Medieval music

Medieval music encompasses the

Medieval music includes liturgical music used for the church, other sacred music, and secular or non-religious music. Much medieval music is purely vocal music, such as Gregorian chant. Other music used only instruments or both voices and instruments (typically with the instruments accompanying the voices).

The medieval period saw the creation and adaptation of systems of

Medieval music was created for a number of different uses and contexts, resulting in different music genres. Liturgical as well as more general sacred contexts were important, but secular types emerged as well, including love songs and dances. During the earlier medieval period, liturgical music was monophonic chant; Gregorian chant became the dominant style. Polyphonic genres, in which multiple independent melodic lines are performed simultaneously, began to develop during the high medieval era, becoming prevalent by the later 13th and early 14th century. The development of polyphonic forms is often associated with the Ars antiqua style associated with Notre-Dame de Paris, but improvised polyphony around chant lines predated this.^[2]

Many instruments used to perform medieval music still exist in the 21st century, but in different and typically more technologically developed forms.^[9] The flute was made of wood in the medieval era rather than silver or other metal, and could be made as a side-blown or end-blown instrument. While modern orchestral flutes are usually made of metal and have complex key mechanisms and airtight pads, medieval flutes had holes that the performer had to cover with the fingers (as with the recorder). The recorder was made of wood during the medieval era, and despite the fact that in the 21st century it may be made of synthetic materials such as plastic, it has more or less retained its past form. The gemshorn is similar to the recorder as it has finger holes on its front, though it is actually a member of the ocarina family. One of the flute's predecessors, the pan flute, was popular in medieval times, and is possibly of Hellenic origin. This instrument's pipes were made of wood, and were graduated in length to produce different pitches.^{[citation needed]}

Medieval music used many plucked string instruments like the lute, a fretted instrument with a pear-shaped hollow body which is the predecessor to the modern guitar. Other plucked stringed instruments included the mandore, gittern, citole and psaltery. The dulcimers, similar in structure to the psaltery and zither, were originally plucked, but musicians began to strike the dulcimer with hammers in the 14th century after the arrival of new metal technology that made metal strings possible.^{[citation needed]}

The bowed

The earliest medieval music did not have any kind of notational system. The tunes were primarily monophonic (a single

These neumes eventually evolved into the basic symbols for neumatic notation, the virga (or "rod") which indicates a higher note and still looked like the acutus from which it came; and the punctum (or "dot") which indicates a lower note and, as the name suggests, reduced the gravis symbol to a point.[14] Thus the acutus and the gravis could be combined to represent graphical vocal inflections on the syllable.^[14] This kind of notation seems to have developed no earlier than the eighth century, but by the ninth it was firmly established as the primary method of musical notation.^[17] The basic notation of the virga and the punctum remained the symbols for individual notes, but other neumes soon developed which showed several notes joined. These new neumes—called ligatures—are essentially combinations of the two original signs.^[18]

The first music notation was the use of dots over the lyrics to a chant, with some dots being higher or lower, giving the reader a general sense of the direction of the melody. However, this form of notation only served as a memory aid for a singer who already knew the melody.^[19] This basic neumatic notation could only specify the number of notes and whether they moved up or down. There was no way to indicate exact pitch, any rhythm, or even the starting note. These limitations are further indication that the neumes were developed as tools to support the practice of oral tradition, rather than to supplant it. However, even though it started as a mere memory aid, the worth of having more specific notation soon became evident.^[17]

The next development in musical notation was "heighted neumes", in which neumes were carefully placed at different heights in relation to each other. This allowed the neumes to give a rough indication of the size of a given interval as well as the direction. This quickly led to one or two lines, each representing a particular note, being placed on the music with all of the neumes relating to the earlier ones. At first, these lines had no particular meaning and instead had a letter placed at the beginning indicating which note was represented. However, the lines indicating middle C and the F a fifth below slowly became most common. Having been at first merely scratched on the parchment, the lines now were drawn in two different colored inks: usually red for F, and yellow or green for C. This was the beginning of the musical staff.^[20] The completion of the four-line staff is usually credited to Guido d'Arezzo (c. 1000–1050), one of the most important musical theorists of the Middle Ages. While older sources attribute the development of the staff to Guido, some modern scholars suggest that he acted more as a codifier of a system that was already being developed. Either way, this new notation allowed a singer to learn pieces completely unknown to him in a much shorter amount of time.^[13][21] However, even though chant notation had progressed in many ways, one fundamental problem remained: rhythm. The neumatic notational system, even in its fully developed state, did not clearly define any kind of rhythm for the singing of notes.^[22]

Music theory

The music theory of the medieval period saw several advances over previous practice both in regard to tonal material, texture, and rhythm.

