Hwm-French & Italian Music In The 14Th Century- 04

Front 1

General 14thC Background

Back 1

1. A period of change and disruption
a) The authority of the Catholic Church and the supremacy of the Pope was widely
questioned
(1) The engineered election of Clement V as Pope by King Philip IV of France
(2) Rival claimants to the Papacy
(3) Corrupt and often scandalous life of the higher clergy
(4) Writings sharply critical of church affairs appeared
(5) Rise of divisive & heretical movements that foreshadowed the Protestant
Revolution
b) Separation of between Church & State emerged as doctrines that are held today

Front 2

14thC social situation

Back 2

a) Growth of cities brought increased political power to the middle class
b) Black Death & Hundred Years' War led to urban & peasant discontent
c) The medieval ideal of European political unity gave way to the reality of separate,
independent powers
d) Literature, education, and the arts all turned from the relatively stable, unified,
religiously centered viewpoint of the 13th Century toward worldly human concerns
3. Change came as a gradual shift in emphasis, not a sudden reversal of values

Front 3

14thC music

Back 3

a) Musicians consciously struck out in new directions
(1) "Ars nova" - the French musical style during the first half of the 14th Century
(2) Opponents & supporters recognized the change
b) Old and New Arts disagreed on two points
(1) Whether the duple division of note values should be allowed along with the
traditional triple division
(2) Whether the innovation of dividing the breve into four or more semibreves -
and eventually smaller values

Front 4

French Ars Nova

Back 4

1. The Motet
a) Originally a sacred form, it had become largely secularized before the end of the
13th century
b) de Vitry's motets
(1) His motet tenors provide the earliest examples of a unifying device called
"isorhythm"
i) tenors were laid out in segments of identical rhythm
ii) rhythmic formula may be varied after a certain number of repetions - but
now on a much larger scale
(2) The tenor is longer, rhythms more complex, and moves so ponderously
against the faster notes of the upper voices that it can no longer be recognized
as a melody - ****the tenor now functions as a foundation for the entire
polyphonic structure****

Front 5

Isorhythmic Motet

Back 5

a) Composers and theorists recognize two recurring elements in the motet tenors
(1) Melodic - the repeating series of pitchs the color
(2) Rhythmic - the long recurring rhythmic unit the talea
b) Motets that have tenors built up of colores & taleae are termed isorhythmic - same
rhythm motets
c) Basic idea of isorhythm - arranging time values in a pattern that repeats was not
new
(1) Applied in more extended & complex ways
(2) Does impose a certain unity on the entire piece
i) gave coherence to long compositions that had no other formal organization
ii) might hardly be noticed by the listener except felt at some level of
consciousness

Front 6

Guillaume de Machaut (1300-1372)

Back 6

a) Leading composer of the "ars nova" in France
b) Motets
(1) traditional texture - instrumental liturgical tenor supports two upper voices with
different texts
(2) Longer and more complex than earlier practice
(3) Some are "pan isorhythmic" - isorhythmic structure in all voices not just tenor
(4) Considerable use of the hocket
c) Monophonic Songs
(1) Continued in the trouvère tradition
(2) In "lais" form - similar to the sequence
(3) Chanson Balladées more commonly called "virelais" - AbbaA form (A is
refrain, b first part of the stanza, a the last part of the stanza
d) Polyphonic virelais, rondeaux, & ballades
(1) Called "formes fixes" (fixed forms) - text & music have particular patterns of
repetition that are determined by poetic structure
(2) Here Ars Nova technique shows most clearly
(3) Exploited the new duple meter
(4) Made top part (Cantus) the principal voice supporting it with tenor and triplum
(and rarely a fourth voice)
i) ballade or cantilena style
ii) with the treble voice carrying the text dominates the 3 part structure
iii) while the lower two voices are most often performed instrumentally
(5) While still extensive use of 5th and pungent dissonances the use of 3rd & 6th
and their orderly succession distinguish him from predecessors
(6) Lyrical melodic line in the solo voice
e) Mass
(1) His Messe de Notre Dame was one of the earliest polyphonic settings of the
Ordinary
(2) Clearly regarded the five divisions of the Ordinary as one musical composition
- rather than separate parts

Front 7

Guillaume de Machaut summary

Back 7

(1) Typical of 14th century composers in that his sacred compositions were only a
small portion of his total output
i) production of sacred music declined as the prestige of the church
weakened and the arts became more secularized
ii) church had second thoughts about using elaborate musical settings in
services

Front 8

Italian Trecento Music (1300-)

Back 8

1. Developed differently than French music because of Italy's different social & political
climate
a) France had monarchy, Italy collection of city-states
b) French monarchy developed increasing power & stability, Italian city-states each
had own political, cultural & linguistic traditions & alliances

Front 9

Italian Trecento musical trends

Back 9

a) Composers associated with the church & trained in counterpoint & notation wrote
refined secular music for elite circles
b) Polyphony in 14th Century Italian church music was largely improvised
c) Principal centers of trecento music
(1) Central & norther part of Italian peninsula
(2) Bologna, Padua, Modena, Milan, Perugia, & Florence
d) Florence
(1) A particularly important cultural center from the 14th through 16th century
(2) Location for two celebrated works of literature
i) Boccaccio's "Decameron"
ii) Prato's "Paradiso degli Alberti"
iii) from these and other period writings evident that both vocal & instrumental
music accompanied nearly every aspect of Italian social life

