Medieval Music

Medieval Era

* Western music history begins around the sixth century AD.

* All notated music at this time was church music (chant).

* By the beginning of the eleventh century, throughout the Christian world, the Mass was (and remains) centrepiece. For High Mass much of the text would be chanted to music. 'Ordinary' sections always used the same words; 'Proper' sections used different words according to the feasts of the church year. The Mass was the central form of sacred music of the Roman Catholic Church, since the fifteenth century.

* The earliest musical form in the medieval church was plainsong, or plainchant (sometimes known as 'Gregorian' chant). Plainsong is a single line of text or melody, sung either by the priest or by several voices of the choir in unison, or by the priest and choir in alternation. The melodies are classified according to mode and are associated with a particular part of the liturgy. Plainsong rhythm is the free rhythm of speech. Early plainsong notation is known as 'neumatic'.

* Secular song flourished from the end of the eleventh century for 200 years. Minstrels who travelled between the courts of Europe enjoyed it. Secular songs mainly contained love-lyrics ("courtly-love"). 'Troubadours', (virtuoso poet-musicians such as Marcabru, Bernart de Ventadorn, Guiraut Riquier and Adam de la Halle, who were mainly active in S. France), wrote their own lyrics in their own language. They performed to society, unaccompanied or sometimes accompanied by a harp, lute or fiddle.

Secular songs are monophonic. Its forms were called retrovenge, lai, ballade, rondeau and virelai. The last three forms and the secular motet are secular vocal forms of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

* Polyphony developed in the late Middle Ages. It is the combination of two or more melodic lines, providing 'depth' to the music. Polyphony was at first based on plainsong with the melodies moving in the same rhythm, a fourth or fifth apart. In the late eleventh and twelfth centuries, a third melody joined an octave apart. This early style of polyphony was called organum. The long tenor notes of the chant provided a structural and spiritual foundation, with upper parts that flowed freely; melismatic and with shorter note values.

* The motet had 'fixity' and 'freedom' like the organum. The fixity is generally present as plainsong, usually in the tenor, determining the structure. The freedom is reflected in the freshly composed other parts, which may contain different text. The motet is the most important new musical form in the thirteenth century.

* Ars Antiqua (Old Art) is a medieval West European style based on plainsong and organum. Composers such as Leonin and Perotin employed it in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

* Ars Nova (New Art) is a new style of French and Italian musical composition in the fourteenth century. Its leader was the French composer Vitry. Restrictions of the 'Ars Antiqua' were replaced by a variety of rhythms, duple instead of triple and increased independence in part writing. Marchaut the finest exponent of Ars Nova in France, and Cascia, Bologna and Landini were fine exponents in Italy. The Italian madrigal was a later flowering of Ars Nova.

* Secular Polyphony, in Italy was vigorous and lively. Its lighthearted moods are reflected in the texts. Favourite forms were the madrigal, the balata and the caccia. The caccia ("chase") involves close musical imitation between the upper voices, as in a canon or round. Usually a lower third voice sings a slow moving line. Unlike sacred chant music, this type of secular composition gives the important melodic material to the upper voices.

* Instrumental Music in the Medieval era varied. The troubadours (poet-minstrels) accompanied themselves on plucked instruments such as the lute or harp. Bowed stringed instruments were also common, like the fiddle. Wind instruments of this time included flutes, recorders, trumpets and shawms (precursors to the oboe, with a double reed). Percussion instruments included cymbals, bells, triangles and all types of drums. Instruments both accompanied and substituted for voices in secular polyphony and were used in dancing. In sacred music instruments were more limited. Mainly only the organ was allowed to participate in church services but occasionally others were used for civic festivals and processions.

* Medieval English Music is represented in the thirteenth century as the earliest example in Europe of polyphony; an anonymous rota or canon that dates back to 1250. It was written for six voices entitled "Sumer is icumen in". This piece is typical of thirteenth and fourteenth English music which was euphorious and surprisingly harmonic, with much use of smooth progressions and the intervals of a sixth and a third between voices. England's greatest medieval composer was John Dunstable.

Composers

* Leonin

(Born in Paris c.1135; died in Paris c.1201)

Leonin was a French composer known only from writings of English theorist Anonymous IV (fl. c.1270), who refers to Leonin as the best exponent of organum and that he compiled a large book ('magnus liber') of chants that were used at a Paris church later rebuilt as Notre Dame. Scholarship has not determined whether any of Leonin's compositions survive, if indeed he wrote any.

* Perotin

Known

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