MUSIC IN LATE-MEDIEVAL CULTURE 1100-1500

Musicians vs. Singers: “Great is the gap between musicians and singers; The latter talk about what music comprises, while the former understand these things. For he who does what he does not understand is termed a beast." � Guido of Arezzo, Regule�(11th century)�

Guest lecture by Jane Hatter jane.hatter@mcgill.ca

What are we doing today? • Three axes of music:

•  Sacred and secular music •  Monophonic and polyphonic music •  Improvised / memorized and composed / notated

Purposes of music in the late-Medieval period: • Music for the Church

•  The development of notation

• Music for Courtly Culture •  Pop music for the 14th and 15th centuries

Melodic sleuthing •  Tracing a melody through the centuries

Three axes of music X = Sacred and secular music

•  Defined by context •  Plainchant vs. love songs

Y = Monophonic and polyphonic music

•  Defined by musical performance •  Single melody vs. SATB

Z= Improvised / memorized and composed / notated

•  Defined by musical content or source

•  Oral traditions vs. “art music”

Kinds of Music = Kinds of musicians • Music for parties (90%)

•  Improvised music by itinerant singers and instrumentalists •  Troubadour, jongeur, etc.

•  Could be high or low class

• Music for devotions and liturgy (8%) •  Oratores or clerics – priests, monks, nuns •  Trained in the church from childhood •  Often literate, especially after 1400 •  Aspired to Rome, Papal Chapel and Curia

• Music for status (2%) •  Town musicians – trumpeters, fife (a small flute) and drum

•  Civic office with duties as town watchmen and military

•  Household musicians for wealthy •  Often started as choirboys and had other duties in the court

Kinds of Music = Kinds of sources • Non-musical, indirect accounts

•  Accounts of expenditures •  Travel logs •  Letters •  Works of fiction and/or dramas

• Textual manuscripts •  Poetry to be improvised •  Or sung to an already known tune

• Musical manuscripts •  Plainchant sources – small tonaries and later larger manuscripts •  Polyphonic sources – manuscripts for presentation and some as luxury items

Development of Medieval Notation • Why notate music?

•  Plainchant = fixed text/music unit used in the Catholic liturgy

•  Plainchant was used by Charlemagne and the Carolingians to unify •  “A little bird told me…” Gregorian

Chant!

•  Regional differences were asserted by maintaining regional melodies or styles •  Ambrosian Chant = Milan •  Gallican Chant = Gaul (France pre-

Charlemagne)

•  Notating chant fixed an oral tradition •  but it was constantly changing

Development of Medieval Notation

Manuscript from St. Gall, 9th century

• At first indicated only melodic movement (900-1000)

•  Neumes above the text •  Show melodic direction or outline

•  Intended only to remind singers of melodies they already knew •  Written in small manuscripts called “Tonaries” for individual study

Development of Medieval Notation •  Later developments fixed

pitch relationships (1000-1100) •  Neumes and notes situated on

lines and spaces of the staff •  Clefs or colored lines show

where the semitones are (F and C)

•  Written in larger often more ornate manuscripts for display and use during services •  Indicates literate singers, less

need to memorize

Guido of Arezzo (991/2-c. 1033)

• Monk and music teacher •  Wrote 4 important treatises on music

pedagogy and theory

• Main contributions: •  Suggested the use of colored lines to

indicate the location of the semitone (F and C)

•  Introduced a system of solmization, fixing syllables with certain pitches Ut re mi fa sol la

•  Discussed improvise polyphony!

• Most commonly associated with “Guidonian Hand” - mneumonic •  The Hand only came about in 12th

century

Guido’s Solmization Hymn: Ut queant laxis

http://mcgill.naxosmusiclibrary.com.proxy2.library.mcgill.ca/catalogue/item.asp?cid=SIGCD098

Guido’s hexachord: Ut re mi fa sol la

Votive antiphon, Ave regina celorum, 12th century

1a 1b

2a

2b

3

4

Listen to Track 17: http://mcgill.naxosmusiclibrary.com/catalogue/item.asp?cid=745099920364

Development of Medieval Notation •  Finally developments fixed

rhythmic values (1100-1500) •  Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris was an

important early center (Organum) •  Various systems in rapid change

•  Duration dependent upon the shape of the notes within a metric system

•  Ars nova = sophisticated notation system c. 1320 •  System of division allow triple and duple

meters •  Up to 81 smaller values in a long value •  this is the system that eventually became

our modern music notation

Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300–1377) • Priest who served the courts of France and

