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The Medieval Era
500-1400
Music and The Church
• All early western music was created because of
and for the catholic church.
• The church cultivated, supported, and directed
music as it did art, architecture, poetry, and
learning.
• All musicians began their training as church choir
members.
• All composers were a part of holy orders
(positions including bishop, priest, and deacon)
Music and The Church
• Music cultivated by the church was the singing
or chanting of sacred words in services.
• Used to set apart texts from ordinary speech.
(Emphasized the important stuff)
• Music gives the text special emphasis and
meaning.
• The main goal of chant was to bring humans
into contact with unseen spirits, with deities,
or with a single god.
Music and Church Services
• Sacred texts sung at church services in large
scale monasteries and cathedrals, not simple
churches.
• Services conducted by monks, nuns, and
cathedral clergy.
• These people were in prayer most of the day.
8 services were dedicated to worship. Know as
the divine offices.
• Many of these services were sung.
Music and Church Services
• Throughout the liturgical seasons, text would
change. All of these texts needed music.
• To provide music for all of these texts, there
only slight adjustments to a traditional format
and prototype.
Plainchant
• The official music of the catholic church in the
middle ages. Also known as Gregorian chant.
• Pope Gregory (540-604) is known to have
assembled and standardized all basic chants of
his time.
• Unaccompanied, monophonic (one voice part)
music for voices.
• Did not include rhythm or meter.
• Example: A 13th century plainchant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dlr90NLDp0
Characteristics of Plainchant
• There were different types of plainchant,
depending on function.
• Some were a recitation on a monotone (single
tone). Used to get through text quickly.
• Some were lengthy with many different notes.
Used for melodic exploration.
Characteristics of Plainchant
• Non-metrical – Had no meter. Series of notes
strung together. Free rhythm.
• There is no beat to non-metrical chant as well as
rhythms changing from one performance to
another.
• Constructed using medieval modes. Not a major
or minor system.
• Pitches oriented around C and A. C is said to be
Major, A is said to be minor…not in Plainchant
Modes
•
•
•
•
•
•
Scales were organized around D, E, F, and G.
D – Dorian
E – Phrygian
F – Lydian
G – Mixolydian
Because Plainchant was built without
harmony or definite rhythm, composers were
available to focus on creating a modal tonality.
Gregorian Recitation
• Chant that recited text on a single pitch. Pitch
was called reciting tone; the pitch on which
the text was sung.
• Reciting tone is held except for variations at
the beginning and ends.
• This type of chant punctuates the text and
makes it understand.
Gregorian Recitation
• Here there are sentences split into phrases.
Listen for the reciting tone and the variations
at the end of each phrase.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7Eik2_pBY
The Antiphon
• A responsorial by a choir or congregation.
• Two choirs call and response.
• Example: “In Paradisum” – Liturgy for the
dead. Sung in procession on the way from the
final blessing of the body in church to the
graveyard where burial takes place.
• Listen for the play between cantor and choir.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZ5k81SX
hN4
Hildegard von Bingen
1098-1179
• Famous for her book on her religious visions, as well as her works on
natural history and medicine.
• https://www.google.com/search?q=hildegard+von+bingen&biw=1067&bi
h=516&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAmoVChMIyJSZ5
o3UyAIVlEuICh1Qfwo4
• Composed plainchant melodies in her own style to be paired with poems
she wrote for special services.
• “Columba Aspexit” belongs to a plainchant genre called the sequence.
• Sequence is more elaborate than an antiphon in that it consists of short
tunes sung twice with some variation. Soloist sings, then a choir. A A’ B B’
C C’…
• Mixolydian – Beginning and ending on G.
• Listen for the slight variation between soloist and choir.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdVcKfAZJMU
Hildegard von Bingen
• Dramatical work: “Ordo Virtutum” (ca. 1151)
• Hildegard’s most extended work. 82 songs of
which she wrote the melodies and poetic verses.
• Morality play with allegorical characters (find
hidden meaning, often a moral).
• All sing in plainchant, except for the devil who
can only speak. His absence from musical
symbols represents his absence from God.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBGgRSPyU
FQ 46:00
Oral Transmission
• Initially, chant melodies were learned by
hearing others sing them.
• This left no written trace allowing melodies to
be lost.
• Allowed melodies to change and to have
variation from being passed from one group
to another.
Notation
• Oral Transmission was no longer acceptable with the rule of
Frankish kings. They required that music be consistent.
• Late 8th and 9th centuries, rudimentary systems for notation
came to be.
• Decided by these Kings to promote a uniform liturgy and
music order to increase their influence across the land.
• Missionaries in Italy traveled between Rome and the North
to bring consistency among chant.
http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/europe/lg
color/itregions.gif
• Notation made to strive for uniformity and to perpetuate
that uniformity.
Neumes
• The basic element of Western musical notation prior to
the invention of five-line staff notation.
• The earliest neumes notated the general direction of
pitches rather than exact notes.
