular vocal works, the
earliest surviving instrumental pieces were notated
monophonically, consisting of only one melody line
(with no text and no specified instrument).
- Nearly all of these earliest extant instrument pieces are dances of some type, for
example the estampie (medieval dance genre).
Start of Notre Dame school in the 12th century
- multi-generational tradition of sacred (and secular) vocal
music originating from composers working at or near the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, beginning about 1170 and continuing throughout the 13th century. - Léonin, Pérotin and the other anonymous composers whose music has survived are
representatives of the era of European music history later known as the ars antiqua,
which is a style term only associated with the music of the 12th and 13th centuries. - Many works in the Medieval genres of organum, motet, conductus, and of course
Mass movements were composed by the composers of the Notre Dame School.
organum (Medieval sacred vocal genre)
a genre of polyphonic music
- created by adding additional
melodic lines (usually one to three) to a pre-existing plainchant melody
Jongleur
illiterate ‘free-lance’
musicians who played by memory
- made a precarious living or supplemented their incomes by
playing music for dances, civic functions, etc.
Vernacular language of royal courts
(Occitan/Provencal)
Hortus deliciarum (Garden of Delights)
one of the earliest
polyphonic sources from a convent.
- Hortus deliciarum was created as a pedagogical tool for her novices. It’s content are for the most part not original, but its scope is unusually encyclopedic and it could (and did) serve as a compendium of 12th
century knowledge.
- wrritenn by Herrad
Strophic form
repetition of musical unit/verse
cantus firmus
Originally, a pre-existing chant melody (therefore, a sacred melody and text) that is
recycled into a new composition; i.e., the chant melody that serves as the basis for a new musical creation is itself called the cantus firmus.
cantus-firmus composition
A general term (not specific enough to be genre) for any piece of polyphonic music
in which one of the melody lines is a cantus firmus; in other words, one of the
melody lines is not original but was borrowed or recycled from the earlier musical
tradition.
Conductus
new settings of sacred Latin poetry in a genre
- Conductus were performed during Mass while the lectionary (a book of sacred writings) was carried from its place of safekeeping to the place from which it was to be read aloud to the congregation.
- mainly by 2 or three voices
- the genre of conductus is associated exclusively with the ars antiqua style, for they were not composed before the 12th century (probably invented circa 1150) and were no longer composed by the late Medieval Era (14th century).
ars antiqua (style term)
meaning ‘the old art’)
- refer to music of 12th, 13th centuries
ars nova (style term)
meaning ‘new art’
- refer to music of 14th century (their own)
ars nova music notation
The great advantage and innovation of ars nova
notation was that any rhythm, no matter how complicated, could be notated. The basic
beat of the music could be divided into two or three subdivisions, and even asymmetrical
divisions of the beat into 5 or 11 subdivisions were possible, making it an extraordinarily
flexible form of notation.
ars subtilior (style term)
Meaning a “more subtle art,” the ars subtilior was a highly refined style of music created in the late 14th century, centered primarily in the secular courts of southern
France, Aragon, and Cyprus.
- often features very complicated rhythms and substantial dissonance.
Chantilly Codex (ca. 1390)
- The most extensive manuscript source for ars subtilior music
- containing 112 polyphonic pieces by a variety of mostly French composers, all composed
between ca. 1350-1400 - Trebor is in this
Cantigas de Santa Maria (ca. 1221-1284)
A manuscript collection of 420 monophonic songs (i.e., poems set to single lines of musical notation) about the Virgin Mary made between about 1270 and 1290 under the direction of King Alfonso X (El Sabio).
- The manuscripts
are famous for their pictorial representations of paired
medieval instruments and performers,
refrain
lines repeated - like the chorus of a song
Guillaume da Machaut (c. 1300-1377)
- a cleric in the Church, a courtier, and
a very widely celebrated poet / musician.
widely known as the greatest musician
of his time; renowned even long after his
death—the foremost composer-poet of
the Ars Nova style. - composed both sacred and secular
poetry and music - composed the earliest extant complete setting of the Mass Ordinary, known to us
today as the Notre Dame Mass
rondeaux
(Medieval secular vocal genre)
Ensemble includes
What instruments and/or voices are included in the ensemble?
genre
- specific category of musical composition, as defined by that composition’s stylistic
traits, taking all relevant aspects into consideration: for instance, a plainchant, an organum, a
string quartet, a piano sonata, a symphony, an opera buffa, a rock opera, a polka Mass
metrical / non-metrical
does it have a beat
Pitch
sound-producing vibration that oscillates (beats) at a definite and prescribed rate
of speed
Texture (3 kinds)
How many individual parts (not individual players) are there in the music, and what is the
relationship between these parts?
- monophonic texture
- polyphonic
- homophonic texture
Text settings (2 kinds)
syllabic: each syllable of the text is set to only one pitch
melismatic: a text setting that contains melismas; a melisma is a single syllable of text that is set to a large number of pitches.
