What Is the Evolution in Music From the Middle Ages to the Naroque Period
In this 2-part video series, we're going to be exploring the music of the middle ages. On this channel we've discussed Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Impressionist and other genres and eras of music. This fourth dimension we're going further into the past to talk virtually the heart ages.
You'll find a brief history of the music of the middle ages in this video – namely, the styles and genres that developed, how music evolved, and of course some audio clips to listen to.
Let's go started!
Three types of music of the Middle Ages
There are iii types of music we'll exist looking at in this video serial:
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Sacred vocal music
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Secular vocal music
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Instrumental music
This first video will exist defended to sacred (religious) vocal music. The follow-upward video volition discuss secular and instrumental music.
History of the middle ages
Earlier nosotros get into the music, though, allow's get a grip on the climate of the heart ages. The middle ages bridge approximately 476-1450 Advertizing, generally considered to start around when the Roman Empire fell.
The middle ages is the period in between Classical antiquity (think Greeks and Romans) and the Renaissance (the blossoming of science and art).
In Europe, information technology was the Roman Catholic Church that held most of the power, and considering of that, they controlled much of music's development in the middle ages.
Music mode in the Center Ages
During the 1000 years of the Centre Ages, music annotation developed from virtually nothing to a primitive form of our modern sheet music. Music note equally we know information technology completed its journeying in the Renaissance.
Middle ages music originally had no rhythmic structure, but as the music became more circuitous, a need for rhythmic unity emerged. With this complication came rhythmic annotation.
In the early heart ages, music was monophonic, meaning a single vocalism or tune line. As time passed, polyphony developed (multiple melodies). Polyphony is really interesting and led to the highly complex polyphony of the Renaissance, and eventually to the fugues of the Baroque period.
Music at this time was modal, significant it wasn't based in any key. There wasn't whatsoever concept of cardinal signatures until around the Bizarre catamenia. Music "modes" are basically the early form of key signatures. And so instead of proverb "this piece is in the primal of D", y'all might say, "this piece is in Dorian manner".
Sacred Song Music
Gregorian Dirge
Gregorian Chant is the most common name for a type of plainchant that originated in Rome. It's kind of like how we say "Kleenex" instead of "paper tissue" – Gregorian Chant is like the brand name version of plainchant.
And then what is plainchant? It's basically what information technology sounds similar – an early style of music that is quite plainly (merely one voice) and involves vocal chanting. This was the music used in Roman Catholic church services like mass.
Pope Gregory the Great
Gregorian chant provides united states with some of the primeval notated music ever, since the monks and nuns of the time were proficient about writing things downward. Pope Gregory the Not bad especially fabricated an important contribution – he helped organize the giant body of chants that had accumulated during the centre ages. This organization led to specific chants existence used at specific times of the year during mass.
Pope Gregory's contribution to plainchant was so important that they named it afterwards him (Gregory = Gregorian chant).
What does Gregorian chant sound like? Well, nosotros'll listen to an example in a moment. But as we already talked about, it's:
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Monophonic (i voice just)
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Has no rhythm (the melody follows the natural menses of the text)
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Written in Latin, and based on sacred texts like the Bible
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Fairly uncomplicated (no complex melodic leaps or jumps – it's pretty steady and stepwise)
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Some melismatic text (many different melody notes with just a single syllable of text)
The example of Gregorian chant we're going to listen to is chosen "Universi qui te expectant", which is from the first Lord's day mass during advent.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY-GB4ffTRw[/embedyt]
Video credits
Source: Recorded privately with members of Schola Antiqua
User: Mikebrubaker12
Copyright: CC Attribution-sharealike iii.0
Organum
Gregorian dirge eventually evolved into a genre chosen "organum" around the nineth century. Yous have to retrieve that the middle ages spanned about 1000 years, and these monks surely got bored singing the same monophonic chants over and over. They were bound to outset experimenting and improvising.
Basically, these singing monks thought it might be fun to add some harmony to their unmarried melody lines. This started out as 8va doubling (singing the same annotation, but at a different octave), and eventually turned into singing harmonies of 4ths and 5ths.
fourthursday/5th harmonies are basically not used today, unless yous're listening to some really progressive or abstract music. They just sound very strange and dissonant to our modern ears. But back in the centre ages, it was the thing to do.
After the development of parallel organum, early polyphony began to develop. Polyphony is when multiple voices sing different parts, contained of each other. This more circuitous fashion of polyphony really adult in earnest during the 12th and 13th centuries in Paris.
These new developments are referred to as "complimentary organum". Gratis organum used original Gregorian chants (called the "cantus firmus", fixed song) and newly-equanimous parts for a second, higher voice.
Rhythmic modes
Rhythm also developed aslope organum – instead of rhythm being completely unmeasured and random, rhythmic modes developed. There still wasn't any sense of meter at this point, but various patterns of long and brusque rhythms added a little more structure to the music.
Check out a recording of Haec dies (organum) to hear what this sounds similar. It's incredibly melismatic (many notes on a single syllable of text), which makes it quite confusing to mind to and sing.
You'll hear the original Gregorian chant as the low voice, and the newly-composed function in the upper voice. These voices move independently of each other, but still manage to mesh well together.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaBluC8WpkI[/embedyt]
Polytextual motet
By the time we hit the 13th century, music evolved to be polytextual. This means exactly what it sounds like – multiple texts used in a single composition.
The reason this developed is because the melismas of organum became very difficult to sing. You lot had a meg tune notes sung as just one long syllable. To correct this problem, they decided to add new text to those crazy melody lines, therefore making them easier to sing.
