The document summarizes key developments in French and Italian music during the 14th century. Conditions were difficult due to war, plague, famine and rebellions. The Roman de Fauvel satirized corrupt officials through allegory and music. Guillaume de Machaut was a leading composer of motets, the Messe de Nostre Dame, and songs. Trecento Italian music included madrigals, caccia, and ballate by composers like Landini. The Ars Subtilior featured highly complex polyphonic chansons with unusual notation and rhythmic experimentation.

1. © 2010, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
By Barbara Russano Hanning
Based on J. Peter Burkholder, Donald J.
Grout, and Claude V. Palisca, A History of
Western Music, Eighth Edition
Concise History of Western Music
Fourth Edition
Chapter 4
French and Italian Music
in the Fourteenth
Century

2. PRELUDE

3. Prelude
• Conditions were more difficult than in the
thirteenth century.
• The Hundred Years’War (1337–1453) strained
the economy.
• Bad weather, famine, and floods

4. Prelude
• The Great Plague (known as the Black Death)
killed a third of Europe’s population during
1348–50.
– Victims died in agony within days of contracting
the plague.
– Survivors often fled Europe’s cities.
• Peasant and urban rebellions occurred in
many European regions.

5. A divided Church
• King Philip IV (the Fair) of France engineered the
election of a French pope, who resided in
Avignon rather than Rome.
• During the Great Schism of 1378–1417 there
were two and sometimes three claimants to the
papacy.
• When the papacy returned fully to Rome, it
brought French music.
• The Church and corrupt clergy were targets of
much criticism.

6. Science and secularism
• Philosophers distinguished between divine
revelation and human reason.
• Church and state were seen to have dominion
over different realms.
• These views spurred advances in science and
technology.
• Interest in the world, the individual, and
human nature made way for a growing secular
culture.

7. The arts enjoyed remarkable creativity
• Increased literacy led to more literature in the
vernacular.
– Dante’s Divine Comedy (1307) in Italian
– Boccaccio’s Decameron (1353) in Italian
– Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (1387–1400) in English
• Giotto (ca. 1266–1337), a Florentine painter,
created a more naturalistic style in art.
• Secular songs received more attention.

8. Ars nova
• Ars nova (“The new art,” early 1320s) by
Philippe de Vitry (1291–1361)
• The title of this treatise denotes the French
musical style during the first half of the
fourteenth century.
• The stylistic innovation of this era centers on
rhythm and its notation

9. Ars nova
• Changes to the motet
– The subjects of motets became more political and less
amorous.
– The structure became more complex, as seen in
isorhythm.
• Changes to secular songs
– The polyphonic art song was the most important new
genre of the era.
– Machaut in France and Landini in Italy mastered this
genre while writing love lyrics in the tradition of the
trouvères.

10. THE ARS NOVA IN FRANCE

11. Roman de Fauvel
• The Roman de Fauvel (Story of Fauvel)
captures the spirit of the turn of the century.
– This allegorical poem satirizes corrupt politicians
and church officials.

12. Roman de Fauvel
• Fauvel is the main character.
– Fauvel is an anagram for Flattery, Avarice, Villainy
(u and v were interchangeable), Variété
(fickleness), Envy, and Lâcheté (cowardice).
– Fauvel, a jackass who rises to a powerful position,
symbolizes a world turned upside down.
– He marries and produces offspring that destroy
the world.

13. Roman de Fauvel
• The manuscript contains 169 pieces of music
– Some were written for this collection; others were
chosen for their relevance to the poem’s message.
– Most are monophonic.
– Thirty-four polyphonic motets, many denouncing
the clergy, are among the first examples of the Ars
Nova and of isorhythm.
– Philippe de Vitry composed at least five motets.

14. Isorhythm
• The tenor is laid out in segments of identical
rhythm.
– Thirteenth-century motets often have short,
repeating patterns in the tenor.
– In the fourteenth century, the tenor pattern grew
longer and more complex.
– The slow pace of the tenor makes it less a melody and
more of a foundational structure.
– The rhythmic pattern is called talea.
– The melody, called color, may also repeat but may not
coincide with the rhythm.

15. Isorhythm
• In arboris/Tuba sacre fidei/Virgo sum,
attributed to Vitry
– The tenor has two statements of the color.
– The color statements have three repetitions of the
talea.
– The upper voices are isorhythmic during the duple
sections of the tenor.

