MUS 101: Introduction to Music: 2-Antiquity and the Middle Ages (ca 1500 BCE-1450 CE)

We term the era from 476-1450 CE as the Middle Ages, because it is between the Ancient or Classical Period, and the modern history starting with the Renaissance.  

•Breakdown of infrastructure and rule of law

•Loss of large libraries, much pre-Christian Classical Greek and Roman literature was lost in the West

•Christianity came to dominate the Empire after 311 CE.

•Monasteries became main repositories of books, especially Christian works

 

 

•Books were expensive to produce, since everything was done by hand

•Parchment is made from sheep skin

1.Slaughter a sheep

2.Skin the sheep—butcher deals with the rest

3.Soak the skin in water for a day

4.Then soak in an akali solution for 1-2 weeks to remove hair

5.Stretched on a frame, scraped, and polished, and dried

6.Cut into sheets to make pages

 

 

 Books were hand copied by monks and nuns, with the cost of an unornamented book  was equivalent to  a car. Ornamented books would have been fabulously expensive. Here is an example of a 12th-century German manuscript of poems and songs called Carmina Burana (Songs from the Monastery of Benediktbeuern.  

Born to minor nobility in Western Germany, she was the tenth child, and was pledged as a tithe to the Church. Hiildegard suffered from ill health, and had visions which inspired her.

She entered the Benedictine monastery at  Disibodenberg at age 8, and was the student of an anchoress (hermit)  Jutta of Sponheim, who believed in treating the body very harshly.  Jutta taught Hildegard reading, writing, herbalism, healing.  A monk named Volmer, connected with the nunnery, probably taught Hildegard music, including notation.

After Jutta died in 1136, Hildegard was unanimously elected as magistra of the community by her fellow nuns.She founded two other monasteries, wrote music and poetry, the first morality play, painted, wrote books on medicine, herbalism, etc.

She was very strong and determined, even in the very male dominated society of medieval Europe. She and her nuns defied the church, and allowed the burial on convent ground of a man who  they felt was unfairly excommunicated. As punishment, the bishop forbade them to sing during mass. For two years they obeyed.  Finally, unable to contain herself, Hildegard wrote a polite letter, citing the Psalms. 

Praise the LORD. 
Praise God in his sanctuary; 
praise him in his mighty heavens. 
Praise him for his acts of power; 
praise him for his surpassing greatness. 
Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet, 
praise him with the harp and lyre, 
praise him with tambourine and dancing, 
praise him with the strings and flute, 
praise him with the clash of cymbals, 
praise him with resounding cymbals. 
Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. 
Praise the LORD." (Psalm 150:1-6)

In the end, the bishop had to yield to her persuasive arguments.   She was so well respected as a philosopher that the Pope deemed her writings suitable for preaching to men, including those going on Crusade.

 The acceptance of public preaching by a woman, even a well-connected abbess and acknowledged prophet, does not fit the stereotype of this time. Her preaching was not limited to the monasteries; she preached publicly in 1160 in Germany. (New York: Routledge, 2001, 9). She conducted four preaching tours throughout Germany, speaking to both clergy and laity in chapter houses and in public, mainly denouncing clerical corruption and calling for reform.^[81]

Many abbots and abbesses asked her for prayers and opinions on various matters.^[1] She traveled widely during her four preaching tours.^[82] She had several devoted followers, including Guibert of Gembloux, who wrote to her frequently and became her secretary after Volmar's death in 1173. Hildegard also influenced several monastic women, exchanging letters with Elisabeth of Schönau, a nearby visionary.^[83]

Hildegard corresponded with popes such as Eugene III and Anastasius IV, statesmen such as Abbot Suger, German emperors such as Frederick I Barbarossa, and other notable figures such as Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, who advanced her work, at the behest of her abbot, Kuno, at the Synod of Trier in 1147 and 1148. Hildegard of Bingen's correspondence is an important component of her literary output.^{[84]  (Wikipedia).}

One of her famous hymns is "O Viridissima Virga" (Oh Greenest Branch), praising the Virgin Mary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGjC8GnIHZg&t=2s

“O Viridissima Virga”—O Greenest Branch

1. O branch of freshest green,
O hail! Within the windy gusts of saints
upon a quest you swayed and sprouted forth.

2. When it was time, you blossomed in your boughs—
“Hail, hail!” you heard, for in you seeped the sunlight’s warmth
like balsam’s sweet perfume.

3. For in you bloomed
so beautiful a flow’r, whose fragrance wakened
all the spices from their dried-out stupor.

4. They all appeared in full viridity.

5. Then rained the heavens dew upon the grass
and all the earth was cheered,
for from her womb she brought forth fruit
and for the birds up in the sky have nests in her.

6. Then was prepared that food for humankind,
the greatest joy of feasts!
O Virgin sweet, in you can ne’er fail any joy.

7. All this Eve chose to scorn.

8. But now, let praise ring forth unto the Highest!

The question is: what distinguished sacred from secular music?  It was determined by where music was performed, and in what language. 

