Ch06

Music History IFrench and Italian Music in the Fourteenth Century

Patrick Donnelly

Montana State University

Spring 2013

Patrick Donnelly (Montana State University) Music History I Spring 2013 1 / 41

European Society in the Fourteenth Century

Conditions were more difficult for Europeans than in the thirteenthcentury.

Cooler weather reduced agricultural production.

Floods caused famines in northwestern Europe.

The Black Death (bubonic and pneumonic plagues) killed a third ofEurope’s population from 1347 to 1350.

Victims died in agony within days of contracting the plague.Survivors often fled Europe’s cities.

Frequent wars, especially the Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453)between France and England, strained the economy.


European Society in the Fourteenth Century

A division of the church, with one pope in Rome and one in Avignon(France) for most of the fourteenth century, led to criticism of thechurch.

King Philip IV (the Fair) of France engineered the election of a Frenchpope, who resided in Avignon rather than Rome.

During the Great Schism of 1378-1417 there were two claimants to thepapacy, one in Avignon and one in Rome.

Clergy were often corrupt, which drew criticism.


Science and Secularism

William of Ockham (ca. 1285-1349) believed that knowledge of natureand of humanity should rest on experience of the senses.

An emphasis on natural explanations rather than supernatural onesled to increasing secularization.

New technologies, such as eyeglasses, mechanical clocks, and themagnetic compass, changed society’s perceptions.


The Arts

The Florentine painter Giotto achieved more naturalistic representationand a sense of depth and symmetry.

Increased literacy led to more literature in the vernacular.Dante Alighieri and Boccacio in ItalianGeoffrey Chaucer in English

In music, there was an increase of attention on secular song, thoughsacred music continued to be composed.


Roman de Fauvel

The Roman de Fauvel (Story of Fauvel) captured the spirit of the turnof the century.

Allegorical poem that satirizes corrupt politicians and church officials.

Fauvel is the central character.

The name is an anagram for:Flatterie (Flattery),Avarice (Greed),Vilenie (Guile),Variété (inconstancy),Envie (Envy), andLâcheté (Cowardice).


Roman de Fauvel

Fauvel is a horse that rises to a powerful position, symbolizing a worldturned upside down.

He marries and produces offspring who destroy the world.

One manuscript contains 169 pieces of music interpolated within thepoem, including some of the first examples in the new style, the ArsNova.


Philippe de Vitry (1291-1361)

Poet, composer, church canon,and administrator for a duke, king,and bishop.

The term ars nova comes from thefinal words of a treatise attributedto de Vitry, written ca. 1320: “thiscompletes the Ars nova of MagisterPhilippe de Vitry.”

Aside from the treatise, he isnamed in another source as the“inventor of a new art” (Ars Nova).


Ars Nova Notation

Both duple and triple division of note values possible for the first time

Division of the semibreve into smaller note values called minims

Conservative writers criticized the new ways especially “perfectionbrought low [and] imperfection is exalted,” i.e., the use of duple division.

Noteshapes retained their value regardless of their context (unlikeFranconian notation), making syncopation possible.


Ars Nova Notation

By the end of the century, mensurations signs indicated divisions oftime and prolation.

Time was indicated with a complete or incomplete circle.Prolation was indicated by the presence or absence of a dot.Imperfect time with imperfect prolation came down to us as thesign for 4/4 meter.

After a few additional modifications in the Renaissance, this systemdeveloped into the one we use today.


Isorhythm

Motets by Philippe de Vitry are among the earliest musical works toemploy developments of the Ars Nova, including isorhythm. The tenoris laid out in segments of identical rhythm.

Thirteenth-century motets often employed short repeatingpatterns in the tenor.In the fourteenth century, the tenor pattern was longer and morecomplex.The slow pace of the tenor makes it less a melody and more of afoundational structure.The melody is called color and may repeat, but not necessarilywith the rhythm.The rhythmic pattern is called talea.


In arboris/Tuba sacre fidei/Virgo sum

Attributed to Vitry.

The color statements include three repetitions of the talea.

Red ink (coloration) marks a change of meter from duple to tripledivision of the long.

The upper voices are isorhythmic during the duple sections of the tenor


Hocket Technique

Two voices alternating in rapid succession, each resting while theother sings.

The device was developed in the thirteenth century.

In the fourteenth century, the technique often marks a repetition of thetalea in the tenor.

Pieces that use the technique exclusively are called hockets and couldbe performed by voices or instruments.


Harmonic Practice

Greater prominence of imperfect consonances.

Cadences required perfect consonances, but their resolution could besustained.

