Gregorian chant was the dominant form of music in medieval Europe, sung without instrumentation in monasteries and cathedrals to accompany mass. In the 12th century, composers like Leonin and Perotin began adding voices to chant to create early polyphonic music known as organum. Major composers like Machaut expanded church music through works like his Messe de Nostre Dame. Secular music also developed through the Troubadours and Trouveres who composed songs of courtly love. Instrumental music was limited but included precursors to modern instruments as well as pipe organs.

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