Music History Supplemental

2006-04-17T17:00:00.000-07:00

Richard Metzger

Contributions of the Ancients

2006-04-11T17:00:00.000-07:00

Survivng instruments, depictions of musicians in art, fragments of music score and, later, writings on the subject offer our only insight into the music of the ancient world. Even the hard evidence in hand is not helpful; scholars still work to decipher the music notation. Little is known, then, about how the music of the ancient world actually sounded. Even with its limitations, however, the evidence affords authentic glimpses into the life, culture, and music of very distant times.

The Singer of Amon, Zedkonsaufankh, Plays the Harp Before the God Marmakhis, Egypt, New Kingdom (c1400 B.C.) Painted Wood (Louvre)

Alkiaos and Sappho with Lyres,
Greece, Detail red-figure Clay Vase
(c450 B.C.) (Antiken Sammiun, Munich).

Throughout the intervening centuries, artists have made drawings, by studying ancient renderings, to identify the instruments imortant to the ancients and to show their aspects. For the Greeks, the lyre, the kithara, and the aulos were central to music-making. The lyre was a plucked string instrument whose invention has been ascribed to Apollo. Its basic acoustic principle exists today in both the harp and necked-string instruments such as the guitar. Another ancient Greek instrument, the aulos, featured a double reed. The modern oboe is the instrument that most closely resembles it in its properties. The two instruments, along with the kithara, a close relative of the lyre, were among the most important in ancient Greek music. Drums and pipes were also known, but the lyre, with its associations with the revered poet, and the aristocratic aulos remained central to Greek music.

aulos

lyre

Western culture does not begin in ancient Egypt, though Greek culture absorbed Egyptian advances, but in the intellectual achievements of ancient Greece. Despite using scales and instruments that differ from those of European musicians of later times, ancient arithmeticians, philosophers, and mathematicians nonetheless made significant contributions to Western music. The earliest systematic scientific study of music began with Pythagoras and was continued by other mathematicians such as Aristoxenus, Euclid, and Cleonides and Ptolemy. Plato and Aristotle observed and noted the effects of music upon human behavior. Their input with regard to the nature of music and music education is still felt today.

The subsequent entries identify the most important contributors to the scientific study of music and the formulation of a music theory discipline. They also address the powerful philosphical polarities at work in our species, and hence our music. The entries describe the contributions of each figure, and the overview of the ancient Greeks will serve as a portal into the study of music of later times.

Pythagoras

The earliest contributor to a systematic, scientific, and arithmetic study of music was Pythagoras or, more likely, the members of the cult that surrounded him during the sixth century B.C.E. In the view of Pythagoras and his followers, numerical ratios could be applied to explain the natural phenomenon of the universe. The concept that all aspects of the universe were regulated by numbers and their ratios, called harmonia, informs the general approach of the ancient Greeks to their world. It at once embraces early arithmetic and the pragmatic and logic-driven methodology that would profoundly inform Western civilization, especially in the late Medieval formualtion of Humanism.

Pythaogoras' exploration, or more accurately the explorations by members of his cult, of fundamental realtionships of sound led to the generation of the modern natural major scale. To this end, the investigation moved forward using a purpose built "musical" instrument called a monochord. The monochord consisted of a single long string pulled taut enough to produce sound. He divided the string in consecutively smaller ratios by damping measured portions of the string. For example, the first division, in which half the string was stopped from vibrating, yielded a pitch higher than the original in a relationship called in modern terms the interval of an octave.

The octave is a phenomenon of the human ear in which a pitch is perceived as being the same as another but sounding higher or lower. The term interval is used in music terminology to describe the distance from one note to the next. The term octave derives from the distance or interval of the first note and the next, or eight notes if one were to count all the notes of the scale between the two. The relationship is expressed as the ratio 2:1.

One can experience first-hand the phenomenon by first pressing a key on the piano and then pressing the correspondent key elsewhere on the keyboard. Similarly, the guitar will yield the same experience if one first plucks a string without placing a finger on the neck. To hear the octave, one squeezes the string at the twelfth fret and plucks again.

