Source Readings

Front 1

• Pythagoras (1)

Back 1

o He and his disciples are credited with the discovery of the P8, P5, and P4
o Use of the monochord to do his experiments with intervals
o Myth of the Blacksmith

Front 2

• Boethius

Back 2

o One of the 7 Liberal Arts
• 4 primary – arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music
• 3 others – grammar, dialect, rhetoric
o musica mundana – of the universe; celestial motion
o musica humana – human being; what holds the body together and the soul: a rational and irrational part
o musica insttumentis constituta – instruments; strings, wind, and percussion
o What a musician is
• Instrumentalists – slaves to their instruments; use no reason or thought; separated from music
• Composers – makers of songs, poets; not so much thought or reason but natural instinct; also separated from music
• Critics – the real musician; devoted to reason and thought

Front 3

• Augustine (3)

Back 3

o “…who would dare offer to sing well to God, who is such a judge of a singer, such an examiner of everything, such a listener? When will you be able to apply such an elegant technique in singing that you do not in any way displease such perfect ears?”
o The penetration of his thought, wide range of interests, and many writings make him one of the greatest Church Fathers; his genius greatly affected the development of the Christian doctrine
o Many references to music in his writing – music is the perfect instrument of the praise of God and elevation of the soul
o Jubilus – one of the earliest forms of Christian chant
o Commentary on Psalm 32
• New testament = new song
• God doesn’t want to be offended, sing well
• Sing in jubilation = jubilus – a kind of sound indicating what the heart is giving birth to what cannot be spoken

Front 4

• Hildegard of Bingen (7)

Back 4

o Basically only woman who composed whose stuff is still here today
o One of the great Latinists of her day
o Bitter that they haven’t been taking part in the sacraments
o Adam was pure in his praise before the Fall
o The deceiver, the Devil, disrupted the beauty of the psalms and hymns
o The body is just the garment of the soul – so the body needs to sing with the soul the praises of God through the voice
o All instruments are brought to life by the breath of God, which gives man life, so God should be praised

Front 5

• Razo to “Kalenda maia” by Raimbaut (9)

Back 5

o knightly life was a ritual, courtly love a kind of religion
o troubadour music – service to lord and lady, idealization of love, fervor of Crusades
o songs of knighthood preserved in chansonniers, not performed (performers illiterate)
o Raimbaut de Vaqueiras wrote music for the Marquis, fell in love with the Marquis’s sister (Bel-Cavalier), who was married; she stopped showing him affection when rumors started, he was depressed and his music was suffering so the Marquis bid his sister start showing Raimbaut affection again and he started writing again
o Intimate bonds between song and dance in knightly times

Front 6

• Grocheio (13)

Back 6

o Basically calls Boethius an idiot – saying that music can’t be divided the way that he divided it, and that only musica instrumentalis is important
o Paris is where it’s at and this is how they do it
• Simple – monophonic (vulgar – vernacular)
• Compound – polyphonic,
• Ecclesiastic – designed for praising the creator
o Talks about different kinds of music, who composed them, and who performed them
o Also, how to compose each of the three types Grocheio uses
o Emphasis throughout on “measured” music
o “For us it is not easy to divide music correctly…the parts of music are many and diverse according to diverse uses, diverse idioms, or diverse languages in diverse cities or regions.”

Front 7

• Machaut (16)

Back 7

o Letter to Machaut’s lover about his attitude towards his work and its importance
o A knight’s calling: arms, lady, and conscience
o I’ll serve you better than Lancelot and Tristan, I wrote you a song, I’m also sending you some other songs, I’d send you the book but it’s in parts, I pray that God blesses you and gives you all you want

Front 8

• Martin le Franc (18

Back 8

The English Guise – new consonant sounds in the 15th century (thirds and sixths)
o “But still their discant held no strain
Filled with such goodly melody
So folk who heard them now maintain
As Binchois sings, or Dufay
For these a newer way have found…
Of making pleasant concord sound”
o “Music high and Music low” – dance and outdoor (loud)/court and chamber (soft)
o Dunstable is the basis of the new music, which is awesome
o Anything written more than 40 years ago is terrible and should not be performed
o Dunstable, Binchois, and Dufay are the biggest heroes ever
o “…it seems a new art, if I may put it so, whose fount and origin I reputed to be among the English, with Dunstable as their head.”
o “…there is no composition written over forty years ago which is thought by the learned to be worth of performance.”

Front 9

• Martin Luther (23)

Back 9

talking about congregational singing
o He wanted the congregation to get more involved in the Mass
o Singing the scriptures – both the Gospel and the Old Testament
o About educating young children in wholesome ways and not the “wanton” ways of the world

Front 10

• Caccini and the earliest operas (29)
o The Second Practice

Back 10

• Artusi bashed Monteverdi for using dissonances
• When dissonances become consonant and vice ver sa, we have reached the point of absurdity – modern composers will fizzle out
• [Written by Monteverdi’s brother] – Monteverdi says that all music should be judged on the basis that words should be the mistress of harmony and not the servant – and Artusi disregarded the words when critiquing Monteverdi’s works
• “First practice:” perfection of the harmony; harmony is not ruled, but rules, is not the servant but the mistress of the words
• “Second practice:” called second as to give due respect to the first; perfection of the setting; harmony does not rule but is ruled, and where the words are mistress of harmony
• Three greatest emotions – anger, equanimity, and humility; and author hasn’t really seen much agitated music

Front 11

o The Earliest Operas

Back 11

• the return of Greek tragedy
• Signor Jacopo Corsi is the father of Dafne
• They started performing the operas and saw that everyone liked them
• “This was the origin of the musical plays, a spectacle truly fit for princes and delightful beyond any other, being one in which are united all the noblest pleasures, such as the invention and treatment of the tale, sense, style, sweetness of rhyme, musical artistry, consorts of voices and of instruments, exquisite beauty of singing, comeliness in the dancing and gestures…”

Front 12

• Roger North (30b)

Back 12

o The huge change in concerts: they used to be one instrument or set of instruments through the entirety of the concert, but now we see many different instruments and groups of instruments in a concert

Front 13

• Opera seria (33)

Back 13

o the author of this reading is attacking the absurd rules of opera seria
o he was traveling around looking for someone to read his composition, went to Milan because he knew a lady, but they laughed in his face, they told him what to fix, and he said, ‘screw you’ and left
o “The voices are drowned in this immensity of space, and even the orchestra itself… lies under a disadvantage: It is true, some of the first singers may be heard, yet, upon the whole, it must be admitted, that the house is better contrived to see, than to hear an Opera”
o “…through all Italy, [they] consider the Opera as a place of rendezvous and visiting, and they do not seem in the least to attend to the musick, but laugh and talk through the whole performance”
o “Witty people, therefore, never fail to tell me, the Neopolitans go to see, not to hear an opera”

Front 14

• Castrati (34)

Back 14

text by Charles Burney, one of the first music historians, goes through Europe trying to figure out about these castrati; talks a little bit about how inhumane the procedure of castration is, and then
o Farinelli, the greatest male soprano of his time… that’s pretty much it
o “The first note he sung was taken with such delicacy, swelled by minute degrees to such an amazing volume, and afterwards diminished in the same manner to a mere point, that it was applauded for full five minutes, After this he set off with such brilliancy and rapidity of execution that it was difficult for the violins to keep up with him” – about virtuosity