Secular Song and Instrumental
Music to 1300
Latin songs
• Conductus — serious topics — eleventh to thirteenth
centuries
• Planctus — lament in praise of dead friend or patron
• Goliard songs — informal — eleventh to twelfth
centuries
– Goliards — dropouts from clerical studies
– name from “patron” Golias (Goliath)
– song topics — praise of wine, women, song;
political satire
– Carmina Burana — collection from Benediktbeuern
(in Bavaria) in thirteenth century
Minstrels, or jongleurs — from tenth
century
• Performers, not necessarily composers — variety of
activities
– acrobatics and juggling
– singing and playing songs and dances
– chansons de geste — epic, historical tales in
vernacular
• ex. Chanson de Roland — late eleventh century, tells
events of ninth century
• Depended on court or (less successfully) public
donations
• Gathered in scolae in Netherlands at Lent to learn new
repertoire
Feudalism and chivalry — development
to eleventh century
• Feudal hierarchy — from warrior lords to serfs
• Chivalry — formalization of feudalism as courtly culture
– tournaments — ritualized combat, held in conjunction with
festivals
– crusades — supported by church, removed warlike force
from Europe
– spiritualization of knighthood — Christian ideals of love,
sacrifice, self-denial; cult of the Virgin Mary
– service to women as idealized model of protecting the weak
— courtoisie
• Courtly love (fin’ amors) — Andreas Capellanus, Tractatus de amore
(ca. 1180) — courts of love
Troubadours
• In southern France or Aquitaine — vernacular Occitan
(langue d’oc) or Provençal – ca. 1100 to 1250
• Aquitainian secular song arises from chivalry
• Troubadours — from trobar (to find) or trope (?)
• Trobairitz — women composers
• Individuals known from vidas in song manuscripts
Texts in troubadour songs
Numerous types based on different literary themes
• Canso — dealt with courtly love (fin’ amors)
• Alba — song by friend and lovers’ lookout, refrain
characteristic
• Tenso, partimen, joc parti — discussion or debate
about courtly love
• Planh — comparable to planctus, but in vernacular
• Sirventes — political or moral subjects
• Dansa — popular style dance song (for carole),
characterized by refrain
• Pastorela — popular knight and shepherdess story
Style in troubadour songs
• Scoring — voice, probably with instruments
• Rhythm — text-based — probably more measured than chant
• Melody — simple lines, became steadily less dependent on
modal construction
– wider ambitus than chant
– repetitious figures
– general freedom — some approach major-minor
• forms
– strophic — various simple patterns of stanzas, sometimes
with refrains
– open and closed cadences to create continuity and finality
Trouvères
• In France (langue d’oïl) and England — ca. 1150
to ca. 1300
• Rise of power of north over south in France
Texts in trouvère songs
• Types adapted from troubadours
– chanson d’amour (from canso)
– aube (from alba)
– jeu-parti (from joc-parti)
– pastourelle (from pastorela)
• Poetry
– often characterized by religious imagery, references
to Virgin Mary, crusades
– more organized than troubadour lyrics
Style of trouvère songs
• Rhythm — more likely to be measured than in troubadour
songs
• Melody — short, clear phrasing
• Form — more carefully patterned than troubadour songs
– strophic, with envoi at end
– common outline for each stanza:
frons
cauda
pes pes
volta
A
A
B
ab
ab
c d . . . b(?)
– more patterned forms begin
Minnesinger
• Courtly composers in Germany — from ca.
1170
• From Minne, courtly love — modeled on
troubadours
Texts of Minnelieder
• Middle High German
• Types
– Lied (from canso)
– Tagelied (from alba)
– Leich (from lai) — multiple stanzas of text but throughcomposed
– Wechsel (dialogue of man and woman)
– Tanzlied (dance song)
– Kreuzlied (crusade song)
– Spruch (based on sirventes) — moral adage, political
statement in single stanza
• More sober than troubadours, often religious
• Often praise of nature (especially winter, summer)
Style in Minnelied
• Rhythm — German based on stress rather than
duration
• Melody — less clearly major-minor oriented
• Form — mostly strophic
– structure of each stanza — Bar
Stollen (A)
Stollen (A)
| Abgesang (B) ||
Abgesang often rhymes musically with Stollen (i.e.,
balanced binary form)
Medieval songs in Spain
• Occitan influence in northern Spain until ca.
1300 (Moors in south)
• Cantigas de gesta modeled on French chansons de
geste
• Troubadours in courts — canciones de amor
modeled on troubadour canso
Alfonso X (el Sabio)
Cantigas de Santa María
• Praise miracles of Virgin Mary
• Form — villancico
estribillo estrofa
estribillo
A
b b a
A
chorus
solo
chorus
estrofa . . .
b b a
solo
Medieval secular songs in Italy
• Lauda — used by lay fraternities (“laudesi”) in
the Franciscan movement, penitents and
pilgrims
• Influence of traveling (crusading) troubadours
• Popular secular dance music — ballata form
ripresa
A
piede
b
piede
b
volta
a
ripresa
A
Medieval instruments
haut and bas —
loudness as the main classification
Organs
• Church organ — built
in place
• Positive organ — placed
on table, required
assistant for bellows
• Portative organ — held
on lap, single player
Trumpets
• Straight design
• For heraldic use
Strings
• Use
– favored for nobility — classical tradition of ethos
– accompaniment for singing — troubadours and
trouvères
• Types
– bowed
• vielle (Fiedel, viuola) — gut or silk strings
• rebec — high range
– hurdy-gurdy (organistrum) — crank and keys
– plucked
• lute — played with plectrum (stiff or flexible)
• Psaltery
• harp — played with finger and thumb
Wind instruments
• Horns
– oliphant — military, royal, status symbol
– cow or deer horn
• Reeds
– shawm (bombarde) — loud, outdoors
– bagpipe – capped reed, softer than shawm or modern
bagpipe
• Flute family
– cross-blown
– recorder and notched flute
– pipe and tabor
Percussion
• Indefinite pitch
– miscellaneous drums, including
tabor
– nakers — small drums in a pair
– tambourine
• Pitched
– bells
– dulcimer
Uses of instruments to 1300
Instruments in the church
• Use limited –
documentary evidence
generally in context of
condemnation
• Depictions in art often
symbolic rather than
realistic
• Organ accepted
Instruments and vocal music
• Use with singers — string instruments favored
(vielle; also lute and harp)
– doubling (heterophonic ornamentation)
– drone, accompanying rhythmic figuration
– prelude, interlude, postlude
• Instruments could substitute for vocalists
Instruments in dance music
• Social position — participatory rather than staged for an
audience
– aristocracy
– peasants
– ecclesiastical disapproval — related to paganism, sensual
• Types of dances
– line dances — related to procession
– circle dances — carole
– couples dances — seem to be later
Forms and genres in dance music
• Forms — like Sequence
– paired puncta
– often open and closed endings
• Types of dance music
– ductia
• group dance
• quick tempo
• few, equal-length sections
– stantipes (estampie)
• couples dance?
• several sections of different lengths
Scoring for dance music
• Indoors
• rebec
• bagpipe — could be carried in processional
dance
• Outdoors
• pipe and tabor — useful in processions
• shawm(s)
Questions for discussion
• Why did it become necessary to create a new word
(troubadour or trouvère) to distinguish a composer from
other types of musicians at a particular point in the
history of Western music?
• How can musicians who want to play medieval music in
historically appropriate scorings attempt to discover
what was done, since the written music does not specify
instrumentation?