Parallel octaves and fifths continued to be used.


Guillaume de Machaut (ca. 1300-1377)

The leading composer of theFrench Ars Nova

Born in northeastern France,probably to a middle-class family

Educated as a cleric and took HolyOrders

Ca. 1323-1340, worked assecretary for John of Luxembourg,King of Bohemia, accompanyingthe king on his travels.



Resided in Reims after 1340, withtime to write poetry and musicdespite his position as canon of thecathedral there

Royal patrons supported him,including the kings of Navarre andFrance.

He composed many major musicalworks and numerous narrativepoems.



First composer to compile hiscomplete works and to discuss hisworking method:

He paid for the preparation ofseveral illuminatedmanuscripts of his works.He wrote his poems first, thenthe music.He was happiest when themusic was sweet andpleasing.


Motets

He composed twenty-three motets, most from early in his career

Twenty are isorhythmic, three of which use secular songs as tenors.

Often include hockets

Four four-voice motets


Messe de Nostre Dame (Mass of Our Lady)

Probably the earliest polyphonic setting of the Mass Ordinary to becomposed by a single composer and conceived as a unit

In the fourteenth century, anonymous composers in France,England, and Italy set individual movements polyphonically.A few cycles were assembled from individual movements.

Composed for the cathedral in ReimsPerformed at a Mass for the Virgin Mary celebrated everySaturdayAfter Machaut’s death, an oration for Machaut’s soul was added tothe service.It continued to be performed there until the fifteenth century.



Unifying devicesRecurring motivesTonal focus on D in the first three movements and on F in the lastthreeAll six movements are for four voices, including a contratenor(against the tenor) that moves in the same range as the tenor.

Isorhythmic movements:Kyrie, Sanctus, Agnus Dei, and Ite, missa est are isorhythmic.In the opening of the Christe section, the upper two voices arepartly isorhythmic.Rhythmic repetition in the upper voices makes the recurring taleaeasier to hear.



Elements of Machaut’s style in the Christesustained notes contrast with lively rhythms.Repeating figuration generates rhythmic activity.

Discant-style movementsThe Gloria and Credo are syllabic and largely homorhythmic.Sustained chords emphasize important words, e.g., Jesu Christeand ex Maria Virgine.The Gloria paraphrases a monophonic chant Gloria in differentvoices.The Credo is not based on chant.Both movements end with partially isorhythmic passages on theword “Amen.”


Monophonic Songs

Written in the trouvére tradition

Most treat the subject of love.

Lais:Of Machaut’s nineteen Lais, four are polyphonic.The form of a Lai is similar to that of a sequence.


Monophonic Songs

Virelais:One of the three formes fixes (fixed forms)Refrain form with stanzas using new material as well as refrainmusicTypical form is A bba A bba A bba A (capital letters indicaterepetitions of both text and music, and lowercase letters indicaterepetitions of music with new text).Three stanzas typicalThe number of poetic lines for each section of music varied.Most of Machaut’s virelais are monophonic, but eight arepolyphonic.


Monophonic Songs

Foy porter:Text is full of intense images and lists ways in which the poetwishes to pay homage to his beloved.The short lines and frequent rhymes of the poem are reflected inthe music.


Polyphonic Songs

Polyphonic songs (chansons, “songs”) in the formes fixes

The formes fixes were originally genres for dancing.Machaut’s monophonic virelais could be used for dancing.Refrains were typical of dance genres.The texts of the stanzas sometimes invested the words of therefrain with new meaning.

Treble-dominated songs were a major innovation of the Ars Novaperiod.

The treble or cantus carries the textA slower-moving, untexted tenor supports the cantus.A contratenor may be added.


Polyphonic SongsMachaut sometimes wrote a triplum in the same range and style as thecantus.

Ballades:Three stanzas, each sung to the same music and ending with thesame line of poetryThe musical form of the stanza resembles bar form (aabC)The ending of the b section sometimes has the same music as theend of the a.Machaut composed ballades for two, three, and four voices.

RondeauxTwo musical phrases and a refrainForm: ABaAabABMost are for solo voice with accompanying tenor or tenor andcontratenor.



Typical Machaut characteristicsVaried rhythms, includingsupple syncopationsStepwise melodyLong melismas fall onstructural points.

Machaut’s poetry influenced otherpoets, including Chaucer.


The Ars Subtilior

Composers at the court of the Avignon pope across southern Franceand northern Italy cultivated complex secular music.

