William Delph

9/22/2020
Essay 1 Music History

The medieval music is probably one of my most favorite time periods for music. It
appears so simple with first the basic modes, styles such as syllabic, neumatic and melismatic
and the first forms and storytelling pieces. I think it’s a wonderful timer period too because of the
little amount of music there is to look at as a whole. Many times, we note that we only have a
few pieces of music from composers such as Leonin and perotin and we are not even 100% sure
that they wrote them. It is truly pieces of history from the medieval days, we don’t tend to listen
to their music nowadays in most circumstances. Many other pieces from the classical period and
renaissance we still have heard today and are easily recognizable. These pieces though are so
outdated reaching back to 800’s with Pope Gregory, that they are almost always the first time we
hear them, or anything like them. My favorite pieces are the syllabic style with instrumental
responsorial. It is much like monophony but with the decorations of instruments. One example I
personally enjoyed was the piece Can Vei La Lauzeta Mover. These pieces really show the
composers melody, their idea, it really speaks differently than many pieces today. They are like
solos, but they carry the melody every time. They carry the story while others decorate them. It
amazes me that many of these composers only used a single mode or 12 set of pitches to
compose these pitches. The pieces in Medieval times were the clearest in their intentions and
clarity.
Most of the pieces we have today were written for the churches in many ways. The
churches two main categories of music were separated for two different purposes, one for the
mass or the grouping of the city and people. The other purpose was for the office or the church
followers, workers, and leaders. They had so many different pieces for each day of the year and
not just one song for this day and one for the next, but usually 5-6 different pieces for each day.
That’s around two-thousand different songs for the year to learn. It amazes me that many people
learn this amount of songs in the past with such rudimentary technology. No recordings to show
you what it sounded like, just a composer with a Guidonia hand model. I’m not even sure I have
learned over two-thousand songs in my lifetime.
Pieces of music were not just for the churches in the past, but for commoners as well. The
largest collections of earliest pieces were found in the French book medieval chansonner. These
pieces would tend to tell stories instead of texts in the church. They came in a large amount of
varieties such as tensos and dawnsongs. These folk songs may have started the earliest parts of
form as well such as the Rondeau form, vireras and ballade.
 Over the years though, composers started writing pieces that included different lines,
decorations and/or parts in music instead of the original monophony pieces. First, polophony
started to arise in many pieces which meant two or more voices. The lines did not stretch far
such as fourths, fifths, and octaves but they were two separate lines now. It all started simply
with organums which decorated chants. There were three different ways these organums where
written, parallel, contrary, and oblique. One example of these was the Organum paralelo por
quintas Tu patris sempiternus. Anónimo. Musica Schiriadis. Partitura. Audición which used
parallel to show decorate. Many of these polophony pieces where found in the magnus liber
organi which contained pieces from Anonymous IV, Leonin, Perotin, and more. Many of these
polyphonic pieces would use the original chants of the cradual or dominus. These were called
motets and were found very confusing because each line had their own text. The Factum est
slatutare is a good example of the two different texts.

After the use of polophony, many composers would start to want to be individual
composers; they wanted people to hear their pieces and know that it was theirs. This led to the
Ars Nova, A large collection of pieces that gave appreciation to composers and singled out their
composition styles. Many of these pieces included the first notated rhythms and forms, also
known as isorhythms. Franco cologne’s notation of rhythm started with simple ternary and duple
units referred to as “perfection” and “imperfection”. Philipe de Vitry brought this further with
what he called the “division of semibreve” giving meter to the pieces. More forms were also
created such as the Virelui, Ballad, and rondeau. One example of the new forms was the De
Mauchaut, Douce Dame Jolie, which used the style of a French secular song. Even furthering
more of composers strive for individualism, Francesco Landini started to make music instead for
stories rather than text. These pieces, found in the Squarcialupi codex, tended to use the Ballata
form. The most easily recognizable piece for this was the Caccin or chase. Finally ending the
Medieval genres was the medieval madrigal led by Jacopo da Bolgna form or strophic. These
Italian pieces really were the leading into the renaissance.

Overall, the pieces of the medieval music were quite simple. They had just started using
rhythm in their music, forms were beginning to lengthen pieces, storytelling was used instead of
text, and composers’ identities were finally becoming recognized. This simplicity may have led
the growth of new composers to sprout into the renaissance and with the new age of technology
and supplies. Many of their intentions may have been to decorate the text of the church, but they
led to storytelling and eventually became decorations of original plainchants. The music of the
medieval times will still be one of my favorites.