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THE RENAISSANCE ERA (CA 1450- CA 1600)

UNIT TWO :THE RENAISSANCE ERA (CA 1450- CA 1600)
• “rebirth “
• Golden age of capella
• Realism, portraiture and humanised subjects
• Was governed largely by Church practices.
• People began to think at life from a different more secular perspective.
• Renaissance Era is the Age of Humanism
• Constantinople was home for churches and monasteries and an important center of learning. But 1453 Constantinople (now Istanbul) fell under Turkish army so many went to Rome and brought Hebrew and old Greek languages.
• Music publishing in this era was invented by Johann Gutenberg in 15th century. Copying music by hand was replaced by mechanical reproduction so quicker and efficient.
• Musical style of humanism and secularism, composers have created music that also reflects the spirit of the Renaissance. Use of 3rd and 6th, expansion of contrapuntal textures and closer relationship between text and music and wider range of musical genres.

FRANCO –FLEMISH SCHOOL
• A group of composers who flourished in the 15th and 16th .
• “Franco – means France, “Flemish- means to Flanders, a region encompassing Belgium and Holland on the modern map of Europe
• Leading figures included Johannes Ockeghem, Josquin des Prez, Jacob Obretch.
• Known for vocal polyphony and highly developed contrapuntal style, particularly in the motet and mass
• Also referred to as “the Dutch School “and /or “the Netherlanders”

Johannes Ockeghem:

Josquin des Prez

Jacob Obretch:

MIDDLE AGES

INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC IN THE MIDDLE AGES
• Instruments were not standardized
• With the exception of the organ, the use of instruments was not encouraged in the Roman Catholic Church
• Instruments music was passed down through an oral tradition
• Musicians were trained to improvise and to play by rote rather than rely on written music
• Notating music was a time-consuming, costly and not considered necessary or important in a a largely illiterate society.

INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC FULFULLED ROLES AND FUNCTIONS IN SOCIETY:
• Accompanying singers
• Proving dance music
• Playing fanfares and precessions for public and civic functions
• Providing music for military campaigns.
• Indoor and outdoor instruments.

DANCE MUSIC:
BACKGROUND:
• Based on a tradition of improvisation
• Functional music :instrumentalists provided music for social dance; later stylized dances were created(for listening only)
CHARACTERISTICS:
• Had monophonic texture
• Modal melodies
• Accompaniments were improvised
• Estampie,saltarello,ronde and basse dance were the earliest types
• Formal structure was often sectional to allow for flexibility in the length of the dance.

CHANSONNEIR DU ROY
• French “Songbook of the King:
• Anonymous 13th century French manuscript
• Contains troubadour and trouvere songs as well as eight monophonic dances including “Royal Estampie No.4”

SECULAR MUSIC OF THE MIDDLE AGES

SECULAR VOCAL MUSIC OF THE MIDDLE AGES

MONOPHONIC CHANSON- Chanson means “song”

BACKGROUND:
• Flourished in the 12th and 13th centuries
• Composed by aristocratic poet-musicians known as trouveres and troubadours.
• Recorded in songbooks called chansonniers.

CHARACTERISTICS:
• Monophonic texture
• Modal melodies
• Usually in strophic form
• Instrumental accompaniments were often improvised
• Texts often reflected courtly love in the age of chivalry

POLYPHONIC CHANSON
• 14th century saw shift form church life to more secular society
• Famous treatise called Ars Nova- refer to the music and art of the time.(composer was Philippe de Vitry)
• Evolution of polyphony in both sacred and secular was by the perfection of pitch notation coupled with more sophisticated rhythmic notations.
• Elegant and courtly song –whatever form the poem took might be clearly reflected int he construction of the music.

PHILIPPE DE VIRTY(1291-1361)
• Was a French composer ,poet and bishop
• Author of the treatise Ars Nova(1322)
• Innovator of the notations of rhythm, including the “imperfect” and division of notes into 2 equal units(a move away from the division of notes into 3 equal units considered “perfect”)
• Broke free from older pattern and rhythmic modes
• Used isorhythm, the repetition of an extended pattern in which melodic patterns and rhythmic segments of different lengths are combined

ARS NOVA
• Latin for “new art”
• Title of a famous 14th century treatise by composer Philippe de Vitry
• The term is also used by historians when referring to music in 14th century France ( the 1300s)
• As a result, the previous era became known as Ars antique(old art)

GUILLAUME DE MACHAUT (CA 1300-1377)
• Most celebrated poet and musician in French Ars Nova
• Adopted both sacred and secular and wrote music for church and kings.
• Greater variety in intervals used , including 3rd, 6th and more counter points
• 14th century rhythmic complexity demonstrated in use of devices such as syncopations, hockets, and isorhythm
• Wrote both monophonic and polyphonic songs
• Monophonic chansons represent a continuation of the trouvere tradition, frequently wrote his own poetry
• Works are longer and more complex than of the Ars Antiqua.
• Composed 1st complete polyphonic setting of Mass Ordinary-Messe de Nostre Dame.

13 TH CENTURY

THE POLYTEXTUAL MOTET IN THE 13TH CENTURY

BACKGROUND:
• Developed in the 13th century
• An important stage in the development of polyphony
• New texts were added to the upper voices of Organum
• Secular texts often appeared alongside sacred texts, languages were mixed

CHARACTERISTICS:
• Usually in the 3 voices
• Bottom voice contained cantus firmus
• Featured primary intervals 4th, 5th and octaves
• Upper voices were generally more rhythmically active and often crossed parts.