These polytextual motets oftentimes merged sacred and secular music. You'd starting time with your sacred Latin text, but mayhap stick a French poem on peak of it.
Thus polyphony grew even more detailed, and the melody lines (now usually in 3 parts) became fifty-fifty more independent.
Adam de la Halle
Though calculation new text to hard-to-sing melismas was helpful for singers, i feature of this way of music is that information technology's virtually impossible to discern what words they're saying. That musical problem would after be solved in the Renaissance.
I've got a video example for you to listen to over on the weblog by Adam de la Halle – cheque it out if you desire to get a sense of what layering unlike texts sounds like.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7w0LXHlqpek[/embedyt]
Secular vocal music
Humans have been making music pretty much forever. And though the first part of our discussion on the music of the middle ages focused on sacred music, secular music was very common as well.
The big trouble with secular music from this era is that information technology wasn't well-recorded. Monks and nuns were literate and meticulous well-nigh writing things downwards. But regular folk tended to pass music traditions along orally, seeing no bespeak of writing the music downwards (if they even could write).
Monophonic chanson
If yous've always heard the expression "traveling troubadours", that term came from the poet-musicians of France in the 12th and 13th centuries. These musicians were commonly higher on the food chain (they had enough leisure time to write and play music regularly), and some of their music has been preserved.
In full general, what y'all'll find written down for these chansons are the words and the tune – that'southward it. No rhythm, no notes for instruments. So researchers take done a lot of guesswork when it comes to reinterpreting these old chansons.
Comtessa de Dia
I found a file for the merely notated monophonic chanson by a adult female – it'southward called "A chantar 1000'er de so qu'eu no volria" (I am obliged to sing), and it's from the 12th century. Information technology was written by the troubadour Comtessa de Dia.
Monophonic chansons were generally in "strophic" form, which just means that for each verse of words, the music and tune stays the same. That'due south true of this chanson. It's also completely monophonic with no accessory whatsoever (the PTV video version) – but when you're looking into chansons of the middle ages, you'll detect some recordings with instrumental accompaniment.
[embedyt] https://world wide web.youtube.com/watch?v=5Zah4VWPiNE[/embedyt]
Video credits
Source
Audio credits: Makemi
Copyright: Creative Eatables Attribution 2.5 Generic license.
Polyphonic chanson
In the fourteenth century, the Roman Cosmic church began slowly losing its grip on the European population, so secular music began to really thrive. This era is referred to as "ars nova" (new art), and the era prior to it as "ars antiqua" (one-time art).
At this point, polyphony became so complex that music annotation was forced to develop. Pitch notation became verbal, and rhythmic annotation also evolved.
Some other feature of these belatedly chansons is that crazy melismas basically disappeared – the text became much simpler, with only one to several notes per syllable. Nosotros also see an evolution away from the anomalous 4th and 5th harmonies, with the add-on of the much more modern-sounding 3rds and 6ths.
Puis qu'en oubli
Puis qu'en oubli past Machaut is a skilful example of polyphonic chanson. The biggest divergence betwixt this and the monophonic chansons nosotros just discussed is its complexity.
This chanson is written for 3 voices, and all voices move independently (polyphony). I affair to note is that the "voices" don't accept to exist human voices – they could also exist musical instruments.
I'll leave a link to a YouTube clip over on the blog. Y'all'll notice how much more modernistic-sounding this chanson is (even though it withal sounds very sometime). You can hear the inklings of Renaissance and Baroque music really beginning to form here.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/sentinel?v=MeJdiIKwRm8[/embedyt]
Instrumental music
Instrumental music didn't exist in the church building during this fourth dimension – in fact, the only instrument even allowed in the church was the organ. Instead, instrumental music existed in the secular world, and served a functional purpose, such equally being used for dance, public events, and accompanying singers.
Unfortunately, similar secular song music, instrumental music was non well-recorded, for the same reasons. It merely wasn't considered necessary to write down music to the general illiterate public. Instrumental music was as well highly improvised at this time, and then in that location wasn't much benefit of writing music down to the musicians themselves.
Dance music
Dance music was the virtually common blazon of instrumental music in this flow. These dances were functional – people actually danced to them. Later on, in the Baroque period, trip the light fantastic toe music would evolve to be for listening as opposed to just dancing (and thus would become manner more complex).
Some other interesting thing almost instrumental music in the middle ages is that the instruments weren't standardized. Classical music, for example, has music written for specific instruments. There'south a violin part, a trumpet role, and then on. But with music of the middle ages, instruments weren't specified. The type of instruments used would vary based on if information technology was an outdoor or indoor event, or what people had available to play.
Estampie
We'll listen to an case of an estampie, which was a popular trip the light fantastic toe at the time. Information technology's called Retrove, and it's from the Robertsbridge Codex, a music manuscript from the xivth century.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?5=c05RQnncS6s[/embedyt]
Video credits
Source
Attribution: Metzner
Copyright: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike three.0 Unported
Summary
To sum up, these are the key developments nosotros saw in music during the Center Ages:
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The development of notation (pitch and rhythm)
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Simple monophony to complex polyphony
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Single texts to multiple texts in sacred music
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Melismatic singing to simpler singing (one to several notes per syllable)
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No rhythm to use of rhythmic modes
Decision
I promise you enjoyed today's bout of the music of the Heart Ages! Since there isn't any keyboard-specific repertoire from this era, piano players tend to skip over this fascinating menstruum in history. I think that'due south a fault – information technology helps to see where the roots of Western music began.
xo,
Allysia
Source: https://www.pianotv.net/2018/02/music-of-the-middle-ages/