Untitled Deck Flashcards
The Middle Ages and Renaissance
“Hearing” from The Lady and the Unicorn tapestry (late fifteenth century), Cluny
Museum Paris, France
Music as Commodity and Social Activity
Nothing exists without music, for the universe itself is said to have been framed by a kind of
harmony of sounds, and the heaven itself revolves under the tone of that harmony.”
Music as Commodity and Social Activity
Music as Commodity and Social Activity
Instead of Gothic
cathedrals and fortified castles, palaces and villas were built. Realism pervaded the visual arts, as
in Michelangelo’s David and da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.
Artwork:
humanism
humanism - the focus being on human fulfillment on earth
rather than on the hereafter
Musicians in Medieval and Renaissance Society
Musicians were supported by the church, city, and state as well as royal and aristocratic courts.
It was a good time for employment for musicians in such fields as choirmasters, singers,
organists, instrumentalists, copyists, composers, teachers, instrument builders, and, by the
sixteenth century, music printers. The merchant class became a new group of music patrons.
Most cultivated middle- and upper-class individuals were amateur musicians. Music literacy
became more widespread as a result of music printing.
Voices and Worship: Tradition and Individuality in Medieval Chant
Early Church music is an outpouring of the spiritual nature of the Middle Ages. Liturgy refers to
the set order of church services
Gregorian chant
Gregorian chant (also plainsong
or plainchant). These chants consist of a single-line melody that is monophonic in texture
(meaning that it lacks harmony and counterpoint), non-metric, and set to a sacred Latin text.
Voices and Worship: Tradition and Individuality in Medieval Chant
.
Chant melodies fall into three main classes, according to the ratio of syllables to notes.
A syllabic
setting consists of one note per syllable of text.
neumatic
neumatic setting will have up to five or six
notes sung to a syllable of text
melismatic setting .
melismatic setting has many notes per syllable of text.
Chants
were originally handed down by oral tradition until the number increased to the point
where singers needed help remembering the shapes of the melodies. The first system of notation
consisted
neumes,
neumes, which were little ascending and descending symbols written above the
words to suggest the contour of the melody. Neumes eventually evolved into a system of
musical notation consisting of square notes on a four-line staff. More than 3,000 chant melodies
survive.
Artwork: Manuscript illumination of Pope Gregory the Great dictating to his scribe Peter. The
dove, representing the Holy Spirit, is on his shoulder.
Early Church Modes
Western music used a variety of scale patterns known as modes. This modal system
preceded the major-minor system.
modes
This modal system
preceded the major-minor system.
Tradition and Individuality in Medieval Chant
Roman Catholic Church - The Mass
services of the Roman Catholic Church can be divided into two categories: the daily Offices,
which are a series of services celebrated at various hours of the day i
Proper
with texts that vary from
day to day
Ordinary,
with texts that remain the same in every Mass.
cloister
is a place for religious seclusion that allows an individual to withdraw from secular
society
monastery
(men) or convent
(women)
and devote themselves to
prayer, scholarship, preaching, charity, or healing.
Hildegard of Bingen
(tenth child of a noble couple who promised her to the
service of the church as a tithe.)
in 1150. Her major works include poetry collections
music resembles
that of Gregorian chant but contains many expressive leaps
Hildegard of Bingen: Alleluia, O virga mediatrix (Alleluia, O mediating branch)
Alleluia plainchant, from the Proper of the Mass on feasts for the Virgin Mary
Hildegard set many of her texts to music. Her poetry is filled with imagery and creative
language. Some songs praise local saints, others praise the Virgin Mary, celebrating her purity.
Attached is a listening guide to an Alleluia
Minstrels
(were a class of musicians who wandered among
courts and towns, playing instruments, dancing, singing, juggling, presenting tricks and animal
acts, and performing plays)
France, the trouvères from northern France, and the Minnesingers from Germany.
The poetry praised the virtues of the age of chivalry: valor, honor, nobility of character, and
quest for perfect love
Ars nova
was a musical style that appeared at the beginning of the fourteenth century in France
and Italy. It reflected changes in rhythm, meter, harmony, and counterpoint from its predecessor
Ars Antiqua,
(which was a term that came to describe the Notre Dame school polyphony.
Artwork: Manuscript illumination of the poet-musician Guillaume de Machaut.)
Guillaume de Machaut: Puis qu’en oubli
Guillaume de Machaut: Puis qu’en oubl
The poetic forms – rondeau, ballade or virelai established the formal
scheme of the chansons. The text of this chanson is rondeau form (fixed form) and speaks of the
pain of unrequited love. The low melodic range establishes the depths of despair. Listen for a
conjunct low range melody
The meter is slow triple
with gentle syncopation. The harmony contains open, hollow cadences at phrase endings. There
are two sections A and B in repetitious patterns.
Singing in Friendship:
Singing in Friendship: The Renaissance Madrigal
lute
(or keyboard. The study
of music was considered to part of the proper upbringing for a young girl; thus women began to
have prominent roles in music performance)
secular genres arose which were the
result of the fusion of poetry and music: the chanson and the madrigal.
Word painting
is the
musical depiction of word
madrigal
(is a vocal piece set to a short love poem of a lyric or reflective nature either with or
without instruments.)
the most important secular music genre
of the Renaissance, flourishing in the Italian courts
Arcadelt: Il bianco e dolce cigno
(Listen for lyrical, conjunct lines with a focus on the highest voice. The meter is duple with
simple movement, and the harmonies are mostly consonant, though there are some instances of
chromaticism and dissonance. The texture is homophonic with imitative entries on the last line.