Rhythm

Concerning rhythm, this period had several dramatic changes in both its conception and notation. During the early medieval period there was no method to notate rhythm, and thus the rhythmical practice of this early music is subject to debate among scholars.^[22] The first kind of written rhythmic system developed during the 13th century and was based on a series of modes. This rhythmic plan was codified by the music theorist Johannes de Garlandia, author of the De Mensurabili Musica (c. 1250), the treatise which defined and most completely elucidated these rhythmic modes.^[23] In his treatise Johannes de Garlandia describes six species of mode, or six different ways in which longs and breves can be arranged. Each mode establishes a rhythmic pattern in beats (or tempora) within a common unit of three tempora (a perfectio) that is repeated again and again. Furthermore, notation without text is based on chains of ligatures (the characteristic notations by which groups of notes are bound to one another).

The rhythmic mode can generally be determined by the patterns of ligatures used.^[24] Once a rhythmic mode had been assigned to a melodic line, there was generally little deviation from that mode, although rhythmic adjustments could be indicated by changes in the expected pattern of ligatures, even to the extent of changing to another rhythmic mode.^[25] The next step forward concerning rhythm came from the German theorist Franco of Cologne. In his treatise Ars cantus mensurabilis ("The Art of Mensurable Music"), written around 1280, he describes a system of notation in which differently shaped notes have entirely different rhythmic values. This is a striking change from the earlier system of de Garlandia. Whereas before the length of the individual note could only be gathered from the mode itself, this new inverted relationship made the mode dependent upon—and determined by—the individual notes or figurae that have incontrovertible durational values,^[26] an innovation which had a massive impact on the subsequent history of European music. Most of the surviving notated music of the 13th century uses the rhythmic modes as defined by Garlandia. The step in the evolution of rhythm came after the turn of the 13th century with the development of the Ars Nova style.

The theorist who is most well recognized in regard to this new style is

Mensurations could be combined in various manners to produce metrical groupings. These groupings of mensurations are the precursors of simple and compound meter.^[29] By the time of Ars Nova, the perfect division of the tempus was not the only option as duple divisions became more accepted. For Vitry the breve could be divided, for an entire composition, or section of one, into groups of two or three smaller semibreves. This way, the tempus (the term that came to denote the division of the breve) could be either "perfect" (tempus perfectum), with ternary subdivision, or "imperfect" (tempus imperfectum), with binary subdivision.^[30] In a similar fashion, the semibreve's division (termed prolation) could be divided into three minima (prolatio perfectus or major prolation) or two minima (prolatio imperfectus or minor prolation) and, at the higher level, the longs division (called modus) could be three or two breves (modus perfectus or perfect mode, or modus imperfectus or imperfect mode respectively).^[31][32] Vitry took this a step further by indicating the proper division of a given piece at the beginning through the use of a "mensuration sign", equivalent to our modern "time signature".^[33]

Tempus perfectum was indicated by a circle, while tempus imperfectum was denoted by a half-circle

For the duration of the medieval period, most music would be composed primarily in perfect tempus, with special effects created by sections of imperfect tempus; there is a great current controversy among musicologists as to whether such sections were performed with a breve of equal length or whether it changed, and if so, at what proportion. This Ars Nova style remained the primary rhythmical system until the highly syncopated works of the Ars subtilior at the end of the 14th century, characterized by extremes of notational and rhythmic complexity.^[34] This sub-genera pushed the rhythmic freedom provided by Ars Nova to its limits, with some compositions having different voices written in different mensurations simultaneously. The rhythmic complexity that was realized in this music is comparable to that in the 20th century.^[35]