• Italian monk, Guido de Arezzo (991-1033), write
“Micrologus,” a treatise (formal document dealing with
a subject) on musical notation.
• First notation:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thu
mb/d/d1/Neume2.jpg/220px-Neume2.jpg
• Arezzo 4 line notation:
http://home.gna.org/gregorio/illus/complet.png
Genres and Forms of Chant
• Three ways Chant is classified:
• By their texts (biblical, non-biblical) – for the
church or secular.
• How they are performed – antiphonally (sung
by alternating choirs), responsorial (a cantor
and choir), or direct (one choir).
• Musical style…next slide
Musical Style
• Syllabic (one note per syllable)
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXub6v3e
8-Y
• Melismatic (many notes per syllable)
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LegAzD9o
dFE
• Neumatic (between 2 and 7 notes per syllable)
• P. 38
Setting the Text
• Chant declares the text sometimes straightforwardly, and
sometimes ornately (lavishly).
• The melodic contour of chant often follows the text it is set
to. Higher notes are given to more important words or
syllables, as well as melismas.
• However, text accents are second to the melodic line. Often
you hear melismas on non-accented syllables. Ex. AlleluiA
and KyriE
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6oM1iLJH6k
• In this case, often texts are set so that the important words
are syllabic (one note for each syllable)
• Most often phrases occur over and arch, beginning low,
rising high, then descending to land the original pitch.
Syllabic Writing
• Syllabic text:
• In paradisum deducant te Angeli; in tuo
adventu suscipiant te martyres, et perducant
te in civitatem sanctam Ierusalem.
• May the angels escort you into paradise; at
your coming, may the martyrs receive you and
bring you into the holy city, Jerusalem.
Neumatic Writing
• Neumatic Text:
• Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotentem
factorem coeli et terrae.
• I believe in one God, Father almighty, maker of
heaven and of earth.
Melismatic Writing
• Melismatic Text
• Kyrie Eleison, Christe eleison
• Lord Have Mercy, Christ Have Mercy
Chants of the Mass
• Introit and Communion – Used to process into
the cathedral. Many psalm verses sung
antiphonally (two choirs back and forth)
• Introit:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0et
OsoenuY
• Gradual and Alleluia – Responsorial chants, choir
and soloist in alternation. Only one psalm verse.
More elaborate melody than antiphonal chants.
• Gradual and Alleluia:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKtBpuLrI2s
Tropes
• A way to expand an existing chant.
• 1. Add new words and music before the chant and often
between phrases.
• 2. Add melody only by extending melismas or adding new
ones.
• 3. Add text only, set to existing melismas.
• Most common was the first example, especially with
introits.
• All added a type of solemnity (state of being serious and
dignified).
• Musicians used tropes as an outlet for their creativity. Think
about old Art and how artist were creative by painting not
only and object, but embellishing it as well.
Medieval song
• Music outside the church developed many
different types and forms of songs other than
plainchant, called Goliard songs.
• Much more scurrilous in text; think the interests
of the younger generation…
• Celebrated 3 topics of interest: Wine, Women,
and Satire.
• Most of the music that was written down is not in
a precise enough notation to accurately perform
them today.
Medieval Song ca. 1100
• Goliard songs then developed into work songs, dance songs,
lullabies, and laments.
• Among those are praise songs and love songs.
• Praise songs were to celebrate the deeds of past warriors and
present rulers.
• Love songs became popular in powerful courts of western Europe.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9gzaauL67s
• Alas, I thought I knew so much about love, and really I know so
little, for I cannot keep myself from loving her from whom I shall
have no favor. She has stolen from me my heart, myself, herself, and
all the world. When she took herself from me, she left me nothing
but desire and a longing heart.
Jongleurs
• Those that sang these types of songs were called
Jongleurs (travelers) or Minstrels (servants).
• Minstrels were servants to a particular court. It
was their job to entertain.
• Eventually organized themselves into guilds of
musicians that were able to offer professional
training.
• Jongleurs traveled alone or in small groups from
village to village, earning a living by performing
tricks, telling stories, and playing instruments.
Gained measly earnings.
Troubadours and Trouveres
• Troubadors were poet composers during the 12th century in
South France.
• Trouveres were their equivalent in Northern France.
• Both flourished in Castles and courts for entertainment.
• Wrote their own text and songs and sang them as they
traveled.
• Their songs are preserved into a collection called
chansonniers (songbooks).
• 2,600 Troubador poems survive; only a tenth with music.
• 2100 Trouvere poems survive; 2/3 with music.
Travelers songs
• Poetic and musical structures show great variety and
ingenuity.
• Some are simple and some dramatic.
• That that are dramatic are said to have been often
mimed. Most all called for dancing.
• The modern idea for a “Chorus” comes from this type
of writing. Repeated text with a familiar melody.
• Listen for the refrain in this next listening.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mE5ywaHUkQ