Two other divisions of the monochord critical to Western music are the next two ratios in the sequence of division. These ratios are 3:2, called the interval of a fifth, and 4:3, interval of a fourth. The two intervals became critical later in Western music in the division of the octave and the evolution of harmony. In a stepwise sequence of notes beginning on C, G is the note that relates to C as its fifth (C D E F G). Note that the C note is counted as "1." In the same sequence, F is the note that relates to C as its fourth. Conversely, the C note can also relate as the fifth of the F note if the F note is used as the starting point (F G A B C). Likewise, C note can relate as the fourth of G note if the G note is used as the starting point (G A B C).

By using the three ratios (2:1, 3:2, and 4:3) in subtraction and addition, Pythagoras and his follows were able to generate the pattern of notes known today as the natural major scale, a series of notes that begins on the note C and is bound at the lower and higher ends by the octave. The notes are, in order from lowest to highest, C D E F G A B C. In his construct using ratios, the E and A notes sound sour to modern ears.

The process of addition and subtraction embodies the use of fractions. For example, Pythagoras was able to determine the difference between the interval of a fifth and the interval of a fourth by converting them to fractions and subtracting one from the other: 3/2 - 4/3 = 9:8. The ratio 9:8 expresses the interval of a second, precisely the ratio of the scale notes F and G but also the ratios of C-D, G-A, and A-B. Although also consecutive, the notes E-F and B-C do not exist in the same ratio as F-G. The intervals between E-F and B-C represent the smallest between notes in Western music, are called half-steps, and are reckoned in a ratio smaller than 9:8. All Western musical instruments reflect the half-step in their construction. The distance occurs in the movement on the piano from a white key to the nearest black key or from one fret to the next nearest on the neck of the guitar. The pattern of whole steps and half-steps found in of Pythagoras' scale, and hence the modern natural major scale, is w-w-h-w-w-w-h.

The remaining intervals of the second (C-D, D-E, F-G, G-A, and A-B) occur in the ratio 9:8 and are called whole steps. Other cultures, especially those of the Middle East, recognize musical intervals, called microtones or quarter-tones, that are even smaller than the half-step. Although they are not a part of European classical music prior to the twentieth century, microtones did occur in American popular music from the earliest slave days as the "bent" note of the blues. Microtones are not a formal part of modern music curriculum.

The octave pattern of notes identified by Pythagoras stood for centuries as the model to be taught in music education, though the natural major scale did not come into actual common use until the mid-sixteenth century! The natural major scale is still in use today as the starting point for musical composition and musical training.

In identifying the tones of the natural major scale and assigning ratio values to them, Pythagoras formulated the model that later Western musicians used first as a standard in teaching and finally as a standard in making music. The exclusion of microtones from practical music did not occur in ancient times, but somewhat later as the musical liturgy of the young Church evolved a European, rather than Middle Eastern, identity.

Scales used by in early Christian times in Europe did not replicate the natural major scale of Pythagoras but derived from it, using the same fixed pitches in sequences starting on different notes (i.e. D E F G A B C D or E F G A B A D E). The resulting scales are called modes . The use of a single set of eight, immutable pitches are critical in the development in ninth-century Europe of the single most profound and unique characteristic of Western music, harmony.

The Doctrine of Ethos

The Doctrine of Ethos was the result of the observations and thinking of two fourth-century B.C. E. philosophers, Plato and Aristotle. They believed that music had an effect not only on behavior, but also upon shaping personality. Hence, listening to certain scales and types of music could determine the basic characteristics of a person. For example, continued exposure to martial music could produce a soldier. The Doctrine of Ethos seems a little extreme to the modern reader, yet music can have immediate though temporary effects upon the listener. Music can calm, stimulate, and affect moods.

Aristotle and Plato also felt strongly the music was necessary to proper and complete education. They regarded music study as belonging to the sciences rather than to the arts, a feature that would be retained until the Renaissance. The study of music also came with an admonition: music should be studied in moderation. The development of virtuostic skills was not regarded as desirable since it came that the cost of the development of other areas of expertise and learning. Today their thinking is reflected in the inclusion of music study as part of a broader education, yet it is regarded, as is the study of other arts and literature, as essential to the development of personal refinement and human enrichment.

Cleonides and Ptolemy

The next great strides in Western music came with the codification by Ptolemy and Cleonides (c.2th century C.E.) of octave species. An octave species is an eight-note scale. Ptolemy called these octave scales "tonoi." Cleonides called his codification the "system of octave species." Quintillianus would also offer similar octave species in the 4th century C.E.

