Musical Studies 4Class 1

Introduction to Musical Studies and Early Music

Introducing Music History

What is music history?Why study music history?

Self-evaluation

Palisca, ‘Preface’, Norton Anthology of Western Music

‘Historians cannot confine themselves to studying the great works that are the usual stuff of anthologies in splendid isolation. They are interested in products of the imagination great and small as they exist in a continuum of such works. Just as composers did not create in a musical void, standing aloof from the models of their predecessors and contemporaries, so the historically-oriented student and analyst must have the primary material that permits establishing historical connections. This anthology invites students and teachers to make such connections. It confronts, for example, important works and their models, pieces written on a common subject or built according to similar procedures or that give evidence of subtle influences of one composer’s work or another’s.’

Context: ‘Classical’ or ‘Art Music’Western Music before 1500 was composed or collectively arranged on pre-

existent musicFolk music (oral traditions)Liturgical music (chant; oral traditions)What other cultures in the world have forms of musical notation?

In terms of WRITTEN music:European churches had all of the money to develop a profession for musicians

and the context for developing notationFrom 8th / 9th centuries: chant notation (neumes)Problem of notating specific pitch and rhythm = notating solo, flexible music is

best

Early Renaissance of the 12th century: background

Consolidation and centralisation of monarchies of Europe

Growth of philosophy and science

Paper manufacture from 1100

New technological developments: Gothic architecture is possible

Flourishing of trade, commerce, and patronage of the arts

In music: transformation of polyphony from a performance practice to notated scores This influenced the ability to for composers

to write all of the music that came afterwards

Perotin Student of Leonin (first known

composer of polyphonic music in 2 parts)

known as Perotinus Magnus  Perotin was the first to compose

music in 3 or 4 vocal parts mentioned in treatise of

Anonymous IV In his music, the tenor is based on

an existing chant melody from the liturgical mass; the other lines are florid above it, often in parallel 4ths.

Organum A type of medieval polyphony. Early meanings are connected with the organ, but later only with

‘consonant music’ From 12th century: refers specifically to music with a sustained-note tenor

(usually a pre-existing part) and more mobile upper part or parts Parallel with instruments: the lower voice is like an organ pedal Contrary motion increases Development of organum:

Parallel Organum (9th-10th Centuries): added voice moves in parallel fourths and fifths either above or below the chant (organum duplum)

Free Organum (10th-11th Centuries): added voice moves in parallel motion with a variety of intervals

Melismatic Organum (11th-12th Centuries): added voice(s) have melismas sung over long held notes in the tenor voice which comprises the chant.  

Rythmic Modes

Listening and Discussion: Perotin’s Organum quadruplum: Sederunt (gradual for St. Stephen’s Day)

Score and music

Translation of the text: ‘The rulers were seated in council, and they spoke against me; and my enemies

persecuted me’.

Trochaic metre Trochaic tetrameter is a meter in poetry. It refers to a line of four trochaic feet.

The word "tetrameter" simply means that the poem has four trochees. A trochee is a long syllable, or stressed syllable, followed by a short, or unstressed, one.

Stately mixture of long and short beats in upper parts The basic modal pattern, established by a repeated phrase in the quadrupulum,

consists of a ternaria plus a binaria, establishing the ‘tum-ta-tum-ta-tum’, but followed by a nota simplex – a freestanding note.

Ars Antiqua vs Ars Nova Ars Antiqua

Leonin and PerotinNew polyphonyA bridge to the new Ars Nova: on the cusp of the

RenaissanceOrganum

original chant was sung in tenor part at an extremely slow pace, while a new, faster melody with more pitches was added at a higher pitch

Organum duplum (2 parts) Organum triplum (3 parts) Organum quadruplum (4 parts)

Ars Antiqua vs Ars Nova (continued) Ars Nova composers

Palestrina Machaut Ockgenham

Ars Nova stylistic features Polyphonic sophistication Increased rhythmic independence All parts are equal (no organum) Printing technology and developments in notation: it

becomes possible to notate greater virtuosity.

Palestrina and the Renaissance

Palestrina, Missa Papae Marcelli (1555) Dedicated to Pope Marcellus II

Most famous mass; performed at the coronation masses of popes in the 20th century

Follows standard layout of the mass

Entirely free from cantus firmus or organum

Combination of polyphony with block chords

Voices mainly move in stepwise direction; leaps are imitated between parts

Change of texture for dramatic effect

Hints of directions towards tonal harmon

Palestrina: thinking forward

CONCLUSIONS: Perotin’s innovations were extremely influential; listen to Proverb by Steve Reich

Be able to articulate the differences between Ars antiqua and ars nova

Listen to the fully-developed Renaissance music for next week bearing the innovations of Perotin in mind

Be able to define the sections of a Renaissance mass

READING: further reading around the Palisca and Taruskin handouts

AND: … Any interesting fact you can find out about Byrd or Ockgenham!