It is through-composed until the last line. This emotional text is a 10-line poem by Alfonso
d’Avalos, set expressively with some melisma for four voices, a cappella. References to death
in madrigal poetry were understood as erotic, which in that light, gives the text a whole new
meaning.)
The English Madrigal
The English continued to develop the Italian madrigal. The first book of English madrigals was a
translation of an Italian collection called Música transalpina (Music from beyond the Alps).
English composers eventually wrote their own madrigals, some in the Italian style, and some
with a simpler text and lighter style. Humorous madrigals were often written with refrain
syllables such as “fa-la-la.”
John Farmer (c. 1570–1601)
was active as an organist and master of choirboys at Christ Church
in Dublin. He moved to London in 1599 where his only collection of four-voice madrigals was
published. Following is a listening guide to John Farmer’s famous madrigal: Fair Phyllis
Farmer: Fair Phyllis
John Farmer’s Fair Phyllis has a pastoral text, lively rhythms, and good humor. The poem is
about a shepherdess (Phyllis) who while tending her sheep is found by her lover Amyntas and a
happy ending follows. There are a number of examples of word painting in this work, including
some which are illustrated here. “Fair Phyllis sitting all alone” is sung by a solo soprano voice.
“Up and down” features descending melodic lines imitatively in different voices.
Remember Me: Personalizing the Motet in the Renaissance
We know by experience that song has great force and vigor to move and inflame the hearts of
men to invoke and praise God with a more vehement and ardent zeal.”
—John Calvin
Remember Me: Personalizing the Motet in the Renaissance
Polyphony in works of this era were often
based on the principle of imitation.
sounding harmonies such as thirds and sixths,
fixed melody (cantus
firmus) as the basis for elaborate ornamentation in other voices. Triple meter was favored
because it symbolized the perfection of the Trinity.
motet
developed into a sacred form with a single Latin text. The motet
Personalizing the Motet in the Renaissance
(In the Renaissance, the motet became a sacred form with a single Latin text)
Motets in praise of the Virgin Mary were common, because there
were large numbers of religious groups across Europe who were devoted to her worship.
Personalizing the Motet in the Renaissance
known as Josquin, was a Franco-Flemish composer who
served for much of his career in Italy.
Personalizing the Motet in the Renaissance
Josquin’s patrons in Italy included Cardinal Ascanio Sforza of Milan, Ecrole d’Este of Ferrara,
and the papal choir in Rome. His sacred and secular works reflect the humanizing influences of
the Renaissance and embody the expression of emotion.
Josquin des Prez: Ave Maria . . . virgo serena
The piece is a rhymed
prayer to the Virgin Mary written for four-voice a cappella choir. Listen for high and low
voices in the melody, singing in pairs
Glory Be: Music for the Renaissance Mass
five movements of the Ordinary of the Mass are
the: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei. Originally these movements were sung in
settings of the mass were often based on a
fragment of Gregorian chant which
became the fixed voice (cantus firmus)
The Reformation and Counter-Reformation
Martin Luther (1483–1546), an Augustinian monk began the Protestant movement
known as the Reformation with his 95 Theses—a list of reforms he proposed to the practices of
the Catholic Church for which he was excommunicated. The Catholic Church eventually
responded with its own reform movement
Protestant movement
known as the Reformation with his 95 Theses—a list of reforms he proposed to the practices of
the Catholic Church for which he was excommunicated. The Catholic Church eventually
responded with its own reform movement
Counter-Reformation-
—which focused on a
return to values.
The Council of Trent
was a long committee meeting (1545–1563) that sought
to regulate every aspect of religious discipline,
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina.
(c. 1525–1594), called Palestrina, was an Italian composer,
organist, and choirmaster.
including over 100 masses
Palestrina: Pope Marcellus Mass, Gloria
Palestrina’s Pope Marcellus Mass was originally thought to have been written to satisfy the
Council of Trent’s recommendations for polyphonic church music.
Music as Exploration and Drama
The Baroque Era (1600–1750) was a time characterized by absolute monarchy, bloody
religious wars (Protestants vs. Catholics), and the exploration and colonization of the New World
The Baroque era was considered to
be an age of discovery
Many musical works of this era were functional, being created for specific
occasions, such as weddings, festivals, or religious services.
Monody
Monody – new style featuring solo song with instrumental accompaniment
“The end of all good music is to affect the soul” —Claudio Monteverdi
One of the great changes in style between the Renaissance and Baroque era was the shift in
texture from polyphony, which consists of several independent melodic parts, to
Camerata.
From this style, opera was developed.
Artwork
figured bass.
In this system, the keyboard
player would improvise the harmony from numerals that the composer would place above or
below a bass line
basso continuo
(basso continuo is Italian for “continuous bass”)
is often used in
reference to this figured bass system of notation. The basso continuo performance group often
consisted of two instruments—a melodic bass instrument, such as a cello or bassoon, along with
a chordal instrument, such as a keyboard. Another important development with regard to
harmonic structures was a shift to a harmonic system based on the use of the major and minor
scales rather than one based on modes.
New Harmonic Structures
