Week 7 Lecture Notes
Style Periods of Western Music
Middle Ages 400 - 1450
Early Christian Period 400-600
Gregorian Chant 600-850
Romanesque Period – Development of Polyphony 850 - 1150
Gothic Period 1150 – 1450
Renaissance Period 1450 – 1600
Baroque Period 1600 - 1750
Rococo Period 1725 - 1775
Classical Period 1750 - 1825
Romantic Period 1820 – 1900
Post Romantic And Impressionist Period 1890 - 1915
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Week 7 Lecture Notes
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Twentieth Century and Beyond 1900 – present
Style: “The style of a period is the total language of all its artists as
they react to the artistic, political, economic, religious and
philosophical forces that shape their environment.” – p.65
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Culture of the Middle Ages
Early Middle Ages: 500-1000
Not known as the dark ages anymore. Not decline, but a period of
ascent and development.
The modern concept of strong, centralized government as the
guardian of law and order is generally credited to Charlemagne (742814), the legendary emperor of the Franks.
Late Middle Ages: 1000-1450
Witnessed the construction of the great cathedrals and the founding
of universities.
Chant = Monophony… not just the West.
Week 7 Lecture Notes
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SACRED MUSIC IN THE MIDDLE AGES
Gregorian chant… Pope Gregory codified melodies known as
Gregorian chant. (also plainsong/plainchant) More than 3000
Gregorian chants… nearly all anonymous. Mostly conjunct.
Undulating vocal line is the musical counterpart to the lacy
ornamentation of Medieval art.
Three main classes of chant:
Syllabic (1 note sung to each syllable of text).
Neumatic (small groups of notes up to 5 or 6 set to each syllable)
Mellismatic style (long groups of notes set to one syllable of text)
Western Mellismatic singing from elaborate Middle Eastern vocal
improvisational style.
Neumes (ascending and descending symbols) created as the number
of chants increased.
Examples of Text-setting styles: Messiah Rejoice and Hallelujah
Modes preceded major and minor scales (which will talk about next
week). Modes are more ambiguous, less definitive pull to tonic
(“Home”).
Week 7 Lecture Notes
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Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) in addition to writing music known
for her scientific and medical writings.
Her musical style highly original…resembles Gregorian chant, but
unlike most music of her time, didn’t draw on existing repertory.
Set her own poetry to music. Many of hers songs in praise to the
Virgin Mary. Call and reposnse… “Responsorial” style. Ternary
(ABA) structure. Monophonic, Conjunct, alternating between
neumatic and melismatic.
CP3:
Chant in the Judaic and Islamic traditions also often responsorial and
free of fixed meter. Santeria, on the other hand, a combination of
Catholocism and African traditional religions, is highly polyrhythmic as
well as responsorial.
Polyphony or the combination of two or more simultaneous melodic
lines is the single most important development in Western music.
Polyphony begun to emerge around the end of the Romanesque era.
(850-1150)
Polyphony brought the need for more exact notational system and
fixed meters.
Week 7 Lecture Notes
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More exact notation = less improvisation/oral tradition more
planning/preservation.
Organum – earliest polyphonic music… Notre Dame School organum
– combined polyphony and homophonic chant… Listening Guide 3
Gaude Maria virgo
SECULAR MUSIC IN THE MIDDLE AGES
Sacred and Secular… high and low… comes back again… Sacred =
art, secular = popular…
In france, jongleurs/jongleuresses… lower class intinerant actorsingers
Upper class troubadours (provence) and trouveres (northern France)
Like so many pop songs, subject matter was unrequited love/passion.
Vaqueiras types the troubadour tradition.
Kalenda Maya addressed to a noble lady whose husband the poet
wished to make jealous. Strophic form (same melody repeated with
every stanza). Instruments and improvisational style show Middle
Eastern musical influence, which Raimbaud heard while on a
crusade.
Week 7 Lecture Notes
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Machaut and Ars Nova (New Art): representative of composers
moving from religious to secular themes. Machaut was a cleric and
composer who wrote sacred and secular music. He wrote sacred
motets (polyphonic, polytextual organum) and secular chanson
(French for song). He innovated freedom of rhythm and interplay of
duple and triple meter. Puis qu’eu Oubli is a rondeau, a poetic form
alternating refrain and verse. 3 parts and low range makes it for male
voices.
CP4:
Troubadours brought back Middle Eastern Influence from the
Crusades. Persian santur influenced string instruments (zither and
other chordophones) in the West. Modern Chinese orchestra modes
influenced Western modes.
Early Instrumental Music
14th century Rise of Instruments first as support for vocalists, then as
all-instrumental arrangements of vocal pieces. Instrumental music
became popular as dance music.
Same divisions of instruments, but also divided into bas (soft, indoor,
low) and haut (loud, outdoor, high).
Week 7 Listening
(Review of Listening Test part 1 examples)
Music of the Middle Ages and related examples:
1. Hildegard of Bingen Alleluia: O Virga Mediatrix
2. Santeria Chant Osain
3. Notre Dame School Organum Gaude Maria Virgo
4. Raimbaut de Vaqueiras Kalenda Maya
5. Persian (Iranian) Santur music Avaz of Bayate Esfahan
6. Modern Chinese Orchestra In a Mountain Path
7. Machaut Puis qu’en Oubli