Polyphony

Of equal importance to the overall history of western music theory were the textural changes that came with the advent of polyphony. This practice shaped western music into the harmonically dominated music that we know today.^[36] The first accounts of this textural development were found in two anonymous yet widely circulated treatises on music, the Musica and the Scolica enchiriadis. These texts are dated to sometime within the last half of the ninth century.^[37] The treatises describe a technique that seemed already to be well established in practice.^[37] This early polyphony is based on three simple and three compound intervals. The first group comprises fourths, fifths, and octaves; while the second group has octave-plus-fourths, octave-plus-fifths, and double octaves.^[37] This new practice is given the name organum by the author of the treatises.^[37] Organum can further be classified depending on the time period in which it was written. The early organum as described in the enchiriadis can be termed "strict organum" ^[38] Strict organum can, in turn, be subdivided into two types: diapente (organum at the interval of a fifth) and diatesseron (organum at the interval of a fourth).^[38] However, both of these kinds of strict organum had problems with the musical rules of the time. If either of them paralleled an original chant for too long (depending on the mode) a tritone would result.^[39]

This problem was somewhat overcome with the use of a second type of organum. This second style of organum was called "free organum". Its distinguishing factor is that the parts did not have to move only in parallel motion, but could also move in oblique, or contrary motion. This made it much easier to avoid the dreaded tritone.

Medieval theorists called these pairs maneriae and labeled them according to the Greek ordinal numbers. Those modes that have d, e, f, and g as their final are put into the groups protus, deuterus, tritus, and tetrardus respectively.[45] These can then be divided further based on whether the mode is "authentic" or "plagal." These distinctions deal with the range of the mode in relation to the final. The authentic modes have a range that is about an octave (one tone above or below is allowed) and start on the final, whereas the plagal modes, while still covering about an octave, start a perfect fourth below the authentic.^[46] Another interesting aspect of the modal system is the use of "Musica ficta" which allows pitches to be altered (changing B♮ to B♭ for example) in certain contexts regardless of the mode.^[47] These changes have several uses, but one that seems particularly common is to avoid melodic difficulties caused by the tritone.^[48]

These ecclesiastical modes, although they have Greek names, have little relationship to the modes as set out by Greek theorists. Rather, most of the terminology seems to be a misappropriation on the part of the medieval theorists^[43] Although the church modes have no relation to the ancient Greek modes, the overabundance of Greek terminology does point to an interesting possible origin in the liturgical melodies of the Byzantine tradition. This system is called octoechos and is also divided into eight categories, called echoi.^[49]

For specific medieval music theorists, see also:

Early chant traditions

Around the end of the 9th century, singers in monasteries such as

Another musical tradition of Europe originating during the early Middle Ages was the liturgical drama.

Liturgical drama developed possibly in the 10th century from the tropes—poetic embellishments of the liturgical texts. One of the tropes, the so-called Quem Quaeritis, belonging to the liturgy of Easter morning, developed into a short play around the year 950.^[54] The oldest surviving written source is the Winchester Troper. Around the year 1000 it was sung widely in Northern Europe.^{[55][failed verification]}

Shortly,^{[clarification needed]} a similar Christmas play was developed, musically and textually following the Easter one, and other plays followed.

There is a controversy among musicologists as to the instrumental accompaniment of such plays, given that the stage directions, very elaborate and precise in other respects, do not request any participation of instruments.^{[citation needed]} These dramas were performed by monks, nuns and priests.^{[citation needed]} In contrast to secular plays, which were spoken, the liturgical drama was always sung.^{[citation needed]} Many have been preserved sufficiently to allow modern reconstruction and performance (for example the Play of Daniel, which has been recently recorded at least ten times).

High medieval music (1000–1300)

Goliards

The

The flowering of the

The motet, one of the most important musical forms of the high Middle Ages and Renaissance, developed initially during the Notre Dame period out of the clausula, especially the form using multiple voices as elaborated by Pérotin, who paved the way for this particularly by replacing many of his predecessor (as canon of the cathedral) Léonin's lengthy florid clausulae with substitutes in a discant style. Gradually, there came to be entire books of these substitutes, available to be fitted in and out of the various chants. Since, in fact, there were more than can possibly have been used in context, it is probable that the clausulae came to be performed independently, either in other parts of the mass, or in private devotions. The clausula, thus practised, became the motet when troped with non-liturgical words, and this further developed into a form of great elaboration, sophistication and subtlety in the fourteenth century, the period of Ars nova. Surviving manuscripts from this era include the Montpellier Codex, Bamberg Codex, and Las Huelgas Codex.