Continuation of Ars Nova traditionsPolyphonic songs in the formes fixesNotation of duple and triple meter using colorationPieces notated in fanciful shapesLove songs intended for an elite audience


The Ars Subtilior

Rhythmic complexityComplexity not known again until the twentieth centuryVoices in contrasting meters and conflicting groupingsHarmonies purposely blurred through rhythmic disjunction

En remirant vo douce pourtraiture by Philippus de Caserta (fl. ca.1370):

A ballade: aabCThe voices move in different meters.Performances used voices for all three parts, but instrumentaldoubling was likely.


Italian Trecento Music

Italy was a collection of city-states, not unified as France was.Several city-states cultivated secular polyphony.Florence, Bologna, Padua, Modena, Milan, and Perugia were themain centers for secular polyphony.Church polyphony was mostly improvised, but a few notatedworks have survived.Boccaccio’s Decameron describes music in social life

Italian notation differed from French Ars Nova notation.Breves could be divided into two to twelve equal semibreves.Groupings of semibreves are marked off by dots (akin to themodern bar line).


Italian Trecento Music

Squarcialupi Codex (copied about 1410-15)One of the main sources for Italian secular polyphony frompre-1330.Named for a former owner354 pieces, grouped by composer, with a portrait of eachcomposer at the beginning of the section containing his works.


Fourteenth-Century Madrigal

Fourteenth-century madrigal is not related to the sixteenth-centurymadrigal.

Song for two or three voices without instrumental accompaniment

All voices sing the same text.

Subjects: love, satire, pastoral life


Fourteenth-Century Madrigal

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

Non al suo amante by Jacopo da Bologna:Setting of a poem by PetrarchThe two voices are relatively equal.Exhibits hocketlike alternationThe first and last syllables of each line of poetry are set with longmelismas, while the music for the syllables in between is mostlysyllabic.


Caccia (Italian for “hunt”)

Similar to the French chace (French for “hunt”), a popular-style melodyset in strict canon with lively, descriptive words

Popular from 1345 to 1370

Two voices in canon at the unison with an untexted tenor

Sometimes the text plays on the concept of a hunt, e.g., Tosto chel’alba by Ghirardello da Firenze.

Imitations of hunting hornsHigh-spirited and comic

Other texts concern pastoral settings, battles, or a dialogue.

Some caccias end with a hocket or echo effects between the voices.


Ballata

Popular later than the madrigal and caccia (after 1365)

Influenced by the treble-dominated French chanson

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


Francesco Landini (ca. 1325-1397)

He was blind from boyhood(smallpox).

Father was a noted painter.

He played many instruments butwas a virtuoso on the small organ(organetto).

Worked for a monastery and achurch but composed mainlysecular ballate


Francesco Landini (ca. 1325-1397)Non avrà ma’ pietà

Sonorities containing thirds and sixths are plentiful, though neverat the beginning or end of a section.Arching melodies that are smoother than Machaut’s melodiesdespite syncopationMelismas on the first and penultimate syllables of a poetic line(characteristic of the Italian style)

Under-third cadence, typical of Trecento musicThe upper voice descends a step before leaping a third to theoctave resolution with the tenor.Called the Landini cadence, though it is common in both Italianand French music

French influence overtook the Italian style at the end of the century.


Fourteenth-Century Music in Performance

There was no uniform way to perform polyphonic music.

Pictorial and literary sources indicate vocal, instrumental, and mixedgroups.

Purely vocal performance was most common.


Instruments

Haut (“high”) instruments were loud, for outdoor entertainment anddancing.

Cornetts (wooden instruments with finger holes and brass-typemouthpieces)TrumpetsShawms

Bas (“low”) instruments were soft in volume.Stringed instruments such as harps, lutes, and viellesPortative organsTransverse flutes and recorders


Instruments

Percussion instruments were common in all kinds of ensembles.

Keyboard instruments:Portative and positive organs were common in secular music.Large organs began to be installed in German churches.

Instrumental music:Instruments played vocal music.Instrumental dance music was likely memorized or improvised.Fifteen istampitas survive.


Musica Ficta: Chromatic AlterationsRaising or lowering a note by a half-step to avoid a tritone

Pitches could also be altered to make a smoother melodic line.

The resulting pitches lay outside the gamut and were thus false, orficta.

Often used at cadencesTo make the sixth preceding an octave a major sixth rather thanminorIn three-voice pieces, both upper voices could be raised for adouble leading-tone cadence.

Singers were trained to recognize situations in which a pitch neededalteration, so the accidentals were rarely notated.(Modern editions put these accidentals above the staff.)


Ch06

Documents