Front 10

Squrcialupi Codex

Back 10

i) late source - not altogether reliable of Italian trecent & quattrocento music
(copied about 1420)
ii) contains 354 pieces by 12 Italian composers of trecento & quattrocento
music
iii) three types of Italian secular music are contained
a- madrigal
b- caccia
c- ballata

Front 11

Madrigal

Back 11

a) Idyllic, pastoral, satirical, or love poems usually written for two voices
b) Form
(1) Consist of several 3 line stanzas, followed by a closing pair of lines
(2) All the stanzas are set to the same music, the additional pair of lines - called
ritornello - are set to different music with different meter.
(3) Melismatic passages decorate the ends (and sometimes the beginnings) of
lines

Front 12

Caccia

Back 12

a) Name refers not only to the pursuit of one voice after the other but also the subject
matter of the text - flourishing chiefly 1345 - 1370 - both the French "chace" &
Italian "caccia" mean hunt
b) Form
(1) Parallels the French "chace" - popular-style melody was set in strict canon to
lively descriptive words
(2) Two equal voices in canon at the unison
(3) Usually had an additional free instrumental part in slower motion below
(4) Poetic form was irregular
(5) Many had ritornellos similiar to the madrigal

Front 13

Ballata

Back 13

a) Flourished later than madrigal & caccia showing some influence of the French
ballade style
b) Originally signified a song to accompany dancing
(1) 13th century ballate were monophonic dance songs with choral refrains
(2) No musical examples survive prior to 1365
(3) In Boccaccio's "Decameron" the Ballata was associated with dancing

Front 14

Francesco Landini (ca. 1325-1397)

Back 14

a) Leading composer of the ballate and the foremost Italian musician of the trecento
b) His music
(1) 90 two part & 42 three part ballate plus some that survive in both two & three
part versions, a caccia & ten madrigals
(2) Wrote no sacred music
(3) Characterized by graceful vocal melodies, and sweetness of harmonies - gone
are few 2nds & 7ths, few parallel 5ths & octaves
(4) Landini Cadance - passage from major 6th to the octave is ornamented by a
lower neighbor leaping up a 3rd in the upper part

Front 15

French Influence

Back 15

a) Toward end of the 14th century, the music of Italian composers began losing its
specific national characteristics and absorbing the French style
b) Most noticeable after papal return from Avignon to Rome

Front 16

14th Performance

Back 16

a) No uniform way of performing music in the 14th century
b) Vocal and instrumental parts often interchangeable
c) Setting of performance set performance characteristics

Front 17

French Music of the Late 14th Century

Back 17

1. General Trends
a) Paradox that the papal court at Avignon stood out more for its secular music than
for its sacred compositions
b) Chiefly ballades, verlais, and rondeaux for solo voice with supporting instrumental
tenor & contratenor parts
c) Newly composed texts by the composers
(1) Reference to people & events of the time
(2) Majority are love songs

Front 18

Musical characteristics of late 14thC French Music

Back 18

a) Rhythm has a remarkable flexibility
b) Intended for professional performers and highly cultivated listeners
(1) This complexity would go out of fashion by end of the 14th century
(2) Same time a simpler type of secular polyphony was being developed in
Northern France
(3) Musica Ficta
i) Practice of raising or lowering certain notes by a half step out side the
standard
ii) Allowed use of what was to become the Phrygian cadence
c) Instruments
(1) Manuscripts rarely tell if a particular part is vocal or instrumental - let alone a
specific instrument
(2) Relied on musicians' habits and on tradition - varied according to
circumstances depending on taste, availability of vocalists & instrumentalists,
and occasion

Front 19

Summary of Italian and French 14th Music

Back 19

1. New forms & practices came about because of a pronounced shift of interest from
sacred music to secular composition
a) New rhythmic freedom sometimes taken to uncomfortable extremes
b) Growing sense of organization in planning counterpoint around definite tonal
areas
c) 3rds & 6ths (imperfect consonances) were favored on strong as well as weak
beats
(1) Final consonances remained 5th, octave or unison
(2) Parallel 3rds & 6ths appeared - parallel 5ths & octaves became rarer
d) Musica ficta made cadential points more emphatic & melodic lines more flexible
e) Range of voices extended upward
f) Abstract structure of the 13th century motet gave way to the more melodicharmonic
idiom of the cantilena texture
g) Composers aimed for a more sensuously attractive sound
h) In France, the motet continued to be a special genre of composition
(1) Less liturgical & more political/ceremonial in function
(2) More intricate in structure

Front 20

Summary of new compositional genres

Back 20

2. New genres of composition emerged
a) Some like the caccia & madrigal probably derived from popular musical practice
b) More remote trace to popular models with the ballata & other songs with refrains
c) The formes fixes that continued earlier traditions were literary forms as well as
musical forms - the virelai, the ballade, & the rondeau
3. By 1400, the French & Italian musical styles (formerly distinct) began to merge -
moving toward a pan-European style