The octave species of Cleonides and Ptolemy differ from the model offered by Pythagoras in several respects. They are not generated by monochord division but based upon observation of actual musical practice. Although they utilize the same pitches identified by Pythagoras, the pattern of whole steps and half-steps differs from the scale of Pythagoras. The tonoi may be played on the white keys of the piano, with each consecutive mode or octave species beginning on the next white key. Names, such as Dorian, Phrygian, and Lydian, associated with each scale likely refer to the poetic and musical practices of various ethnic groups. The same names were applied to the Church Modes, but it is important to note that the names found in the tonoi do not describe the same scales in the Church Modes. In the following exampel, each consecutive mode or octave species is played beginning on the next white key.

Aristoxenus

The fixed pitches of Pythagoras' scale represented the first step toward a scientific study of music. His scale's sour third and sixth notes (E and A) highlighted a problem that arose in the difference between the purely arithmetic measurement and the pitches that actually occurred in practical music. The position of Aristoxenus (c.late third century B.C.E.) stood in direct opposition to that of the cult of Pythagoras.

His approach advocated the adjustment of pitch on the basis of aural perception. To his thinking, the singer or player could adjust the note to sound "in tune" even if the note fell outside the Pythagorean model. To back up this license, Aristoxenus cited a new mathematic discipline developed by Euclid and others, geometry. Geometry could prove measurements smaller than those that result from the addition and subtraction of fractions. Aristoxenus cited the capability of geometry to measure more precisely not only as a means adjust pitch, but also to prove the existence of the adjusted pitch. Foremost to his music thinking was that empiricism, that is aural perception, should determine where the pitch was sung or played.

Additional advances in music theory are found in Aristoxenus' description of the usable range of pitches from highest to lowest, which he called the Greater Perfect System, and his division of the gamut, which included notes in this range arranged in a stepwise order, into "tetrachords." Aristoxenus gave as his lowest note the A in the lowest space of the bass clef. The highest is the A note above middle C.

Apollo and Dionysus

The Greek gods embodied characteristics of the human psyche. Two gods, Apollo and Dionysus, possibly represent polarities of thought and behavior particularly important to art and music.

Apollo

Apollo was also known as Phoebus, a name that means "pure" or "bright." He was among the most widely revered gods; even the other gods feared him. His role was multifaceted. On the harsh side, he cut a moral swath, presiding over religious and secular law, purifying men of their guilt, and protecting mankind and his domestic animals and crops from natural disaster. The death, terror, and awe meted out in his justice were symbolized by his bow.

The other symbol associated with Apollo was the lyre. He used the lyre to instruct in the merits of music, regarded in the ancient world as a mathematical discipline, poetry, and dance in elevating the human soul (and character). He called men with his lyre to ephemeral communion with the gods. Later humanist thinkers easily transferred his meaning, and applied it to encompass justice, purity, intellectual pursuit, reason, restraint, sobriety, and dispassionate and objective empiricism (i.e. scientific method). More public ramifications include Christian morality, courtly chivalric code, civic responsibility, and civil order and law.

Dionysus

Although also a son of Zeus, Dionysus personified the sensual side of human nature. Also known as Bacchus, he was associated with the life-giving fluid component of nature such as sap, juice, and lifeblood, and with fertility. To this end he ruled the satyrs and Nature as the god of vegetation and fruitfulness, as in the display of nature's fertile regeneration in springtime. In the simplest human application, he represented wine and ecstasy.

The Gods and Polarities in Western Art

The states of being embraced by each god clearly represent two profound forces in eternal competition in human nature. In Western art and music, the forces could be interpreted, regardless of time period, in "Classical" or "Romantic" terms. Beyond the catch-all label "classical music," a general term which in the twentieth century has come to signify all art music from all periods of time that is not born of popular culture, music with clear classical influences contain certain characteristics.

Classical aspects in music are apparent, as they are readily in architecture and art, as clarity of texture and form, balance, symmetry, restraint, elegance, transparency of texture, and logic in the relation of the parts to the whole and the resolution of formal problems. Although classical music might contain powerful expressive elements, it is absolute in character, that is, its value is its reason for being.