Composers of this time include

The increasing rhythmic complexity seen in Petronian motets would be a fundamental characteristic of the 14th century, though music in France, Italy, and England would take quite different paths during that time.^[citation needed]

Cantigas de Santa Maria

The Cantigas de Santa Maria ("Canticles of St. Mary") are 420 poems with musical notation, written in

The music of the

The trouvères and troubadours shared similar musical styes, but the trouvères were generally noblemen.[50] The music of the trouvères was similar to that of the troubadours, but was able to survive into the thirteenth century unaffected by the Albigensian Crusade. Most of the more than two thousand surviving trouvère songs include music, and show a sophistication as great as that of the poetry it accompanies.^[61]

The

Trovadorismo

In the Middle Ages,

The Galician-Portuguese cantigas can be divided into three basic genres: male-voiced love poetry, called cantigas de amor (or cantigas d'amor, in Galician-Portuguese spelling) female-voiced love poetry, called cantigas de amigo (or cantigas d'amigo); and poetry of insult and mockery called cantigas de escárnio e maldizer (or cantigas d'escarnho e de mal dizer). All three are lyric genres in the technical sense that they were strophic songs with either musical accompaniment or introduction on a stringed instrument. But all three genres also have dramatic elements, leading early scholars to characterize them as lyric-dramatic.

The origins of the cantigas d'amor are usually traced to Provençal and Old French lyric poetry, but formally and rhetorically they are quite different. The cantigas d'amigo are probably rooted in a native song tradition,^[64] though this view has been contested. The cantigas d'escarnho e maldizer may also (according to Lang) have deep local roots. The latter two genres (totalling around 900 texts) make the Galician-Portuguese lyric unique in the entire panorama of medieval Romance poetry.

Troubadours with surviving melodies

Composers of the high and late medieval era

Late medieval music (1300–1400)

France: Ars nova

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The beginning of the

, the finest composer of the time.

During the Ars nova era, secular music acquired a polyphonic sophistication formerly found only in sacred music, a development not surprising considering the secular character of the early Renaissance (while this music is typically considered "medieval", the social forces that produced it were responsible for the beginning of the literary and artistic Renaissance in Italy—the distinction between Middle Ages and Renaissance is a blurry one, especially considering arts as different as music and painting). The term "Ars nova" (new art, or new technique) was coined by Philippe de Vitry in his treatise of that name (probably written in 1322), in order to distinguish the practice from the music of the immediately preceding age.

The dominant secular genre of the Ars Nova was the chanson, as it would continue to be in France for another two centuries. These chansons were composed in musical forms corresponding to the poetry they set,^[65] which were in the so-called formes fixes of rondeau, ballade, and virelai. These forms significantly affected the development of musical structure in ways that are felt even today; for example, the ouvert-clos rhyme-scheme shared by all three demanded a musical realization which contributed directly to the modern notion of antecedent and consequent phrases. It was in this period, too, in which began the long tradition of setting the mass ordinary. This tradition started around mid-century with isolated or paired settings of Kyries, Glorias, etc., but Machaut composed what is thought to be the first complete mass conceived as one composition. The sound world of Ars Nova music is very much one of linear primacy and rhythmic complexity. "Resting" intervals are the fifth and octave, with thirds and sixths considered dissonances. Leaps of more than a sixth in individual voices are not uncommon, leading to speculation of instrumental participation at least in secular performance. Surviving French manuscripts include the Ivrea Codex and the Apt Codex.

For information about specific French composers writing in late medieval era, see

François Andrieu

.