16. GUILLAUME DE MACHAUT

17. Guillaume de Machaut
• Machaut (ca. 1300–1377) is the leading
composer of the Ars Nova.
– Born in northeastern France, probably to a
middle-class family
– He composed in most of the major genres of his
time.

18. Motets
• Twenty-three motets, most from early in his
career
• Traditional texture: borrowed tenor and two
upper voices with different texts
• Longer and more complex than thirteenth-
century motets

19. Motets
• Nineteen use isorhythm, sometimes in all
three voices.
• Frequent use of hockets, passages featuring a
quick alternation of voices with one resting
while the other sings

20. Messe de Nostre Dame
• Probably the earliest polyphonic setting of the
Mass Ordinary composed by a single
composer and conceived as a unit

21. Messe de Nostre Dame
• Composed for the cathedral in Reims
– Performed at a Mass for the Virgin Mary
celebrated every Saturday
– After Machaut’s death, an oration for his soul was
added to the service.
– It continued to be performed there until the
fifteenth century.

22. Messe de Nostre Dame

23. Messe de Nostre Dame
• The six movements are linked by style and
approach.
– All six movements are for four voices.
– Recurring motives and cadence tones unify the
movements.
– The Kyrie, Sanctus, Agnus Dei, and Ite, missa est are
isorhythmic, each with a different cantus firmus.
– The Gloria and Credo, with longer texts, are in discant
style and end with elaborate isorhythmic “Amens.”

24. Messe de Nostre Dame
• Kyrie
– The tenor is from a chant on the same Ordinary
text.
– The contratenor, a second supporting voice in the
same range as the tenor, is also isorhythmic but
with its own talea.
– The upper voices are partially isorhythmic.

25. Messe de Nostre Dame

26. Monophonic works in the trouvère
tradition
• Performed in the courts of the elite
• Machaut composed numerous lais, a
twelfthcentury form similar to the sequence.

27. Monophonic works in the trouvère
tradition
• The virelai is one of the formes fixes.
– A popular poetic form in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries often intended for dancing
(see Figure 4.7)
– The form is AbbaA: A is the refrain, a has the
music of A but new words, and b is a contrasting
musical phrase.

28. Monophonic works in the trouvère
tradition

29. Monophonic works in the trouvère
tradition
• Machaut, Foy porter
– Monophonic virelai
– The text pays homage to the poet’s beloved.
– Machaut uses innovative rhythms and supple
syncopations.

30. Polyphonic chanson (“songs”)
• Treble-dominated songs were a major
innovation of the Ars Nova.
– The treble or cantus carries the text.
– A slower-moving, untexted tenor supports the
cantus.
– A contratenor may be added.

31. Polyphonic chanson (“songs”)
• Most are settings of the formes fixes
– The formes fixes are fixed poetic forms.
– Musical settings generally reflect the poetic rhyme
scheme.
– Principal types: virelai, rondeau, and Ballade
– In polyphonic settings, Machaut preferred the
rondeau and ballade.

32. Polyphonic chanson (“songs”)
• Rose, liz, printemps, verdure
– This work is a rondeau: ABaAabAB.
– Long melismas fall on structural points and
enhance the appeal.
– Varied rhythms, including supple syncopations,
are typical.
– Machaut uses both duple and triple meters.
– The unusual fourth voice was probably added
later.

33. Polyphonic chanson (“songs”)
• Ballades
– Apparently Machaut’s favorite, these works were
more serious than the other chansons.
– Form: aabC
– Machaut composed more than forty ballades for
two, three, and four parts.
– Typical setting: high tenor solo and two lower
parts

34. ITALIAN TRECENTO MUSIC

35. Italian Trecento Music
• Music was important to Italian social life.
• Boccaccio’s Decameron describes music in social
life (see Vignette, p. 78).
• Most music was not written down, as even
polyphony was largely improvised.
• In Italian courts, travatori followed the tradition
of the troubadours.
• The only examples surviving in manuscripts are
monophonic laude, processional songs that are
devotional in nature.

36. Italian Polyphony
• Largest body is from the repertory of secular
songs.
• The principal centers are in central and
northern Italy, including Florence.
• Few examples of polyphony come from before
1330.
• After that date, there are several manuscripts,
including the Squarcialupi Codex.