THE MIDDLE AGES (CA 476-CA 1450)

ORGANUM( ca 890-1150)
• Form of polyphony but has additional vocal lines moved parallel (above or below)of the pre-existing chant by 4th or 5th.
• Monks sung chants for a months, years, decades. Starting harmonizing the chant

BACKGROUND:
• Earliest form of polyphony in western art music
• Began as in improvised practice, evolved over several centuries
• 1st notated in the 9th century, the treatise Musica enchriadis
• Composers at Notre Dame Cathedral (Paris) further developed Organum in the 12th and 13th centuries

CHARACTERISTICS:
• The original pre-existing chant is referred to as the cantus firmus.
• 2nd voice is added on the top of chant melody (4th or 5th, octave paralleled)
• later developments by Notre Dame composers included free Organum which involved a wider variety of intervals and rhythms and newly composed upper parts

MUSICA ENCHIRIADIS
• Latin for “Music Handbook”
• anonymous 9th century treatise
• contains the earliest examples of notated polyphony in western art music
• Included parallels Organum with new melodic lines added above or below the original chant.

NOTRE DAME SCHOOL
• In 12th and 13th a compositional school. 2 leaders were LEONIN and PEROTIN
Leonin:
• 1st composer of polyphony known to us by name
• Active in Paris in the later 12th century
• He produced 2part Organum using organal and discant style
• Wrote Magnus Liber Organi (Great Book of Organum)
Perotin:
• Active at Notre Dame Cathedral in the 13th century
• Expanded polyphonic techniques by composing 3 and 4 part polyphony
• Composed “substitute clausulae” to replace Organum originally composed by Leonin.

THE POLYTEXTUAL MOTET IN THE 13TH CENTURY
BACKGROUND:
• Developed in the 13th century
• An important stage in the development of polyphony
• New texts were added to the upper voices of Organum
• Secular texts often appeared alongside sacred texts, languages were mixed

CHARACTERISTICS:
• Usually in the 3 voices
• Bottom voice contained cantus firmus
• Featured primary intervals 4th, 5th and octaves
• Upper voices were generally more rhythmically active and often crossed parts.

THE MIDDLE AGES (CA 476-CA 1450)

GREGORIAN CHANT:

BACKGROUND:
• Early Christian church music
• Among the earliest forms of notations in the western tradition
• Served as functional music in the worship services of the Roman Catholic Church
• Evolved from the Hebrew chant tradition
• Originally passed down orally
• Used as the basis for many new compositions during the Middle Ages and Renaissance
• Named after Pope Gregory the Great, during whose reign the existing repertory was organized and codified.

CHARACTERISTICS:
• Monophonic texture,
• Modal
• Moves by step or narrow leap
• Unmeasured rhythm and sung without any fixed metrical pattern- instead the melody is sing freely following the natural inflections of the text
• Based on sacred Latin texts
POPE GREGORY I
• Leader of Roman Catholic Church from 590-604
• Not the composer of the chants
• Helped to organize and codify the chants that had accumulated, led to the establishment of a uniform liturgical service
• Oversaw the expansion of schools to train singers in performance of sacred repertoire (schola contorum)

LIBER USUALIS
• Latin book:”Book of Common Use”
• Is an important source containing the music and texts in the Roman catholic services
• A late 19 century book almost 2000 pages of ordinary and most frequently used texts and chants for baptism, matrimony, ordination and funeral rites.
• Prepared by monks of the Benedictine Abbey of Solesmes(France)

HILDEGARD VON BIGEN(1098-1179)
• Woman poet and prophet
• Practice of “tithing”-donating one tenth of one’s worldly goods to the church
• She was a 10th child of noble family and keeping this tradition
• Accepted the life that demanded contemplation and prayer, but also peruse career wrote music and poetry and medical and scientific writing
• Lived in stone walls and one window , took vows at age 14, foretell the future
• 1150 founded religious order in Rupertsberg (Germany)
• Her morality play Ordo virtutum(The Play of Virtues”)is the best was written to teach righteous Christian Values to an illiterate audience.
• Also “Symphony of the Harmony and Celestial Revelation ”
• Her monophonic melodies resembled plainsong but were newly composed
• Melodies were often based on repeated motives
• 3 collections of manuscripts: “Scivians”

UNIT ONE: THE MIDDLE AGES (CA 476-CA 1450)

• Falls of Roman Empire and fall of Constantinople
• Development of western European culture called:”Dark Ages” – plagues, lawlessness, religious conflict and wars, and repressive feudal societies.
• The era broken into periods: early Christian, Romanesque, Gothic.
• Also referred as Medieval era meaning “between the ages”, because it separates classical antiquity from Renaissance.
• Charlemagne(ca 768- 814), the Carolingian Renaissance arts and culture lasting now in educational reforms
• Monks and nuns who lived in church are educated and familiar with Latin , served as teachers and scribers
• Knights –pledges their military skills for king and princess for their loyalty, bravery honour.
• Crusades or “Holy wars” to reclaim Jerusalem from Muslims began 1095 and lasted nearly 200 years
• War (13337- 1553) between England and France and the outbreak of bubonic plague (“The Black Death”)
• Music: 2 developments- rise of polyphony, and advancements in notations.
• 10000- 1450 better construction of great cathedral, Cities are centre of arts and culture
• Later Middle Ages – plagues by robbers and pirates:1.scandicavia furs and timber traded English wool,2.England wanted German silver,3.French and Italian wine
MUSICAL STYLE:
Texture- single line (monophony) to complex (multi voice-polyphony)
Notations – pitches and rhythm values notations are staying today
Melodic range – in medieval music narrow range, later more complex, melodic range increased rhythms – runs parallel to development of notation and polyphony.

February 26, 2014 0 Comments