MUSIC

mu·sic [my zik]

noun

1. sounds that produce effect: sounds, usually

produced by instruments or voices, that are

arranged or played in order to create an effect

2. art of arranging sounds: the art of arranging

or making sounds, usually those of musical

instruments or voices, so as to create an effect

3. type of music: music of a particular type,

place, time, instrument, or style

rock-and-roll music

4. written music: written notation indicating the

pitch, duration, rhythm, and tone of notes to be

played

5. pleasing sound: a sound or group of sounds that

creates a desired effect

the music of the wind in the trees

[13th century. Via French musique < Greek

mousikē "art of the Muse, music" < mousikos "of a

Muse" < mousa "muse"]

be (like) music to somebody's ears to be very

pleasant, satisfying, or reassuring to hear

face the music to deal with a pressing, difficult, or

unpleasant situation arising from something you

have done previously

1. Music becomes more elaborate.

2. Composers exploited ways of expressing a

range of different emotions.

3. Musicians began to add more complex

melodies to the simple chant of the monks.

4. Wondering entertainers such as jongleurs,

Minstrels, Troubadours, Minnesingers,

Mastersinger begun to entertain people

throughout Europe.

MEDIEVAL MUSIC (1000-1600)

- Acrobats and jugglers as well as musicians.

- They provide music for folk dances.

JONGLEUR

, professional entertainer in medieval Europe, skilled

at playing instruments, singing, telling stories, and

performing acrobatics and other tricks. Many

minstrels were employed in houses of the nobility,

but the majority were itinerants. After about 1300

they began to form guilds in the towns. Such

entertainers were called jongleurs before about 1100,

and they were often hired to perform the songs

written by troubadours and trouvères.

MINSTREL

- (Provençal trobar,”to find” or “to invent”),

- lyric poets and poet-musicians who flourished in France from the end

of the 11th century to the end of the 13th century.

- the lyrics of the troubadours were among the first to use native

language rather than Latin, the literary language of the Middle Ages.

- The earliest troubadour whose works have been preserved was

Guillaume IX of Aquitaine (1071-1127).

- the troubadours sang their own poems to their assembled courts and

often held competitions, or so-called tournaments of song; later, they

engaged itinerant musicians, called jongleurs, to perform their works.

- The subjects included love, chivalry, religion, politics, war, funerals,

and nature.

TROUBADOUR

- (German Minne,”courtly love”), German lyric poet-composers of

the 12th to the 14th century, the Middle High German period.

- the term minnesinger means “singer of love songs (Minne),” but it

came to be applied to all German poets of the time, particularly

those who composed Sprüche, or religious and political poems.

- Among the best-known minnesingers (who usually belonged to

the lesser aristocracy) were Wolfram von Eschenbach and

Walther von der Vogelweide in the 12th century, and Frauenlob

(Heinrich von Meissen; 1250?-1318) and Tannhäuser in the 13th

century. In the 14th century the minnesingers were gradually

succeeded by the Meistersinger.

MINNESINGER

- (German, “mastersinger”), members of the German guilds for poets and

musicians of the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries.

- The Meistersinger were craftsmen of the middle classes who continued the

traditions of the noble-born minnesingers (see Minnesinger).

- The most famous was Hans Sachs. Meistersinger guilds flourished in the

large cities of Germany.

- Each guild was organized in distinct grades, ranging from the apprentice

Schüler and Schulfreunde (who were merely familiar with the rules of

composition), through journeymen Sänger (“singers”) and Dichter (“poets”),

to Meister (who invented new melodies).

- Although the Meistersinger movement played a large part in the lives of

middle-class Germans, it had little lasting literary and musical value

because of mechanical requirements for composition and other rigid,

arbitrary rules.

MEISTERSINGER

- Devised the staff or stave, clefs

and sol-fa syllables.

GUIDO D’AREZZO

(990-1050)

- In Gregorian chant, as this collection plus later

additions came to be known, the melodies of the

Proper are particularly important, especially the

Introit (Entrance), Gradual, Alleluia, Tract (Psalm),

Offertory, and Communion.

- An important early collection of polyphonic Graduals

and Alleluias is the Magnus Liber Organi (1175?),

written in Paris.

- 4 voices in which the singers sing the same tune and

words but enter one after the other.

LEONIN

• French composer, who was one of the early masters of

counterpoint, especially four-part music, and was

influential in establishing the smooth harmonic idiom of

Renaissance writing. He was born probably in Cambrai, in

what is now northern France. As a young priest and

chorister he lived in Italy and France, and during most of

the years 1428-37 he was a singer in the papal chapel in

Rome. In 1536 he was made canon of the Cathedral of

Cambrai, but 18 years at the courts of Savoy and

Burgundy elapsed before he made Cambrai his permanent

residence and a renowned center for music. Among his

compositions are magnificats, masses, motets, and songs.

GUILLAUME DUFAY

(CIRCA 1400-1474),

• Italian composer, composed the Missa

Papae Marcelli, to persuade the

council of trent not to ban

polyphonic music.

• encarta

GIOVANNI PIERLUIGI DA

PALESTRINA (1525-1594)