By contrast, music that displays romantic traits deliberately seeks to strongly express or represent intense emotion. The music is often programmatic, that is, narrative in its telling of a story. It contains sharp contrasts, even excesses, of timbre, tempo, dynamics, rhythm, and texture. Programmatic or romantic music is often through-composed. Furthermore, elements such as motives or unusual harmonies in the music often symbolize an idea, character, state of being, or event. The impetus to compose is not the music, but the emotion it conveys.

Although the complexity or the character of a piece of music or art can depend on the state of technical sophistication of the medium at the time of creation, the classical or romantic spirit still shines through.

Greek Sculpture as a Model for Understanding Evolutionary Process in Western Music

2006-04-10T10:48:00.000-07:00

A Visual Record of the Process of Natural Mechanical Evolution and the Vacillation of Content Between Polarities in Greek Sculpture

The polarities of "classical" and "romantic" are, of course, embodied by Apollo and Dionysus. The adherence to one tenet or the other is not wholly determined by the creator, but often by the state of technical evolution of the genre in which in he works. The reality is apparent in the evolution of Greek statuary, and the nature of the process holds true for other art media including music. The cycle depicted in Greek statuary is repeated in Western music, and will become a touchstone.

There are three stages of ancient Greek sculpture, archaic, classic, and Hellenistic. The emergence of a romantic spirit in art or music, as in the sculpture below, assumes that there is an inherited starting point with regard to form and that the realization of the romantic spirit is ennabled by the technical progress in the medium. Finally, the classical or romantic spirit does not necessarily have to dominate a work; both can be present in varying degrees.

The earliest stage of Greek sculpture clearly draws upon the achievements of the Egyptians. The first sculpture, "Mycerinus and His Queen," is an example of Egyptian sculpture which dates from c2500 B.C. It is clearly representative, though the actual features are clearly idealized rather than reflective of how the characters actually appeared in life.

Mycerinus and His Queen

The straight-on frontal view of the king and the placement of his feet, one before the other, is retained in the second sculpture, the Greek "Kouros (Standing youth)," a work dating from c600 B.C.

Kouros

In the case of the Kouros, however, the placement of the feet represents a significant forward stride in engineering. The placement permits the statue to stand unsupported. The idealized rendering of the parts of the body, a characteristic of Egyptian art, is also evident in the Kouros. Egyptian artists represented the part of the body from its most typical angle, that is, the chest is depicted from the front, the arms and legs from the side, and so forth. The custom is not apparent in the example of sculpture, but is easily found in paintings and bas reliefs.

"Doryphorus" (the "Spear-Bearer") is a Roman copy of an original by Policitus dating from c450 B.C. It brings Greek sculpture into its Classic era. The musculature is carefully represented but, despite the extensive detail, the proportions are not accurate to life. Instead, the sculpture was guided by the aesthetic ideals of form, balance, and clarity. The result owes its posture to the Kouri and Mycerinus in turn, but its aim is the achievement of a high level of ordered beauty. Note that the sculpture is not truly freestanding.

doryphorus

"Discobolus" (the "Discus Thrower") is another Roman copy of an original by Myron that dated from c 450 B.C. Although not freestanding either, it displays a new-found engineering virtuosity. Discobolus is considerably more animated than Doryphorus, and the technical achievements that make possible new ways to support load. Although a virtoustic and a step toward romanticism, it still carries the formal constraints of classicism.

Discobolus

Vestiges of Kouros are apparent in both "Aphrodite of the Cnidians," the female figure on the left, and "Hermes," the male on the right. Both works are Roman copies after originals by Praxiteles c330-320 B.C. The further refinement of the musculature is one clue to the coming Hellenistic Age, but the real signal is found in the softening of the posture so that it borders on sensual. Moreover, Hermes posture also conveys feminine characteristics. That the figures permit a sensual component shows a subtle breakdown in the tenets of classicism that otherwise inform the works.

