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Chapter 5
The Middle Ages
Later Medieval
Polyphony
Key Terms
Motet
ars antiqua
ars nova
Isorhythm
Hocket
Later Medieval Polyphony
Late Middle Ages moved toward:
• Greater melodic independence
• More intricate rhythms and notation
• Greater focus on secular music
de Vitry treatise Ars Nova (New Art)
• Sophisticated notation system c. 1320
• Widely used for more than two centuries
• Previous music now ars antiqua—ancient art
These trends clearly visible after 1250 in
the motet
The Motet
Originated in Notre Dame School
• Composers added new words (mots, in French)
to upper voice of organum
Different words for each voice!
Three voice motets became standard
Poetry shifted from:
• Latin to French
• Sacred to secular (love poems, political satire)
Voices moved at different speeds
• Top voice fastest, bottom voice slowest
Guillaume de Machaut
Lived c. 1300-1377
A priest who served the courts of France
and Luxembourg
Greatest composer and greatest French
poet of his day
Described himself as short in height, blind
in one eye, gout sufferer, and lover of
nature, horseback riding, and falconry
Machaut, “Quant en moi”
Based on repeated chant fragment from
Eastertide service, played by viol
Above this are two faster voices, each
singing a different poem about love
Viol slow, tenor faster, soprano fastest
Isorhythm—rhythms of each stanza repeat
• Easiest to follow in the viol part
• Count quarter notes:
• 9 9 (rest 3) 6 9 9 (rest 9)
Machaut, “Quant en moi”
Hocket—
Quick alternation
between voices
Derived from old
French word for hiccup
Note clever wordplay
between soprano and
tenor at line 7 of each
stanza
Machaut, “Quant en moi”
SOPRANO’S POEM
When I was first visited by
Love, he so very sweetly
Enamored my heart;
A glance is what he gave me as a gift
And along with amorous sentiments
He presented me with this delightful idea:
To hope
To have
Grace, and no rejections,
But never in my whole life
Was boldness a gift he meant for me.
TENOR’S POEM
Thanks
to
love
and
consummate
beauty
Fearing,
Feigning
Are what
consume me
entirely.
Machaut, “Quant en moi”
• Resting points between phrases, but voices
don’t rest together; unfamiliar cadences
• Some major and minor chords, but scale and
tonal center are hard to hear
• Metrical, moderately fast tempo
• Quirky, nervous rhythms, great rhythmic
variety
• Nonimitative polyphony in three parts
• Soprano, tenor, and viol used throughout
• No obvious patterns of repetition
• Poetry about love’s joys and sorrows
Machaut, “Quant en moi”
Note complicated rhythm of upper voices
Nervous, hyperelegant manner of uttering words