Italy: Trecento

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Main article: Music of the Trecento

Most of the music of Ars nova was French in origin; however, the term is often loosely applied to all of the music of the fourteenth century, especially to include the secular music in Italy. There this period was often referred to as Trecento. Italian music has always been known for its lyrical or melodic character, and this goes back to the 14th century in many respects. Italian secular music of this time (what little surviving liturgical music there is, is similar to the French except for somewhat different notation) featured what has been called the cantalina style, with a florid top voice supported by two (or even one; a fair amount of Italian Trecento music is for only two voices) that are more regular and slower moving. This type of texture remained a feature of Italian music in the popular 15th and 16th century secular genres as well, and was an important influence on the eventual development of the trio texture that revolutionized music in the 17th.

There were three main forms for secular works in the Trecento. One was the

madrigal, not the same as that of 150–250 years later, but with a verse/refrain-like form. Three-line stanzas, each with different words, alternated with a two-line ritornello

, with the same text at each appearance. Perhaps we can see the seeds of the subsequent late-Renaissance and Baroque ritornello in this device; it too returns again and again, recognizable each time, in contrast with its surrounding disparate sections. Another form, the caccia ("chase,") was written for two voices in a canon at the unison. Sometimes, this form also featured a ritornello, which was occasionally also in a canonic style. Usually, the name of this genre provided a double meaning, since the texts of caccia were primarily about hunts and related outdoor activities, or at least action-filled scenes; second meaning was that a voice caccia (follows, run after) the preceding one. The third main form was the ballata, which was roughly equivalent to the French virelai.

Surviving Italian manuscripts include the

Lorenzo Masini, Niccolò da Perugia, and Maestro Piero

.

Germany: Geisslerlieder

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Main article: Geisslerlieder

The Geisslerlieder were the songs of wandering bands of flagellants, who sought to appease the wrath of an angry God by penitential music accompanied by mortification of their bodies. There were two separate periods of activity of Geisslerlied: one around the middle of the thirteenth century, from which, unfortunately, no music survives (although numerous lyrics do); and another from 1349, for which both words and music survive intact due to the attention of a single priest who wrote about the movement and recorded its music. This second period corresponds to the spread of the Black Death in Europe, and documents one of the most terrible events in European history. Both periods of Geisslerlied activity were mainly in Germany.

Ars subtilior

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Main article: Ars subtilior

As often seen at the end of any musical era, the end of the medieval era is marked by a highly manneristic style known as Ars subtilior. In some ways, this was an attempt to meld the French and Italian styles. This music was highly stylized, with a rhythmic complexity that was not matched until the 20th century. In fact, not only was the rhythmic complexity of this repertoire largely unmatched for five and a half centuries, with extreme syncopations, mensural trickery, and even examples of augenmusik (such as a chanson by Baude Cordier written out in manuscript in the shape of a heart), but also its melodic material was quite complex as well, particularly in its interaction with the rhythmic structures. Already discussed under Ars Nova has been the practice of isorhythm, which continued to develop through late-century and in fact did not achieve its highest degree of sophistication until early in the 15th century. Instead of using isorhythmic techniques in one or two voices, or trading them among voices, some works came to feature a pervading isorhythmic texture which rivals the integral serialism of the 20th century in its systematic ordering of rhythmic and tonal elements. The term "mannerism" was applied by later scholars, as it often is, in response to an impression of sophistication being practised for its own sake, a malady which some authors have felt infected the Ars subtilior.

One of the most important extant sources of Ars Subtilior chansons is the

Anthonello de Caserta, Philippus de Caserta (aka Philipoctus de Caserta), Johannes Ciconia, Matteo da Perugia, Lorenzo da Firenze, Grimace, Jacob Senleches, and Baude Cordier

.

Transitioning to the Renaissance

Demarcating the end of the medieval era and the beginning of the Renaissance era, with regard to the composition of music, is difficult. While the music of the fourteenth century is fairly obviously medieval in conception, the music of the early fifteenth century is often conceived as belonging to a transitional period, not only retaining some of the ideals of the end of the Middle Ages (such as a type of polyphonic writing in which the parts differ widely from each other in character, as each has its specific textural function), but also showing some of the characteristic traits of the Renaissance (such as the increasingly international style developing through the diffusion of Franco-Flemish musicians throughout Europe, and in terms of texture an increasing equality of parts). Music historians do not agree on when the Renaissance era began, but most historians agree that England was still a medieval society in the early fifteenth century (see periodization issues of the Middle Ages). While there is no consensus, 1400 is a useful marker, because it was around that time that the Renaissance came into full swing in Italy.^{[citation needed]}