Praxiteles: Hermes and Aphrodite

"Lacoon" is today one of the best-known icons of Hellenism, the final stage in Greek sculpture. Its creation is ascribed to Agesander, Athenodorus, and Polydorus of Rhodes, and it dates from the late second century B.C.E. Lacoon also represents the embodiment of romantic traits within classical constraints. The serpent metes out punishment to Lacoon and his sons. The sinewy dynamism of the group, its overly busy nature outside the careful self-regulation of classicism, bespeaks great effort, drama, violence, and technical virtuosity. The symmetry of classicism is still evident yet distorted because one side does not mirror the other and because the scale from the central figure to those at the outside differs. The postures, the facial expressions, and the details of the bodies are exaggerated. Despite the subject matter, the effect is almost one of empathetic celebration or immersion in sensuality. One does not view the work with cool detachment.

Yet, the romantic qualities of the scene cannot completely hide the classical components that inform it. As noted, there is the symmetry. The bodies, though the details are exaggerated in their development, still represent "ideal" rather than "real" or "natural" renderings of human form. The punishment, as dramatic as it is, does not convey to the viewer the true horror of death by serpent, but instead broadcasts punishment in a frozen, antiseptic, and rhetorical sense.

Lacoon

The "Dying Gaul," which dates from c230-220 B.C., brings home forcefully the darker side of romanticism. The scale of human morphology is toned down so that it is closer to that of the normal male. The subject is not presented in a glossed, cleaned up form. The soldier is dying, and every aspect of the sculpture realistically conveys the fact from the bowed head to the slight crook in the supporting arm. The viewer is drawn into his plight and can only wait quietly with him until the end comes.

Dying Gaul

The progression occurs in three stages. First, a model is abosorbed and adapted for use, as often as not by a newly ascending or emerging culture. Second, the absorption of the model is complete in the "classic" stage, the point at which the tenets of the new style are defined and all the technical problems to realization are resolved. In the last stage, virtuostic displays often result. Here the realization of the work and the technical mastery required supplant the content of the work. The tenets as defined in the classic apogee give way to deformation of those very tenets. Three segments of the progression record the rise and degeneration of a means of expression or style of art. The third and final stage of development, of course, gives way to new ideas, and the cycle begins anew. In the course of the history of Western music, the birth to death cycle repeats at least three times, with smaller similar cycles contained within the larger ones.

Early Christian Music: Centonization and the Establishment of a Musical Liturgy

2006-04-09T16:59:00.000-07:00

Early Christianity and its Music

Christianity, of course, began in the Middle East. It spread to Europe during Roman rule by the same routes that Rome had built to effect trade and the rapid deployment of troops, the Roman system of roads. Despite the fall of Rome in the fifth century C.E. and fierce attacks from the north, Christianity survived and became an inestimable shaping force in the formation of Western society, culture, art, and music.

Christianity absorbed several critical concepts from its parent religion Judaism (Jesus, if you recall, was a Jew). First and foremost was the concept of sacrifice. For Jewish priests, the sacrifice and burning of lambs upon the altar was a demonstration of faith to God. In Christianity, the sacrifice entailed that of Jesus, the Son of God, upon the cross. Sacrifice, then, is moved to a central place in Christian belief and worship. A second Jewish element to be absorbed was the singing of the Psalms in the synagogue and home. Early Christians continued the practice (the Old Testament is shared by both religions), and the Psalms became the source of texts for Chrisitan liturgical music.

Centonization and the Establishment of a Liturgy

As noted, early Christian music worship practices derived from the Jewish tradition, the singing of Psalms in the synagogue and at home. The Christian musical practice of chant began as an improvisational one called centonization. In the process of centonization, common musical motives (short melodic fragments) are placed in singing end to end to build up a longer melody. The order of motives may be changed to accommodate the changing emotions and lengths of different texts. The process lives on today in Blues (see "Centonization, A Still Viable Process" in the supplemental lecture New Millenium). By the eighth century many of the chants had been sung the same way so often that they began to assume a fixed form.

The components of the worship celebrations became standardized between the second and third centuries A.D. There were two different types of worship, one for the monastery and the other for the public. Monastery worship is called the Offices and consists of services spaced throughout each twenty-four hour period at intervals of about four hours. Some of the names of the specific services come to us today as the names of special choral concerts such as Vespers, Matins, etc. The worship service for the public is called the Mass. It is also divided into two parts, the Proper and the Ordinary. The content of the Proper is specific to the holiday. Each day of the year is a holiday, that is, a day representing some event in the life of Jesus. The Ordinary is a portion that does not change. It includes the Kyrie, Agnus Dei, Sanctus, Gloria, and Credo. The five portions of the Ordinary are especially important to the study of music because they have been traditionally the focus of composers' efforts.