37. Squarcialupi Codex
• One of the main sources for Italian secular
polyphony
• Named for a former owner
• There are 354 pieces, grouped by composer.
• A portrait of each of the twelve composers
appears at the beginning of the section
containing his works.

38. Squarcialupi Codex
• Most are for two or three voices.
• Types of works
– Madrigal
– Caccia
– Ballata

39. Madrigal
• Madrigal (not related to the sixteenth-century
madrigal)
• Subjects: love, satire, pastoral life
• Usually for two voices

40. Madrigal
• Form
– Each stanza set to the same music
– Ritornello (Italian for “refrain”), a closing pair of
lines set to different music in a different meter

41. Madrigal

42. Madrigal
• Non al suo amante by Jacopo da Bologna (fl.
1340–?1370)
– Unlike in the French chanson, the voices are
relatively equal.
– The last accented syllable of each poetic line is set
to a long, florid, melisma.
– The melody lacks the syncopations common in
French music.

43. Caccia (Italian, “hunt”)
• Similar to the French chace (“hunt”), a popular-
style melody set in strict canon with lively,
descriptive words
• Two voices are in canon at the unison with an
untexted tenor.
• Sometimes the text plays on the concept of a
hunt, as in Tosto che l’alba by Ghirardello da
Firenze.
– Imitations of hunting horns
– High-spirited and comic

44. Ballata
• Popular later than the madrigal and caccia
• Influenced by the treble-dominated French
chanson
• Ballata is from ballare (“to dance”), and it was
originally a song to accompany dancing.

45. Ballata
• The form is AbbaA, like a single stanza of a
French virelai.
– The ripresa (refrain) is sung before and after the
stanza.
– The stanza consists of two piedi (feet) and the
volta, the closing line sung to the music of the
ripresa.

46. Ballata

47. Francesco Landini
• Landini (ca. 1325–
1397)was the leading
composer of the
trecento.
– He was blind since
boyhood.
– He played many
instruments but was a
virtuoso on the small
organ (organetto).

48. Francesco Landini
• He composed 140 ballate.
– Most are for two voices.
– Others, presumably later works, have three parts
in a treble-dominated style similar to Machaut’s.

49. Francesco Landini
• Non avrà ma’ pieta
– Many sonorities containing thirds and sixths,
though never at the beginning or end of a section
– Despite syncopation, arching melodies are
smoother than Machaut’s
– Melismas on the first and penultimate syllables of
a poetic line are characteristic of the Italian style.
– Under-third cadences, known as “Landini
cadences,” are typical of trecento music.

50. Francesco Landini

51. Francesco Landini

52. Foreign influences
• French influence overtook the Italian style at
the end of the century, particularly after the
papal court moved back from Avignon.
• English polyphony was also influential; this
would become more pronounced in the next
century.

53. THE ARS SUBTILIOR

54. The Ars Subtilior
• In the late fourteenth century, French and
Italian music became more refined and
complex.
• Music catered to the extravagant tastes of
performers and the courtly elite.
• The papal court at Avignon was one of the
main patrons of secular music.

55. Polyponic chansons predominated
• The formes fixes continued to be set.
• Most were love songs.
• Composers were fascinated with technique
and extreme complexities.
• This repertory is known as the Ars Subtilior
(“the subtler art”).

56. Polyphonic chansons predominated
• The written music often included fanciful
decorations and ingenious notation.
– Love song in the shape of a heart
– Canon in the shape of a circle
• Rhythmic complexity
– The level of complexity is not matched until the
twentieth century.
– Works feature voices in contrasting meters and
conflicting groupings.
– Harmonies are purposely blurred through rhythmic
disjunction.

57. En remirant vo douce pourtraiture
• En remirant vo douce pourtraiture by Philippus
de Caserta (fl. 1370s)
• Ballade
• The three voices move in different meters.
• Each phrase has a distinctive rhythmic profile.
• Modern performance of the tenor and
contratenor can be either vocal or
instrumental

58. En remirant vo douce pourtraiture

59. Additional Art from Chapter 4

60. Figure 4.4

61. Figure 4.5

62. This concludes the presentation slides for
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Chapter 4: French and Italian Music in the
Fourteenth Century