Study Guide - Quiz 2

School of Notre Dame (Leonin & Perotin)

2 successive choirmasters of Notre Dame who were among the first notable composers known by name; They and their followers are known as the school of notre dame.; First music with clearly notated rhythmic values and discernible meters. 12th century

Just a note

Even after organum, most polyphony in the middle ages was created by adding lines to an existing chant melody. (read it)

Palestrina and Pope Marcellus Mass

Fits with goals of Council of Trent; Clarity of text is very relative - there are still six parts going on

Troubadours & Trouveres

French nobles who composed the first large body of secular songs surviving in decipherable notation. (12th and 13th centuries)

note

Instrumental music begins to diverge from vocal music - start of development of music conceived for instruments; Much published music exists from this period

Ordinary of the Mass

Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei

Just a note *

Medieval polyphony sounds open or thin, because of scarcity of triads and reliance on open 4ths, 5ths, and octaves.

Dates of Middle Ages and Renaissance

Middle Ages = 450-1450 Renaissance = 1450-1600

Read about Renaissance

OK

Read backgrounds on pages 60-65

OK

Gregorian Chant

Sacred Texts; The official music of the Roman Catholic church for over 1000 years. Consists of melody set to sacred Latin texts and sung without accompaniment. (monophonic textured chants); Were meant to enhance specific parts of religious services. Set the atmosphere for prayers and ritual actions.; Original compositions are based from these melodies.; The chants convey a calm, otherworldly quality; represents the voice of the church instead of the voice of a single individual; flexible rhythm, no meter, little sense of beat; exact rhythm is uncertain because precise time values were not notated; Free-flowing rhythm gives chant a floating character; named after Pope Gregory I who reorganized the Catholic liturgy during his reign from 590 to 604; Chants were passed along by oral tradition but # of chance grew to thousands so they were notated to ensure musical uniformity throughout the western church.; Earliest surviving chants date from about 9th century; Composers are unknown.

Use of "church modes"

Scales different from modern major and minor modes. Creates a sound that is unusual to our modern ears.; Used in Gregorian Chant; Consists of 7 different ones and an 8th tone that duplicates the first an octave higher; Different pattern of whole and half steps; Basic scales of western music during the Middle Ages and Renaissance and were used in secular and sacred music.

Organum

Transition from parallel to more independent parts; Monks in monastery choirs began to add a second melodic line to Gregorian Chant. In the beginning, the second line was improvised, not written down; it duplicated the chant melody at a different pitch; 2 lines were in parallel motion, note against note, at the interval of a fourth or fifth.; Medieval music that consists of Gregorian Chant and one or more additional melodic lines.

Jongleurs

Wandering minstrels; Performed music and acrobatics in castles, taverns, and town squares; Had no civil rights and were on the lowest social level with prostitutes and slaves

word painting

a musical depiction of specific words

Hildegard of Bingen

a nun; abbess of Rupertsberg in Germany; one of the most creative and many-sided personalities in the middle ages.; Was a visionary and mystic; active in religious and diplomatic affairs; wrote poetry and music; treatises on theology, science, and medicine; and wrote a musical drama which was the earliest known morality play; was the first woman composer from whom a large number of works (monophonic sacred songs) have survived.

Josquin Desprez

contemporary of Da Vinci and Columbus was a master of Renaissance music; had an international career; Flemish composer; born in Hainaut; spent most of his life in Italy serving in chapels and choirs; worked for Louis XII.; compositions include masses, motets, and secular vocal pieces.

Renaissance Mass and Motets

motet = a polyphonic choral work set to a sacred Latin text other than the ordinary mass; Mass = a polyphonic choral composition made up of 5 sections

Madrigals

music literacy among the upper class; a piece for several solo voices set to a short poem about love; combines homophonic and polyphonic textures and uses word painting and unusual harmonies

ars nova

occurred during a disintegrating age. Secular music became more important than sacred music; composers wrote polyphonic music that was not based on Gregorian chant; new system of notation had evolved; composers could specify rhythmic patterns; beats could be subdivided; syncopation became important

go over music listenings

ok

read about humanism

ok

Counter-Reformation and the Council of Trent

read about it

Lute songs

read about it

a cappella

unaccompanied choral music

Machaut

was the leading French composer of the time; famous musician and poet; born in French Champagne; studied theology spent life in service of royal families; became secretary and chaplain to King of Bohemia, John; accompanied him on trips and military campaigns in Europe; lived mainly in Reims in his later years where he served as church official; traveled to many courts and presented beautifully decorated copies of music and poetry to noble patrons; copies make him one of the first important composers whose works have survived; fell in love with Peronne when he was 60; exchanged poems and letters for years