Transcript Musical Style

Musical Style/Middle Ages
An Introduction
Musical Style
• Style: specific way of treating musical
elements (melody, rhythm, tone color,
dynamics, harmony, texture, form)
• Styles changes from one historical period to
another (some transition music, sometimes
sudden)
Style Periods
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Middle Ages (450-1450)
Renaissance (1450-1600)
Baroque (1600-1750)
Classical (1750-1820)
Romantic (1820-1900)
20th Century (1900-1999)
Current (2000-present)
Points to remember moving forward
• Music is not created in a vacuum; it has a
function
• Entertainment for aristocracy or peasants?
• Concert music?
• Is it designed to accompany singing, dancing,
religious ceremonies, drama?
• Musical Style is shaped by political, economic,
social and intellectual developments.
Middle Ages (450-1450)
• Began with the destruction of the Roman Empire
• AKA “Dark Ages” , a time of migrations and war
• Later middle ages (1050-1450) time of cultural
growth (construction of Romanesque churches and
monasteries and cathedrals were built)
• Towns grew and universities were founded
• The Crusades (1096-1291): Christian attempts to
reclaim Jerusalem from the Muslims
Middle Ages (450-1450)
• 3 Social Classes (Nobility, peasantry, and clergy)
• Nobles in the castles: spent time fighting other nobles; the women ran the
estates, the households and cared for the sick
• Peacetime activities included, hunting, tournaments and eating
• Peasants: poor, bound to the land and lived in huts and subject to the
landowners
• Made up the majority of the European population
• Clergy: Most powerful class
• Heresy was the greatest crime
• Clergy (monks in monasteries) controlled the learning and knowledge
dissemination. Most people were illiterate
• Heresy is proposing some unorthodox change to an established system of
belief, especially a religion, that conflicts with the previously established
opinion of scholars of that belief
Middle Ages (450-1450)(14th Century)
• Hundred years war(1337-1453)
• Bubonic Plague (1350ish): Killed ¼ of European
population, AKA “Black Death”
• Weakened feudal system and religious control: Rival
Popes (1378-1417),rumors of a third pope
• Literature (Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Boccaccio’s
Decameron) stressed realism and sensuality more
than virtue and heavenly rewards
Middle Ages (450-1450)(Music)
• Catholic Church – center of musical life
• Priest were the important musicians; important job in the
monasteries was singing.
• Boys received musical education in schools associated with
church. Women were not allowed to sing in church but sung
in the covenant.
• Some nuns wrote music for choir (Hildegard of Bingen-10981179)
• Only secular music was notated.
Middle Ages Music
• Medieval music primarily vocal
• Few manuscripts indicated specific instruments.
• We know from medieval paintings that instruments were
used.
• Church did not like instruments because of their role in pagan
rites/rituals.
• 1100 A.D. instruments used more in the church
• Organ (initially primitive instrument played with fist) but
developed into a instrument that can play polyphonic music
• Clergy members complained (instrument could be heard for
miles around
Middle Ages Music
• Common people would just stand and listen to
the instrument.
• Later Middle Ages: instruments source of
conflict.
• Composers wanted more elaborate music,
clergy wanted discreet accompaniment to
religious services
Gregorian Chant
• Official music of Roman Catholic Church for
1000 years
• Melody set to sacred Latin texts and sung
without accompaniment
• Monophonic in texture
• Melodies meant to enhance specific parts of
religious services.
• Background for prayers and ritual actions
Gegorian Chant
• Composers based original compositions on
chant melodies. (since 2nd Vatican Council
1962-1965, services are in native language in
each country)
• Chant now no longer common
• Represents the voice of the church, not an
individual
Gregorian Chant
• Rhythm flexible without meter and has little
sense of beat
• Exact rhythm is uncertain: time values were
never notated
• Free flowing rhythm gives chant a floating
character, almost improvised music
• Melodies were step wise with a narrow range
of notes or pitches
Gregorian Chant
• Depending on text, chants were recitations on one pitch or
had complex melodic curves
• Chants had an “other world” sound.
• Gregorian Chant named after Pope Gregory I (the Great) who
re-organized Catholic liturgy
• Chant developed over centuries; originally passed down
orally. Once chants were in the 1000s, they were notated to
ensure musical uniformity throughout the church.
• Earliest surviving manuscripts date from the 9th century. The
composers of chant remain unknown
Church Modes
• Other world sounds came from unfamiliar
scales.
• Scales are called church modes or modes
• Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Mixolydian, Domiant,
Aeolian, Locrian (See diagram)
Sample of Manuscript
• Manuscipt