The Crusades

The First Crusade (1095–1099) was the first of a number of crusades that attempted to recapture the Holy Land, called for by Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont in 1095. Urban called for a military expedition to aid the Byzantine Empire, which had recently lost most of Anatolia to the Seljuq Turks.

French nobles and knights came in contact with their more civilized Muslim enemies.  And picked several concepts:

Chivalry—inspired by the Muslim code of warriors virtue, Futūwa

Lyric love songs—known in Arabic as muwaššaḥ, here's an example

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCGzi9Wz8U0

When she started to walk with a swinging gait

aman aman aman aman

her beauty amazed me

aman aman aman aman

I have become prisoner of her eyes aman aman aman aman

her stem folded as she bent aman aman aman aman

O my promise, O my perplexity, who can answer my complaint about love and suffering but the beautiful one?

aman aman aman aman

about love and suffering but the beautiful one?

aman aman aman aman

MAP OF 12TH-CENTURY FRANCE

Southeastern France, known as Provence, on the Mediterranean Sea, was the point of sea contact with the Middle East. There they spoke a different language from that spoken in the North (the ancestor of modern French. That Southern language, known as  Langue d’Oc, Occitan, or Provençal sounds more similar to Spanish.  The word for "yes" in Provençal is "oc," so Langue d'Oc mean the language of "oc," as opposed to Old French which which was known as Langue d'Oui, or the language of "oui." 

Inspired by the Middle Eastern examples, noblemen and commoners started writing lyric songs, and were known in Provence as troubadors, or in the North as trouvères. The concept of Courtly Love also derived from Islamic models. A knight or nobleman would focus on a lady as a chaste object of devotion, and dedicate his deeds of bravery to her.  Another aspect, however, was forbidden love, à la Romeo and Juliet.  Songs in which a man's best friend stands by while he is with his lover, watching for the dawn, hence "Dawn Songs." are common. 

One of the most notable troubadors was Girault de Bornelh (c. 1138 – 1215).  His song "Reis Glorios" is a Dawn Song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BZlcJACkxA&t=113s

Richard Coeur de Lion-Richard the Lion Heart (8 September 1157 – 6 April 1199) 

Even royalty were known as troubadors and trouvères.  The famous warrior king, Richard I of England, wrote a number of songs.  There are legends that when he was kidnapped and held for ransom in German on his way back from the Crusades, someone heard him singing the following song from a castle tower, and was able to arrange for his ransom. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yvucNpRQxc

Effigy of Richard I of England in the church of Fontevraud Abbey

By Adam Bishop - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17048652

Earliest Polyphony-Organum

Probably influenced by polyphonic folk musics, people started ornamenting Gregorian Chant by adding multiple parts. The earliest pieces we know comes from the 10th century

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAdtlR1eTZs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5vqAU_EqG4

The Rise of Polyphony in the 12th Century

The 12th Century was a time of economic growth and technological innovation.  Gothic architecture, such as the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris used the technique of flying buttresses to allow for tall buildings with thin walls that won’t topple under their own weight.  This allowed for large stained-glass windows and big resonant spaces.  Composers wrote music to match the space.

Composers such as Leonin (fl. 1150s — d. ? 1201) and Perotin (fl. ca 1200) took Gregorian chants and stretched them out to serve as the basis for polyphonic writing above them as ornamentation of chant.  Usually the organum alternated with sections of monophonic chant.

Here is the Christmas introit (Entry processional) “Viderunt Omnes”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EN73kO2_PZA

Here, Leonin stretches parts out, and puts on ornamental part on top

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_p9WQlyVPrA

Here is Perotin’s later version with three voices on top of the stretched out chant

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdhKvj7BLXI

Pieces without a Gregorian chant cantus firmus become popular in the 13th Century..  They use the same triple meter patters known as the rhythlmic modes.  Here is one such conductus. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHrteJ35TdY

Here is the same piece, adding the parts one at a time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9WMmspAe4c

The 14th Century
Ars Nova (The New Art)

Guillaume de Machaut 1300-1377

!4th-century composers continued to use the musical/poetic forms developed by the troubadors, but added polyphony in two and three parts. Guillaume de Machaut was a priest, composer, and director of church choirs, and is known for both sacred and secular music--including love songs. Here one secular example of a piece called a rondeau. The musical rondeau is typically a two-part composition with the form AB-aAab-AB , with all the "A" sections of the poem's structure set to one line of music, and all the "B" parts to another. When the words vary there is lowercase letter, uppercase letters indicate previous words are repeated, like in a refrain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yi2MMtIimY

Francesco Landini (c. 1325 or 1335 – September 2, 1397) 

A notable performer, composer, and instrument maker, details about his correct name are vague and confusing.  However, it is well known that he was blind from childhood as a result of smallpox. He sang and played a number of musical instruments, including the lute, organ, and, very notably, a small hand-pumped organ played with one hand, called a portative organ. In the following video we see a performance of a famous dance piece, or ballata (French, ballade), "Ecco la Primavera" (Behold, the Springtime). The portative is played by the remarkable Chilean keyboard player, Catarina Vincens. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXPI8JfQBc4