Chapter 2: Chant and Secular Song in the Middle Ages, 400–1450

First Section: Roman Chant and Liturgy

1. Liturgy
1. Body of texts and rites that make up a sacred service.
2. Varies according to the topic dictated by the Church calendar.
3. The language was Latin, the official language of the Church.
2. Divine Office, or Canonical Hours
1. Divine Office is a series of eight prayer services observed at specified times daily at convents and cathedrals.
2. First codified ca. 520 in the Rule of St. Benedict
3. Prayers, psalms and hymns are the main focus.
4. Antiphons are sung with each psalm and vary according to the church calendar.
5. Passages of scripture (not connected to psalms) are sung with responsories.
6. The most important offices for music are Matins (before daybreak), Lauds (at sunrise), and Vespers (sunset).
3. Mass
1. Combines readings from the Bible (Liturgy of the Word) with prayers of thanks and praise and a symbolic reenactment of Christ's Last Supper (Eucharist, or Holy Communion)
2. Structure of the Mass liturgy
1. The version from the Council of Trent reforms (Tridentine) is the form used in NAWM and CHWM (see p. 21).
2. Introductory section
1. Kyrie and Gloria (begun by priest and sung by choir)
2. Collects and Epistle (prayers and readings sung by priest)
3. Gradual, Alleluia or Tract, Sequence (sung by soloist or soloists with responses by the choir)
3. Liturgy of the Word
1. Gospel (readings sung by priest)
2. Sermon (optional, spoken by priest)
3. Credo (begun by priest and sung by choir)
4. Liturgy of the Eucharist (Communion)
1. Offertory (sung by choir during preparation for Communion)
2. Canon (consecration) and Lord's prayer (both sung to formulas)
3. Agnus Dei, Communion (sung by choir before and after Communion, respectively)
4. Post-Communion prayers (sung by priest)
5. Ite missa est or Benedicamus Domino (sung by priest with response by choir)
3. Texts of the liturgy
1. Proper texts vary according to the church calendar.
1. Most of the prayers, all of the readings
2. Introit, Gradual, Alleluia, Tract, Offertory, and Communion
2. Ordinary texts are the same at every Mass throughout the year.
1. Sung by the choir
2. Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus, Agnus Dei
4. Notation (see etude, p. 23 in CHWM)
1. Notation for chant today consists of neumes that represent one or more pitches on a fourline staff.
2. Notation originated in the ninth century, with the attempt to unify the liturgy and chants of the Frankish kingdom.
5. Methods of classifying chants
1. Subject (biblical or nonbiblical)
2. Performance practice
1. Antiphonal: sung by alternating choirs
2. Responsorial: sung by soloist(s) with a choral response
3. Direct: no alternation (choral)
3. Text-setting style
1. Syllabic: one note per syllable
2. Melismatic: frequent use of many notes per syllable (melismas)
3. Neumatic: mostly syllabic but with melismas up to five notes long
4. Important words and syllables are often highlighted by higher pitches or long melismas.
5. The grammar of the text usually determines the structure of the melody (John "Cotton" vignette in HWM).
4. Chants of the Office
1. Psalm tones are formulas for reciting the verses of the psalms.
1. One for each of the eight church modes (discussed later) plus one extra formula, Tonus peregrinus (wandering tone).
2. Initium: formula for the beginning of the first verse of the psalm
3. Reciting tone or Tenor: reciting pitch, used for the majority of the syllables
4. Mediatio: cadence formula for the mid-point of a psalm verse
5. Terminatio: final cadence formula for the end of each psalm verse (variable)
6. Lesser Doxology; text added to the end of the psalm but sung with the same formula
7. Each day of the Church calendar has specific short chants (antiphons) that frame the psalm, e.g. Tecum principium (NAWM 4b).
2. Antiphonal singing: two choirs or two halves of a choir alternate verses of a psalm
1. Antiphon
1. Were originally sung after every verse
2. Most numerous category of chant
3. Usually in simple style for choral singing
4. Some became parts of the Proper of the Mass
5. Chants of the Mass
1. Simple chants derived from psalmody
1. Introit
1. Was originally a complete psalm with its antiphon
2. Shortened to antiphon, psalm verse, Lesser Doxology, repeat of antiphon
2. Communion, near the end of the Mass, consists of only one scriptural verse
2. Responsorial chants (for meditative portions of the Mass)
1. Consist of a respond (framing verse) for soloist(s) and choir and a single, composed, psalm verse for the soloist(s)
2. Gradual
1. Florid melody
2. Soloist(s) sings the beginning of the respond (framing verse).
3. Choir joins for the end of the respond.
4. Soloist(s) sings the psalm verse.
5. Choir joins on the last phrase.
6. Many graduals have melismatic formulas because they were originally memorized rather than notated.
3. Alleluia (see CHWM, p. 29)
1. Similar in form to the Gradual (both are responsorial)
2. The respond text is always "Alleluia."
3. The final melisma (on "ia") is called a jubilus.
4. Alleluias are less formulaic than graduals.
3. Ordinary chants
1. Texts are invariable.
2. Longer texts, Gloria and Credo, are set syllabically.
3. Shorter texts, Kyrie, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei
1. Have melismatic settings
2. Three-part text structures often reflected in the structure of the chant
6. Tropes and Sequences
1. Tropes: newly composed additions to chants (NAWM 7)
1. New words and music added
2. New melismas added without text
3. New words added to existing melismas
4. Flourished in the tenth and eleventh centuries
2. Sequences originated as tropes to Alleluias but became independent pieces.
1. Notker Balbulus (ca. 840–912) put words to music at St. Gall (see vignette in HWM).
2. The sequence was a popular compositional type in the tenth through thirteenth centuries.
3. Most banned by the Council of Trent (1545–63)
3. Liturgical dramas
1. Originated as tropes
2. Example: NAWM 7, Quem quaeritis in praesepe
1. Whom do you seek in the Manger?
2. Dialogue and acting preceding the third Mass of Christmas Day.
4. Morality plays
1. Sacred but not part of the liturgy
2. Example: NAWM 6, Hildegard of Bingen's (1098–1179) Ordo Virtutum
1. All parts (except Devil) sung in plainchant
2. Characters are allegorical.
3. Hildegard composed both melodies and words of sequences and other chants.
7. Medieval Music Theory
1. Practical issues were more important than theoretical elegance in the treatises of the Middle Ages.
1. Boethius continued to be the main source of Greek theory, but authors adapted his writings to accommodate issues of concern to them.
2. Theoretical ideas addressed the need to help students learn, memorize, and read chants.
2. The church modes are part of a pitch classification system that became finalized in the eleventh century. This system was used for classifying existing chants, which often do not fit the theory precisely.
1. There are eight modes, two each on four "finals."
1. The four finals are D, E, F, G (pitches not absolute).
2. Authentic modes had their range above their final.
3. Plagal modes had their range above and below their finals, making them about a perfect fourth below their authentic counterparts.
4. The modes are numbered, with authentic modes having odd numbers and their plagal counterpart the next higher number (e.g., the authentic D mode is 1, the plagal D mode is 2, etc.).
2. Tenor: second characteristic tone of each mode
1. In authentic modes the tenor is a perfect fifth above the final.
2. In plagal modes the tenor is a third below the final of the corresponding authentic mode, but when the resulting pitch is a B, the tenor is C.
3. The only flatted pitch used at the time was B-flat and there were no raised pitches.
4. In the tenth century some theorists applied the Greek modal names to the church modes, but they are the same in name only.
3. Solmization: a system for teaching sight-singing
1. Guido of Arezzo (ca. 1025) proposed syllables to represent pitches.
2. The hymn Ut queant laxis (CHWM, ex. 2.4) starts each phrase one step higher than the previous phrase, so its syllables were used.
3. Ut = C, re = D, mi = E, fa = F, sol = G, la = A
4. This system is still used, with do for ut in English, and ti for B.
5. The Guidonian hand: Assigning notes to parts of the hand helped Medieval and Renaissance students learn their intervals.

