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Chapter 4: French and Italian Music in the Fourteenth Century
The Ars Nova in France
I. Historical Background
A. Dual papacy—one pope in Rome and one in Avignon (France)—for most of the
fourteenth century led to criticism of the church.
B. Increasing secularization led to separation of church and state, and to more vernacular
literature and secular music.
II. Ars Nova (new art)
A. Treatises from 1322 to 1323 introduced the term ars nova and named Philip de Vitry
(1291–1361) as its inventor.
B. Older styles (ars antiqua) were still defended by conservatives who criticized the new
ways (see Jacques de Liège vignette in
CHWM).
III. Early Ars Nova Music
A. Roman de Fauvel
1. Manuscript from ca. 1310–14
2. Satirical poem with interpolated musical works
3. Its motet texts are critical of church and political figures (see CHWM p. 68).
B. De Vitry's motets
1. At least five of the Roman de Fauvel motets are probably by De Vitry.
2. De Vitry influenced composers and theorists.
C. Isorhythmic motets
1. Motet in which tenor uses repeating melody
(color) and a repeating rhythm (talea)
a. Color and
talea sometimes coincide, sometimes overlap.
b. Upper voices sometimes also have repetitions, but only the tenor needs to be
organized this way for a motet to be considered
isorhythmic.
IV. Guillaume de Machaut (ca. 1300–1377)
A. Biographical background
1. Born in northern France
2. Religious education; became a cleric, took holy orders
3. Worked as a secretary for King John of Bohemia
4. At end of his life was a canon at Rheims
5. Famous as a poet
B. Motets
1. Twenty-three motets
2. Some are panisorhythmic (all three voices isorhythmic).
3. Longer, more complex, more secular than DeVitry's
C. Machaut's Messe de Notre Dame (Mass of Our Lady)
1. Composed in the 1360s
2. Polyphonic setting of the Ordinary portions of the Mass
3. First example of a Mass Ordinary cycle composed by one person
4. Isorhythmic movements: Kyrie,
Sanctus, Agnus Dei, and Ite, missa est
5. Gloria and Credo are note-against-note (conductus style) with long Amens.
6. NAWM 21, Agnus Dei
1. Tenor voice is from chant
(Liber usualis, page 61) and is isorhythmic
(CHWM, ex. 4.1).
2. Upper voices are in syncopated rhythms.
D. Secular songs
1. Monophonic songs: continuation of
trouvère tradition
2. Fixed forms ( formes fixes). Strophic poems with refrains (see etude, p. 73,
in CHWM)
3. Musical rhymes sometimes occur at the ends of two melodic sections.
E . Ballade style (or cantilena style)
1. The top voice has the text; the two lower voices (tenor and contratenor) were
instrumental.
2. Some of Machaut's four-voice ballades have two independently texted voices
and are therefore called double ballades.
F. Rondeau form NAWM 20, Rose, liz
1. Long melismas on some words
("liz" = lily; "fleur" =
flower)
2. His Ma fin est ma commencement ("My end is my beginning") uses palindrome.
Italian Music in the Fourteenth Century
I. Historical Background
A. Italy was not a unified country but a collection of independent city-states.
B. Composers who were hired by churches also composed secular entertainment.
C. No church polyphony survives, probably because it was improvised.
D. Boccacio's Decameron describes music in social life (see vignette in
CHWM)
E. The Squarcialupi Codex (named for a former owner)
1. Copied ca. 1420
2. Contains 354 pieces by twelve composers of the Trecento and early
Quattrocento (1400s).
3. Each section contains works by a single composer and opens with his portrait
(see plate II in
CHWM).
II. Secular song types
A. Madrigal
1. Subjects: love, satire, pastoral life
2. NAWM 22, Fenice fù
a. By Jacopo da Bologna
b. Both voices meant to be sung with the same text
c. Upper voice more florid
B. Caccia ("chase")
1. Canon at the unison with lively descriptive words
2. Instrumental part supporting two equal uppervoice parts
3. Subject often portrayed in the music such as bird songs and horn calls.
C. Ballata: Song to Accompany Dancing (pl. ballate)
1. Later than the madrigal and caccia (most after 1365)
2. Earlier ballate described in Boccacio's
Decameron
3. Form similar to the French virelai
III. Francesco Landini (ca. 1325–1397)
A. Landini was the leading composer of ballate.
B. He was blind since boyhood.
C. Virtuoso on small organ (organetto)—(see color plate II in
CHWM)
D. Composed only secular music but may have improvised sacred music
E. NAWM 23, Non avrà ma' pietà
1. Strophic with a refrain
2. Melismas on first and penultimate syllables
3. "Landini cadence" (CHWM, ex. 4.2, mm. 5–6 and 10–11) in which upper voice
descends before leaping a third to the resolution
IV. Late Fourteenth-Century Style
A. French influence came to Italy via the return of the papal court from Avignon to
Rome in 1377.
B. Italian composers wrote songs in French genres and used French notation.
C. This style is sometimes called ars subtilior by musicologists because of its
extreme rhythmic complexity.
D. NAWM 24, Belle, bonne, sage by Baude Cordier
1. Intellectual play using notation graphically in heart shape (see facsimile,
p. 81, in HWM)
2. Three levels of hemiola (see CHWM example 4.3)
3. Shifts of mensuration (meter) marked by red notes in manuscript
V. Notation and performance practice
A. Musica ficta (false or feigned music)
1. Raising or lowering a note by a half-step
2. Used to avoid tritones or to create leading tones for cadences
3. Often not indicated because singers knew when and how to alter pitches
4. In modern editions, accidentals that are in the original source appear next to
the note, but those added by the editor are above the pitch.
B. French notation
1. Expansion of Franconian principles
2. Division of the note values
a. Division of the long: mode (modus)
b. Division of the breve: time (tempus)
c. Division of the semibreve: prolation
(prolatio)
d. Triple division of these: perfect (or major)
e. Duple division of these: imperfect (or minor)
3. New note values possible through division of the semibreve
a. Minim: one-half or one-third of semibreve
b.
Semiminim: one-half of a minim
4. Time signatures
a. Signs for mode were dropped.
b. Time
i. Perfect time: circle
ii. Imperfect time: half-circle
c. Prolation
i. Major prolation: dot inside the circle or half-circle
ii. Minor prolation: no dot in the circle or half-circle
d. Red notes
i. Continued to indicate a change from duple to triple or vice versa
ii. Could also show that a note is half its normal value
VI. Musical Instruments
A. Evidence for musical instruments consists of pictures and descriptions.
B. Ensembles could be all instrumental or combine voices and instruments.
C. Instruments may have doubled the voice in cantilena-style pieces.
D. Some untexted tenors were probably instrumental, but otherwise little is known.
E. Instruments were divided into "high" (haut ) and "low"
(bas ) based on loudness.
1. Low instruments
a. Included stringed instruments (harps, vielles), flutes, and recorders
b. Would be used indoors
2. High instruments
a. Included shawms, cornetts, brass instruments, and percussion
b. Would be used outdoors and for dancing
F. Keyboard instruments
1. Clavichord and harpsichord types were invented in the fourteenth century but
were not commonly used until the fifteenth.
2. Organs
a. Small organs (portative and positive) continued to be used.
b. Large organs installed in churches
c. Pedal keyboards first appear in Germany in the late 1300s.
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