Music History: Medieval Era

Babylon

The major metropolis in Mesopotamia

Enheduanna

Sumerian high priestess who is the first known composer and author in history, believed to have sung her hymns to the goddess Inanna with probable stringed instrument accompaniment.

Lyre

Ancient string instrument

Epitaph

Oldest surviving inscription of musical composition during the ancient times.

Pythagoras

Greek philosopher who was credited with discovering the numerical proportions of the octave (2:1) , fifth (3:2), and fourth (4:3). This was important not just for acoustics but also for the ancient medieval associations between music and numbers.

Gregorian chant

Sacred, unmetered, monophonic (single melody) music sung in Latin, associated with the Roman Catholic Church and named after Pope Gregory the Great.

Syllabic

Generally using one note per syllable of text

Melismatic

Music using many notes on long syllables (“slurred”)

Strophic

Verse verse verse verse, etc. (words always different, music always the same)

Responsorial

A leader will sing a line, the group will sing the next line

Antiphonal

sung by alternating groups of people

Holy Roman Empire

800-1806

pope leo III crowned charlemagne, king of Franks, emperor

Monophony

single melody line.

performed by one or more people in unison or by a single instrument.

Neumes

squiggles, the first form of notation.

Tonary

GIANT book of squigglified

Psalms, Hymns, etc.

Staff notation

square notation on staff that only had 4 lines

Guido d'Arezzo

(ca. 991-after 1033) is credited with

inventing solfege system (and 5-line staff)

Guidonian hand

Used as a teaching device to teach Solmization

Solmization

Like solfege, but only using “do” up to “la”

“Do” was at first called “ut”

Church year

Major events: the birth and death of Christ

Each commemorated once a year

“Seasons” are in relation to those major

events

“Feast days” are commemorations of Saints

and other events in the life of Christ

Divine Office

“LITURGY OF THE HOURS”

Begun by St. Benedict,

500 CE

Performed by monks & nuns 

Usually all of the following services included

music (at least one chant); some more than

others

Ordinary of Mass

texts don’t change based on time of church year

Proper of Mass

texts change over course of year

Modes

eight church modes—Dorian, Hypodorian, Phrygian, Hypophrygian, Lydian, Hypolydian, Mixolydian, and Hypomixolydian—that formed the basis of Gregorian chant

Organum

general name for singing a countermelody to an existing chant

Conductus

were “rhymed”, metrical. strophic Latin poems on sacred/serious topics.

either monophonic or polyphonic.

same text and rhythm.

Rhythmic Modes

fixed patterns of long and short note durations

Troubadours & Trouveres

Two groups of popular, secular songs have survived:

• Troubadours, from the South (Occitania)

• Trouvères, from the North

Both were also the “names” of the type of musician/minstrel

Courtly love = “refined love”

Often songs about love triangles/unattainable love

Minnesinger

Knightly/Noble poet-musicians from 12C-14C

Minnelieder were spiritual (Christian) love songs

Strophic, with AAB form

Walther von der Vogelweide (ca. 1170-ca. 1230): Palästinalied

Crusader song, about reaching the Holy Land

Notre Dame School

a group of medieval composers, including Léonin and Pérotin, who created polyphonic music at the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris between roughly 1160 and 1250

Adam de la Halle

One of the most celebrated composers of secular song. First composer to have his songs collected in a manuscript.

Most famous composition: Jeu de Robin et Marion (ca. 1284), a “musical play”

Motet

Was the most important genre to come out of the Notre Dame school

Latin tenor (bottom) and French upper lines (different words in each part! Simultaneously!)

Phillippe de Vitry

• Composer, theorist, poet, church canon, adviser to the King of France

• Clarified Franconian notation

• Added the minim (by adding a stem), which was half the value of a semi-breve

• Developed a new style, called Ars nova (“new art”) to separate the new generation from the past

Ars Nova

New art/New practice.

Two innovations in notation of rhythm & meter

Franconian notation

A type of square notation used during the 13th century

Minim

Added in 14th century by Philippe de Vitry

half the value of a semi-breve

Perfect meter

Represented by a circle and is in a triple division.

Imperfect meter

Represented by a half-circle and is in a duple division.

Mensuration sign

ancestors of our time signatures

Isorhythm

Means the same rhythm. Different parts (or different sections of the same part) have related rhythmic patterns and both melodies had the same rhythms.

Was also called the talea

Mystery play

Musical dramas were often based on

sacred and Biblical stories, for the purposes of education (and proselytizing). “Mystery” in this sense means the “Mystery of God.” (aka “Liturgical Drama”)

Medieval veggie tales

Monophony

a musical texture that consists of a single melodic line, performed by one or more people in unison or by a single instrument