© 2002 W. W. Norton & Company

Chapter 2: Chant and Secular Song in the Middle Ages, 400–1450 Nonliturgical and Secular Monody Early Secular Genres Goliard songs (named for the fictitious Bishop of Goliath) Eleventh–twelfth centuries Sung by students who wandered from school to school before the founding of universities Texts in Latin, about wine, women, satire Only found in a few manuscripts, without precise pitch notation Conductus Eleventh–thirteenth centuries These pieces may have been used to "conduct" clerics from place to place in liturgical dramas or in church. Texts are serious, nonliturgical, with metrical verses in Latin. Subjects sacred or secular Melody is newly composed, not borrowed from chant. Chanson de Geste: song of deeds Epic narratives about deeds of national heroes Transmitted orally and are sung to formulas. The music has not been preserved. Texts were not written down until relatively late. Most famous chanson de geste is the Song of Roland, the national epic of France. Secular Musicians of the Middle Ages Jongleurs (also ménestrels or minstrels) Professional musicians originating in the tenth century Wandered from village to village or castle to castle Both vocalists and instrumentalists Organized themselves into guilds offering professional training Sang and played music composed by others Troubadours and trouvères: inventors of song Troubadours (male) and trobairitz (female) flourished in southern France, speaking langue d'oc (Occitan), also called Provençal. About 2,600 of their poems and fewer than three hundred melodies have been preserved. Trouvères flourished in northern France, speaking langue d'oïl, the language that became modern French. About 2,130 of their poems and two-thirds of their melodies have been preserved. Both troubadours and trouvères flourished in aristocratic circles, and some were aristocratic themselves. (See window, Eleanor of Aquitaine) Dance songs, often with a refrain for a chorus of dancers Love songs, especially by the troubadours, directed toward an unattainable woman Musical plays NAWM 8, Robins m'aime From Jeu de Robin et Marion (ca. 1284), a pastoral play Rondeau form, using refrains ABabAB NAWM 9, Can vei la lauzeta mover By Bernart de Ventadorn, a troubadour Text is in Provençal (Occitan). Subject is a man's love for an unattainable woman, typical of troubadour love songs. Strophic, with all stanzas sung to the same melody Rhythm is unknown because manuscripts do not notate any rhythm. NAWM 10, A Chantar Canso (strophic song) by Beatriz de Dia (d. ca. 1212) Topic is unrequited love. The form is ababcdb. Secular song in Germany, inspired by troubadours Minnesinger flourished in the twelfth through fourteenth centuries, and sang of love (minne) in strophic songs with melodic repetitions. Meistersinger flourished in the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries. The most famous of these was Hans Sachs, who composed Nachdem David war (NAWM 11) in bar form: aab.

© 2002 W. W. Norton & Company