Luxembourg •  greatest composer and French poet of his day

•  Wrote monophonic love songs, plainchant, and polyphony

•  Combined the polyphonic innovations of notation for sacred music with the passion and forms of secular love poetry

• Supervised the copying of an edition of his complete works (Literary and musical source) •  See example on previous slide and illustration •  Circulated in courtly circles but also aware of

posterity, wanted his works to endure beyond his lifetime

For a good polyphonic, secular piece see Disc 2, track 10 http://mcgill.naxosmusiclibrary.com/catalogue/item.asp?cid=BC94217

Music of the Early Renaissance

� Includes most of the 15th century � Dufay is an important sacred musician � Binchois is an important courtly musician

� Contenance angloise �  Influence of English improvised technique � Result of Council of Constance � Changed the musical style of this

generation � More “sweet” intervals, 3rd and 6th

� New focus on composed music �  Interest in complex canons and show � Symbolic use of plainchant

Dufay and Binchois

For the example of Binchois played in lecture see Track 1: http://mcgill.naxosmusiclibrary.com/catalogue/item.asp?cid=0724354528552

Dufay, Ave regina celorum III, with personal prayer PRIMA PARS 1a: Ave regina celorum 1b: Ave domina angelorum Miserere tui labentis Dufay Ne peccatorum ruat in ignem fervorum. 2a: Salve radix sancta Ex qua mundo lux est orta Miserere genetrix Domini Ut pateat porta caeli debili SECUNDA PARS 2b: Gaude gloriosa super omnes speciosa Miserere supplicanti Dufay Sitque in conspectu tuo mors eius speciosa 3: Vale, valde decora 4: Et pro nobis semper Christum exora. In exclesis ne damnemur miserere nobis Et juva ut in mortis hora nostra sint corda decora.

Hail Queen of heaven Hail mistress over the angels. Have mercy on thy dying Dufay Lest, a sinner, he be hurled down into hot hellfire. Hail holy source, From which light entered the world. Have mercy, Mother of God, So that the gate of Heaven may be opened. Rejoice, glorious one, Beautiful beyond measure. Have mercy on they suppliant Dufay and may his death be beautiful in thy sight. Prosper greatly, most comely one, and pray for us always to Christ. Lest we be damned on high, have mercy and help us so that in the hour of death our hearts may be serene.

For this motet listen to track 14, not 6 or 10, they are different compositions base on the same tune. http://mcgill.naxosmusiclibrary.com/catalogue/item.asp?cid=GCDP31904

Request from Dufay’s will …let the companions of the church sing next to my bed in a low voice the hymn Magno salutis gaudio, for which I bequeath 60 Parisian spoldi, and when this hymn is finished, the altar boys, together with their�teacher�and two of the companions, will in the same place also sing my motet Ave regina celorum , for which I bequeath them 30 soldi.

Corner of Dufay’s funeral monument

Autograph letter from Dufay to Piero and Giovanni de' Medici showing signature. Du [note C or fa in hard hexachord] y

Why use Chant? This is still functional music for the church but with personal

investment! •  Still values melodic and symbolic character of chant

–  gives it specific meter & rhythm –  embellishes it with new notes –  emphasizes the sensuous aspect of chant melody

� The paraphrased plainchant melody is emphasized in top voice and can be easily recognized �  supporting polyphonic voices create simple chords with lots of sweet

intervals like thirds and sixths (Contenance angloise)

� Result is a plainchant harmonization � Sanctifying function of plainchant for a personal purpose � Brings out the role of the composer at creator while praying for his soul

Donor portrait by Rogier van der Weyden, c. 1440

• Depicts the donors within the religious scene

• Devotion, art, and status symbol

•  Similar to Dufay’s motet that places a prayer for the author within the Marian antiphon

Center panel of a Tryptych: The Crucifixion, c. 1440, oil on wood, 96 x 69 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna

Take Away Music was a product of culture. •  Music for the church •  Music for entertainment •  Music was a craft, not an art •  Primarily oral tradition Musicians had multiple functions. •  Oratores – praying for the people •  Courtiers – working for the court

The remaining musical sources are fragmentary. •  Notated music is only a small percentage of the total •  We must be creative to understand and imagine the late-

Medieval soundscape

plainchant monophony improvised composed notation and neumes Guido of Arezzo solmization

Terms

Jordi Savall interpreting the Cantigas de Santa Maria (monophonic 13th c. source) played at beginning of class: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwoF8fzjitI