chapter 4 Powerpoint

1. Chapter Four
Medieval Music, 476-1450
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPkLhSVtPS4&list=PLzQS4HL6t8zxfAUG4-
gPb9dkTMATGMFtG

2. The Middle Ages (476-1450)
• Followed fall of Rome in 476 C.E.
• Roman Catholic Church dominant
force in Medieval Europe, expanding
to fill power vacuum left by fall of
Western Roman Empire
• Much education and technology lost
in the West
• Church central in all areas of life
• Knightly chivalry/brutal warfare
• Deadly plagues
• Soaring cathedrals with stunning
stained glass built amidst desperate
poverty

3. Music in the Monastery
• Religion was centered in rural monasteries (for monks) and
convents (for nuns)
• Mass: the most important service in the church cycle
– A symbolic reenactment of the Last Supper
– Gregorian chant was the music used

4. Music in the Monastery
• Gregorian Chant: A unique collection of thousands of
religious songs that carry the theological message of the
Church
– Sung in Latin
– Composed for fifteen centuries
• Musical notation- Between 700 and 1000, church musicians started
putting notes on a grid of lines and spaces that were identified by note
names. Before this, chant was passed down by rote.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnnYjnlHIgk

5. • Rhythm
– Gregorian chant (also called plainsong) and early
secular songs
• Pitches did not indicate rhythm
• Secular songs learned by rote
– Polyphonic compositions (after 1180)
• Triple meter (reflecting the trinity)
• Repeated rhythmic patterns
Style of Medieval Music

6. • Harmony
–Monophonic texture of pure chant is not
harmonized
–Polyphonic compositions
• Dissonant chords within phrases
• Phrases end with open, pure, hollow-
sounding chords
Style of Medieval Music

7. • Color
– Vocal music predominates
– Medieval instruments
• Little instrumental music
survives
• Unique sound quality
• Some (sackbut, shawm,
vielle) are ancestors of
modern instruments
• Others (cornett) became
extinct
Style of Medieval Music

8. • Named in honor of Pope Gregory (540 – 604),
who decreed that certain chants would be sung
for specific days in the liturgical church year
– Pope Gregory wrote little music himself, was
mainly an administrator
– Actual composers of chant generally unknown,
music was created to glorify God, not individuals
Gregorian Chant
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kK5AohCMX0U
Click this link to hear some chant

9. • Musical Style
– Rhythm
• Meter and regular rhythms
absent
• Meant to encourage pious
reflection
– Monophonic
• Soloists can alternate with
unison choir
• No instrumental
accompaniment
– Syllabic and melismatic text setting
Gregorian Chant

10. • Extraordinary intellect and imagination
• 10th
child of noble family, “given” to the church as a
tithe (1/10th
of possessions)
• Advised popes and kings
• Renaissance woman
• Naturalist, linguist, artist and pharmacologist
• Wrote scientific books, poetry, and a play
• Composer, philosopher, visionary
Founded a convent
Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179)
Germany

11. • Hildegard’s
Visions:
– Came during
severe headaches
(migraines?)
– transformed
images into
poetry and chant
– 77 chants still
exist
– Originally sung in
her convent
Hildegard of Bingen
HildegardVision
Trailer for German movie about
Hildegard

12. • O rubor sanguinis (O Redness of
Blood)
– Gregorian chant composed circa 1150
– Chant sets Hildegard’s text of
martyred blood streaming in the
heavens
– Honors St. Ursula and a group of
11,000 Christian women believed slain
by Huns in the 4th
or 5th
century
– Long melismas on vowel sounds
– Every phrase ends on tonic (I) or
dominant (V) and is mostly conjunct
Hildegard of Bingen
cd #1, track 2, page 64 in text

13. Music in the Cathedral
• 1150-1350: “The Age of Cathedrals”
– Started in Northern France
– Large, urban cathedrals that served as houses of worship
and municipal civic centers
– Built in the Gothic style

14. Notre Dame Cathedral - Paris
100 years in
construction

15. – Creative spirit breaking free from ancient chant
– Early polyphony of the Western Church (9th-13th centuries)
– Two, three, or four-part counterpoint
– Polyphony added to solo portions of chant
• Chant sung in long tones, in bass line
• Added line(s) moves more quickly
• Organum sections only performed by soloists
Organum