The increasing reliance on the interval of the third as a consonance is one of the most pronounced features of transition into the Renaissance. Polyphony, in use since the 12th century, became increasingly elaborate with highly independent voices throughout the 14th century. With

The musical styles of Pérotin influenced 20th-century composers such as John Luther Adams^[67] and minimalist composer Steve Reich.^[68]

Bardcore, which involves remixing famous pop songs to have a medieval instrumentation, became a popular meme in 2020.^[69]

References

Sources

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• Chandler, Richard E.; Schwartz, Kessel (1991). A New History of Spanish Literature (1st ed.). Baton Rouge:
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• Christensen, Thomas, ed. (2002). The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory. Cambridge:
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• Gibbs, Marion E.; Johnson, Sidney M., eds. (1997). Medieval German Literature: A Companion. London:
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• Hindley, Goffrey, ed. (1971). The Larousse Encyclopedia of Music. London:
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• Michaëlis de Vasconcellos, Carolina (1904). Cancioneiro da Ajuda (in Portuguese) (edição critica e commentada ed.). Halle a.S.: M. Niemeyer.
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• Parrish, Carl (1957). The Notation of Medieval Music. London:
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• Seay, Albert (1965). Music in the Medieval World. Englewood Cliffs:
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• Wolinski, Mary; Borders, James (26 February 2020). "Medieval Music".
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• Yudkin, Jeremy (1989). Music in Medieval Europe (1st ed.). Upper Saddle River:
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Further reading

• ISBN 978-0-19-316303-4
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• Butterfield, Ardis (2002), Poetry and Music in Medieval France, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Cyrus, Cynthia J. (1999), "Music": Medieval Glossary ORB Online Encyclopedia (15 October) (Archive from 9 August 2011; accessed 4 May 2017.
• Derrick, Henry (1983), The Listeners Guide to Medieval & Renaissance Music, New York, NY: Facts on File.
• ISBN 978-0-521-10431-9
  .
• Gómez, Maricarmen; Haggh, Barbara (May 1990). "Minstrel Schools in the Late Middle Ages".
  JSTOR 3127809
  .
• Haines, John. (2004). "Erasures in Thirteenth-Century Music". Music and Medieval Manuscripts: Paleography and Performance. Andershot: Ashgate. pg. 60–88.
• Haines, John. (2011). The Calligraphy of Medieval Music. Brepols Publishers.
• Hartt, Jared C., ed. (2018), A Critical Companion to Medieval Motets, Woodbridge: Boydell.
• Pirrotta, Nino (1980), "Medieval" in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie, vol. 20, London: Macmillan.
• ISBN 978-0-393-09750-4
  .
• Remnant, M. 1965. 'The gittern in English medieval art', Galpin Society Journal, vol. 18, 104–9.
• Remnant, M. "The Use of Frets on Rebecs and Medieval Fiddles" Galpin Society Journal, 21, 1968, p. 146.
• Remnant, M. and Marks, R. 1980. 'A medieval "gittern"', British Museum Yearbook 4, Music and Civilisation, 83–134.
• Remnant, M. "Musical Instruments of the West". 240 pp. Batsford, London, 1978. Reprinted by Batsford in 1989
  ISBN 978-0-7134-5169-6
  . Digitized by the University of Michigan 17 May 2010.
• Remnant, Mary (1986). English Bowed Instruments from Anglo-Saxon to Tudor Times. Clarendon Press.
  ISBN 978-0-1981-6134-9
  .
• Remnant, Mary (1989). Musical Instruments: An Illustrated History : from Antiquity to the Present. 54. Amadeus Press.
  ISBN 978-0-9313-4023-9
  .
• Rokseth, Yvonne (1939) Polyphonies du XIIIe Siecle [Polyphony of the 13th Century]. Societe Francaise de Musicologie.

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Medieval music.

• Medieval Music & Arts Foundation
• DIAMM, the Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music
• Medieval composers: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project
• The Schøyen Collection: Music (scans of medieval musical notation)
• Répertoire International des Sources Musicales (RISM), a free, searchable database of worldwide locations for music manuscripts up to c. 1800