Transcript Music in the Middle Ages

450 – 1450 A.D.
Middle Ages
• Around 450 the Roman Empire began
to disintegrate.
• This was the beginning of the “Dark
Ages”.
• Life was hard and full of migrations,
upheavals, and wars.
• In the later Middle Ages churches
and monasteries were constructed,
towns grew, universities were
founded.
• This was a time of three social classes:
• NOBILITY
• PEASANTRY
• CLERGY
Peasants
• Peasants – the majority of people –
lived miserably in one-room huts.
• Many were serfs, bound to the soil
and subject to feudal overlords.
• Homes were damp and cold. The
entire family shared one or two
rooms.
• For protection, there were no
windows.
NOBILITY
• Nobles were
sheltered within
castles surrounded
by moats.
• The men were
often knights
during war time.
• In peace time,
they amused
themselves with
hunting, feasting,
and tournaments.
Clergy
• Monks in monasteries held a
monopoly on learning; most people –
including the nobility – were illiterate.
• The church was the center of musical
life.
• Musicians were priests or monks and
worked for the church.
• An important occupation in
monasteries was liturgical singing.
• Women were not allowed to sing in
the church.
Sacred Music
• Most medieval
music was vocal.
• The church
frowned on
instruments.
• Around 1100,
however,
instruments were
used increasingly in
church.
• The organ was the
primary instrument
used in church.
• Chant
Sacred Music
– Monophonic - a single melodic line (no
harmony) sung by many to convey a calm
quality.
– It has flexible rhythm, without meter, and little
sense of beat.
– Exact rhythm is uncertain, because precise
time values were not notated.
– Free-flowing rhythm gives the chant a
floating, improvisational feeling.
– The melodies moved by step and were sung
in Latin, the language of the church.
– Used as part of the Mass
Sacred Music
• At first, the melodies were passed on
by tradition, but as the numbers grew
to the thousands, they were notated
to ensure uniformity.
• Pope Gregory I is often credited with
this standardization hence the name
“Gregorian Chant.” The accuracy of
this is debatable.
Sacred Music
The composers
of Gregorian
chant remain
almost
completely
unknown.
Cathedrals
• Both church
buildings
and sacred
music grew
more
elaborate.
• Cathedrals
were
constructed
throughout
Europe.
Cathedrals
Polyphonic Music
• For centuries music had just a single
melodic line.
• But sometime around 700 – 900 monks
began to add a second melodic line
to Gregorian chant.
• At the beginning, it was usually
improvised.
• Surprising to listeners at that time
• Polyphony
Polyphonic Music
– “many sounding”
– aka music with more than one part
– required composers to notate precise
rhythms
• Troubadours
Secular Music
– Composers & performers of lyric poetry
– Songs dealt primarily with themes of
chivalry & courtly love
– Around 450 known troubadours
– Not wandering entertainers
– Backgrounds vary
• Ex: Duke of Aquitaine, knights, middle class
merchants & tradesmen, clerical training
Sample “Gab” Song
Lord Interpreter, if I had a good war-horse,
my enemies would be in difficulty:
for no sooner had they heard the mention of my name
they would fear me more than the quail fears the hawk,
and they would value their life no more than a farthing,
for they would know how fierce, wild and ferocious I am.
~William IX of Aquitaine
Sample “Courtly Love” Song
*refrain only*
I want to stay faithful, guard your honor,
Seek peace, obey
Fear, serve, and honor you,
Until death,
Peerless lady.
~Guillaume de Machaut
• Minstrels
– Wandering performers
Minstrels
• Music, Juggling, Acrobatics, Poetry, Animal
tricks, dancing, Comedy
• Less refined & poetic than troubadours
• Also sang about courtly love
–
–
–
–
Entertained at court & in towns
Had no civil rights
Were on the lowest level of society
Without newspapers, the music of the
minstrels was an important source of
information.
Adam de la Halle
•
•
•
•
1237?-1288? (or 1306?)
AKA “Adam the Hunchback”
Famous French troubadour
“Jeu de Robin et Marion”
– Earliest secular French play with music
– Tells the story of a Knight & a Shepherdess
who refuses his advances
– NOT at Robinhood story
Fourteenth Century
• Secular music became more important in
the lives of the people in the 1300s.
• This was due to many factors including the
– Hundred Years’ War
– Crusades
– Black Death (which destroyed 40-50% of the
population of Europe)
– Weakening of the feudal system
– Fighting of the Popes within the Catholic church
• The changes in musical style were so many
that this era was named the time of “new
art”.
Guido d’Arezzo
•
•
•
•
•
Lived in the 900s
Benedictine monk
Music theorist
Inventor of modern staff notation
Inventor of solmezation
– Method to teach singers to learn chants
quickly
– ut re mi fa so la
– taken from the initial syllables of each of
the first six half-lines of the first stanza of
the hymn Ut queant laxis
Guillaume de Machaut
• Guillaume de Machaut was a priest,
but spent most of his life working with
the noble families of France.
• Machaut travelled to many courts
and presented beautifully decorated
copies of his music to the nobles.
• Because of this, his music has survived
for us to enjoy today.
Saint Hildegard of Bingen
• 1098-1179
• German writer, composer,
philosopher, Christian mystic, visionary
• Benedictine abbess
• Ordo Virtutum (Play of the Virtues)
• 69 additional musical compositions
• One of the largest repertoires among
Medieval composers
• Monophonic music
• Soaring melody lines outside realm of
most chant of the time