Untitled Flashcards Set

Seikilos' Epitaph

• Greece 200 BCE

• First recorded song in history (written down)

• Inscribed on marble, can be found on Greek headstones.

• Has three criteria of music

Ancient Music

• Comes from Greek culture

  • Humanistic

    • Mankind was center of all things.

  • Believed music was capable of healing the sick, changing human hearts (emotions)

  • Pursuit to truth and beauty

  • Microcosm of the universe

    • Music was a big deal

• Music heightened the human experience and words.

  • Euripides' Orestes

    • 408 BCE

    • First full piece of music, like an opera.

  • Opera will be a reinvention of Greek and Roman theater intensified with music.

The Middle Ages

• Fall of the Roman Empire

• The Dark Ages

  • 600 CE-800 CE

  • Especially grim

• Education and technology of Greco-Roman civilization lost

• People lived in primitive circumstances

  • Peasant like.

• Roman Catholic Church

  • Patron of art, education, literacy, and civility

  • They were in control of everything

• Music of the Lower Middle Ages was made to serve the Church

  • Must create a mood of peace which was conducive to prayer

  • Must exalt God, not excite people.

• Church music of the Lower Middle Ages was known as plainchant, or Gregorian Chant (named after Pope Gregory I).

  • Unadorned and monophonic (single, unaccompanied melody).

  • Music was sacred; centered around liturgy.

• The Catholic Church dominated Medieval Music.

  • Much of the music was liturgical music

    • Music used in church services

  • Music was meant to inspire holiness.

• Hildegard von Bingen

  • 1098-1179

  • Composed more chants than anyone in the entire Middle Ages

  • Ordo Virtutum

    • Liturgical drama (mortality play)

    • Contrast to classical theater

  • Canonized in sainthood in 2012

    • Recognized for centuries.

• In the later Middle Ages, two new innovations emerged.

  • Secular song

    • Non-religious

    • Topics such as love and political loyalty were prevalent

  • Polyphony

    • Music with more than one melody line or part sounding at the same time.

  • Secular Song and Polyphony

    • Rise of secular song is dated to the 12th century

    • Troubadours were active

      • Poet-musicians who composed songs for performance in small aristocratic courts of Southern France.

      • Name of musicians.