Music in the Fourteenth Century

1. Music in the Fourteenth Century

2. Conflict in the church • “Babylonian Captivity” of the Pope — 1309–1378 • The Great Schism — 1378–1417 RESULT – rise of secularism as the church lost credibility

3. Daily life and the economy • Famines — result of poor farming and periods of cold weather in north • Black Plague — several outbreaks, worst in 1347–1348 RESULT — loss of faith in divine benevolence

4. Political conflict • The Hundred Years’ War — England vs. France • Fought on French soil • mercenary soldiers lived off land when not actually fighting • Joan of Arc RESULT — decline of knights and chivalry

5. Late Gothic art • Great cathedrals • Outstanding manuscript illumination • Tapestry • Music — ars nova

6. Philippe de Vitry (1291–1361) • Life • University of Paris student and, later, teacher • courtier, diplomat from French king (including to Avignon) • bishop, poet, composer • Attributed treatise(s) Ars nova — mensural rhythm • Music — motets are all that survive — some in Roman de Fauvel • scoring — three or four voices • clearer separation of ranges of tenor and upper voices • sometimes with contratenor in the same range as the tenor • isorhythm — developed out of ordo patterns of ars antiqua motets; gives coherence to musical structure • color — pitch series • talea — rhythm series • use of proportional diminution • numbers can be employed for symbolic values

7. Mensuration, new rhythmic notation — signatures indicate relationship of values • L-B relation called modus (1-3 perfect or 1-2 imperfect) • B-SB relation called tempus (perfect or imperfect) — indicated by O or C • Addition of minim (M) and semi-minim (SM) • SB-M relation called prolation (major or minor) — indicated by · or nothing • Coloration to alter mensuration

8. Roman de Fauvel — ca. 1316 • Satire on society, clergy, politics • title character’s name from vices — Flattery, Avarice, Villainy, Variability, Envy, Lasciviousness • fauve — dull, orangey color, not bright color of virtue • fau vel — falsehood veiled • étriller Fauvel — curry Fauvel — curry favor • French text, some Latin music • Musical contents • monophonic • liturgical chant, Sequences, conductus • trouvère-style songs • motets (thirty-four) — Latin, French, or mixed texts • variety of styles — earliest through contemporary • 1 four-voice, 23 three-voice, 10 two-voice pieces

9. Guillaume de Machaut (ca. 1300–1377) — poet and musician • Court official — served Jean, Duke of Luxembourg and King of Bohemia • Churchman — Canon at cathedral of Rheims • Lover — correspondence (1362–1365) with 19-year-old poet Péronne • Poet • short texts — chanson lyrics, lais • Remède de Fortune (ca. 1342) — long narrative poem with music • Voir dit for Péronne • Composer • Prepared first “works” editions of his own poetry and music

10. Machaut’s music • Lais • Chansons in formes fixes • Motets • Messe de Notre Dame • Hoquetus David • Secular polyphonic pieces — formes fixes • virelais • rondeaux • ballades

11. Guillaume de Machaut, Messe de Notre Dame (1350s) • First surviving complete polyphonic Ordinary (including Ite, missa est) by a single composer • Plainsong Mass (except for Gloria, Credo) with movements in motetlike style • Four-part scoring • Architecture — elaborate isorhythm, sometimes in all parts

12. Machaut Mass Kyrie — isorhythmic structure

13. Formes fixes — standard forms of secular songs Capitals for text refrains, lowercase for changing words of stanzas • Ballade • aab C aab C aab C • Virelai • A bba A bba A bba A • Rondeau (uses two-part refrain and only one stanza) • AB a A ab AB

14. Ars subtilior — late 1300s • Extreme complexity of rhythm — elaborate notation (examples here by Baude Cordier) • Chromatic expansion to (or beyond) limits of modal scales

15. Italy — the trecento Literature — the tre corone (three crowns) • Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) Divine Comedy (ca. 1314) • Francesco Petrarch (1304–1374) love sonnets • Giovanni Boccaccio (1312–1353) Decameron— recounts entertainments with dance each evening Painting — increasingly realistic • Giotto di Bondone (ca. 1266–1337) Padua frescoes ca. 1305 — abandoned Byzantine mosaic style of figures • Ambrogio Lorenzetti (Siena, ca. 1290–1348) — nearing one-point perspective

16. Trecento music • Music — high art, no longer functional like church music nor popular like troubadour music • Polyphonic composition begins ca. 1330 — possibly under French influence in northern Italy, especially Padua • Sources — all later than their music (historical anthologies) • two major Florentine sources • Panciatichi manuscript (ca. 1380–1400) • Squarcialupi Codex (ca. 1420?)

17. Italian polyphonic genres • Madrigal — pastoral or amorous topics • scoring — à 2, rhythmically layered • form — comparable to ballade or Bar • two or three tercets with lines of seven or eleven syllables • ritornello — one or two lines of summary or moral, with new rhyme and mensuration • Ballata — associated with dance • two or three parts — cantilena texture • form — A b b a A (comparable to virelai) • choral ripresa (2 lines) • solo piedi (2 + 2 lines) and volta (2 lines) • choral ripresa (2 lines)

18. Italian polyphonic genres (cont.) • Caccia — pastoral or hunt topics (later in Florence, lower classes) • two canonic voices and one lower part • text treatment • texture of “chase” (caccia) or “fleeing” (fuga) • onomatopoeic hockets, etc. for animal sounds • Some instrumental pieces — dances and stylized dances

19. Trecento composers • Jacopo da Bologna (fl. 1340–1386) • Gherardello da Firenze (ca. 1320 to ca. 1362) • Lorenzo da Firenze (fl. ca. 1350–1370) • Francesco Landini (ca. 1325–1397)

20. Questions for discussion • What advantages did mensural rhythmic notation offer over the system that preceded it? What advantages might it have over our standard system? • How did music and musical thinking of the fourteenth century challenge traditional assumptions about music? In general, what ideas did it threaten?