16. • Leonin, French (active 1169-1201)
– Cleric at Notre Dame of Paris during construction
– Composer of organum
• Wrote “The Big Book of Organum” Magnus liber organi
• Innovated rhythmic notation
• Enhanced special services with ornate music
Organum

17. • Perotin, French, was one of Leonin's students
and appears to have been born between 1155
and 1160
• Took Leonin’s 2-part organum and expanded
much of it to 3 and 4-parts
Organum: Perotin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=FvJ6xl3l1ekNotre_DamePerotin
This link has video of Notre Dame Cathedral
And organum also

18. Perotin: Organum Viderunt omnes
(All the Ends of the Earth) p. 65 L.Guide
• Four voice organum
• Performed during the Mass for Christmas Day
• Tenor: Sustaining line of the borrowed chant
– From Latin tenore meaning “to hold”, actually is in the
bass line of the music
• Mensural notation: “Measured notation”
to specify musical rhythm as well as pitch
– Began in the 13th
and 14th
centuries
– Leonin and Perotin credited with
devising rhythmic notation

19. Notre Dame of Reims (Rance)
• Rivaled Notre Dame in Paris in both music and
architecture in the 14th
century, is actually larger than the
cathedral in Paris
• 100 miles east of Paris
• Guillaume de Machaut served at the cathedral in Reims (c.
1300-1377): Most important composer of his day; also an
esteemed poet
– Over 150 works survive

20. • Author, composer, courtier, cleric
• Most important composer of the 14th
century, both
sacred and love songs
– Secular songs for court entertainment
– Sacred music for cathedral at Reims
Guillaume de Machaut, French (ca. 1300-1377)

21. Musical Portions of the Mass

22. Machaut: Messe de Nostre Dame
(Mass of Our Lady - c. 1360)
• Most famous medieval composition
– Kyrie
• Alternation between chant and polyphony
• Disparity between rhythm and harmony
• Interplay between dissonant and consonant chords
• First composer to use nearly the full vocal range of a chorus

23. Machaut: Messe de Nostre DameL. Guide p. 67
• Mass of Our Lady
– Three voices added to pre-existing chant
• Superius (soprano)
• Contratenor altus (alto)
• Chant in tenor
• Contratenor bassus (bass)
– Each voice written in rhythmic values
• Cadences are hollow-sounding chords
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GgkAM8crbU

24. Music at Court
• 1150-1400: The court emerged as center
for patronage of the arts
• Royalty now becoming patrons of music as
nobles begin to wrest more political power
from the Church
– employed musicians at court, servant
status
• Troubadour and trouvère songs
– composed and performed by nobles
– first large body of secular songs
– concerned with chivalric love and
heroes
Medieval Life: Feudalism

25. Troubadours and Trouvères
• Poet-musicians of France, Performers from all social
classes, females also
• Name from French trouver – “to find”
– “Finders” or inventors of the chanson
• Chanson: “song;” new genre of vocal expression
– Several thousand chansons were created
– Mostly monophonic love songs,
ordinary language used for lyrics
– Ideals of faith and devotion

26. • Female Troubador
• A Chantar m’er (I Must Sing)
– Five stanzas (only first included in text/CD)
– Clear musical form: ABABCDB
– Chant-like melody and rhythm
– Accompaniment
• Improvised
• Rebec (medieval fiddle)
• Married to one man, but in love with another
• Sample of lyrics, " The joy you give me is such that a thousand doleful
people would be made merry by my joy."
Countess of Dia, French Noblewoman, mid 12th century
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_RQJOAHedQ

27. Battle of Agincourt
• Henry V (1386-1422): Most illustrious English
king in the late Middle Ages
• Hundred Years’ War: Took place between the
French and the English on French soil
• Battle of Agincourt (October 25, 1415):
Henry’s greatest victory celebrated in song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMtb1aYNBvU
History of the battle of Agincourt

28. A Battle Carol for the English Court, p.69-71
• Genre: Carol
• Form: Strophic
– Carol: song in the local (vernacular) language
language; usually in strophic form
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9VJzKNhp0s

29. Medieval Musical Instruments
• Pipe organ: principal instrument of the monastery and
cathedral
– Was the only instrument admitted by church authorities
• More variety of instruments at court
– Hauts: Loud instruments; often used for dance music
• Sackbut, shawm, cornetto
– Bas: Soft instruments
• Flute (recorder), fiddle (vielle), harp, lute
• Vielle: Distant ancestor of the modern violin