The document summarizes key developments in European music during the 14th century Medieval era. It describes the Ars Nova style that codified new rhythmic practices, major works like Le Roman de Fauvel that employed isorhythm, and the emergence of polyphonic settings of the mass ordinary. Various poetic and musical forms developed including formes fixes like ballades, virelais, and rondeaus. Musical styles varied across regions of France, Italy, and England.

1. Philippe de Vitry
1291-1361
Ars Nova

2. Ars Nova
• Condemned by Pope John XXII
(and lots of others) showing the
church’s ambivalence about
using music in worship
• Chief characteristic: enhanced
rhythmic flexibility
• Codified the use of mensuration
signs
• System would stay in effect
through Renaissance and
develop into the modern system
in the 17th century

3. Le Roman de
Fauvel
• Ars nova’s best example: Le Roman de
Fauvel
• Includes both short monophonic pieces
and large-scale polyphonic motets
• ~1316 – satirical allegory – comments
on dangers of corrupt and incompetent
government ministers
• Untexted tenor is structured as an
isorhythm

4. Isorhythm
• Term coined in the 20th century to
describe the technique
• Isorhythmic tenor is based on a fixed
rhythmic and melodic pattern repeated
at least once (usually more often)
• 14th century isorhythms are much longer,
became the preferred structure of this
century’s motet
• Le Roman de Fauvel and Guillaume de
Machaut’s motets are all isorhythmic
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA

5. Isorhythmic tenor:
The rhythm is called talea
The melody is called its color

6. This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA-NC

7. Polyphonic settings
of the Mass Ordinary
In the 14th century, polyphony occurred in pairs
(Gloria and Credo, or Sanctus and Agnus Dei)

8. Polyphonic settings of the mass ordinary: Messe de Nostre Dame, Mass of Tournai

9. Messe de Nostre Dame
Composed early 1360s
The only 14th-century polyphonic setting of the
complete Mass Ordinary known to have been written
by a specific composer
All movements are based on a plainchant version of
the Mass Ordinary
Rise of the composer: by this time, more and more
artists were associating their names with their
creations

10. French Secular Song
• Formes fixes – “fixed forms” are
• Ballade
• Virelai
• Rondeau
• These are both poetic and musical
forms at the same time, with their own
patterns of rhyme and musical
repetition, with at least one refrain

11. Ballade
• Usually has 3 strophes (verses) of 7-8
lines, the last is always a refrain
(chorus)
• First section is always repeated;
second section is sometimes
repeated: music is AAB, or AABB
• Ballades are the most melismatic of all
the formes fixes used in 14-century
France; the upper voice is rhythmically
most active

12. Virelai
• The refrain is sung at the
beginning and end of each
strophe
• Set in a syllabic fashion,
tend to be monophonic
with a soloist possibly over
other instruments
• Could also be performed
instrumentally, with no
text/voice at all

13. Rondeau
• 8 lines of text with scheme ABaAabAB
• Machaut’s Ma fin est mon commencement
employs retrograde inversion (the cantus, or
highest solo line, sung backward from
beginning to end, is exactly the same as what
the tenor sings forward from beginning to
end)
• Spiritual roots: the idea that beginnings
and endings are one and the same deeply
rooted in Christian theology, connecting
death to physical and spiritual rebirth

14. Ars subtilior
• Latin, “the more subtle art”
• Compositions written to
show music not only as an art
of sound, but also as an art of
contemplation that could
engage and challenge the
INTELLECT as well as the soul

15. Italian trecento
• Three vocal forms:
• Ballata – like the French virelai – smooth melodic lines that
project the text syllabically
• Caccia – “chase” – texts usually are about hunting, street
vendors
• Madrigal – began as literary form of 2-3 strophes with a
rhythmically contrasting ritornello at the very end – for 2
voices with tenor which can be either sung or played
instrumentally

16. ENGLAND
• Songs are roughly
contemporary with the great
English poet Geoffrey Chaucer
(1342-1400) – Canterbury Tales
are full of musical imagery and
references to music making
• Sumer is icumen in – oldest
known song written in English,
c. 1250
• Used 3rd and 6th intervals
more than on the Continent,
where mostly 4th and 5th
intervals were used

17. Instrumental Music
• Instrumental music entertained guests at banquets,
accompanied dancers, signaled troops into battle
• Some church patriarchs felt music without text to be
transient and empty
• Instruments played an important role in worship, as
medieval churches are adorned with carved images
showing them

18. Summary of Part 1, Chapter 3 – Medieval Era
• Music varied widely from France,
Italy, and England – all developed
their own idioms and genres
• Isorhythm and polytextual motets
gradually declined
• Music grew more towards simplified
and homogeneous textures and
carefully controlled dissonance