The Eastern and Western Churches, and the Fall of Rome

In its early centuries, Christianity was not embraced by the Roman Empire. At the core of Christian philosophy was a concept that posed real danger to the highly-stratified Roman society, the idea of equality. The concept is not that defined in Enlightenment thinking, though precursors of the thinking was found among the rights and responsibilities of the free Roman citizen, but in the teachings that anyone who believes, regardless of rank within the society, is saved. Christian teachings also shifted allegiance from Rome, its government, and its society.

In the early centuries of the Common Era, Christianity spread quietly but pervasively throughout the Roman Empire. Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in 312 and made it the religion, at least, of the Imperial family. The early seat of the Christian church, then, was the city of Byzantium, renamed Constantinople and later Istanbul. Constantine designated it as the capital of his Roman Empire in 330. Although under single rule, Eastern Christian churches enjoyed certain autonomy. Although no music older than the ninth century survives, it is likely that regional variations, especially musical ones, evolved from common liturgical practices. Constantinople remained the capital of the Eastern Church when the Empire split permanently in 395, and remained the central seat of the Eastern Church until it fell to the Turks in 1453.

The Byzantine Empire was the early wellspring of European Christian liturgical practice and music. Until the breakup of the Empire in 395, the conduit from the Eastern Empire to the Western one remained open, and the Eastern Hellenistic-Oriental liturgical heritage, including practices, specific chants, and even the theoretical aspects such as the Church modes, were conveyed intact and informed European worship.

As in the Eastern Empire, however, common liturgy was modified in the face of regional needs. A variety of different but specifically European liturgies and bodies of liturgical music emerged between the fifth and eight centuries. During this time, the early independence of Western churches gave way to the central authority of Papal Rome, and efforts at codification of the various European liturgies into a single liturgy were undertaken beginning in the ninth century. From the ninth to the sixteenth century, European Christianity fell wholly under Papal Roman rule and culture.

The underlying reasons are manifold for the emergence in the fifth to eighth centuries of specific European liturgies. First, direct Eastern influence was cut off when the Empire split. Second, the Fall of Rome in 467 was accompanied by invasions by hordes from the steppes of central Asia and large-scale iconoclasm. By the seventh and eighth centuries, Europe had fallen under the rule of the these tribal groups, which included the Franks, Lombards, the Visigoths, Goths, and the Vandals, who carved Europe into separate geographical and political entities. A similar situation existed in England as the resut of invasions by the Angles and the Saxons. During this time, Christianity was the single unifying feature of European culture.

Each of the different groups met particular worship needs by developing its own melodies for singing sacred texts. The generation of new melodies involved new composition, but as often the modification of chants inherited from Byzantine worship. The dialects to emerge included Gallic in France, Celtic in Ireland and parts of the British Isles; Beneventan in southern Italy, Old Roman in the region around Rome, Ambrosian in the area around Milan, and Visigothic or Mozarabic in Spain. Despite the name, there are no evident Arab influences in the music.

Codification of the Musical Liturgy

Pope Gregory II (c715 C.E.) desired that the chant repertory be codified, and he ordered that the chants be recorded in writing. Charlemagne (ruled as Emperor 800-814 C.E.) redoubled the efforts at standardization begun by pope Gregory and his father and predecessor, Pepin the Short. Charlemagne and Pepin the Short, before him, established the first great kingdom of Europe by securing its borders against invasions from the East. For Charlemagne, codification of the literature would assure that the same chants were sung in all regions of Europe under his control, an aspect of standardization not uncommon to his concept of uniform rule. Other great accomplishments include the establishment of the banking and education systems.

Reconciling the various dialects in codification presented problems, and ultimately the Gallic, Beneventan, and Ambrosian dialects were consciously supplanted by Old Roman rite. Mozarabic chant was not so easily displaced in Spain, and it remained in use until official replacement in the eleventh century. The comparison of manuscripts would seem to suggest that the chants of the Old Roman rite furnished the original chant literature, and that they were transmitted to the later times through work of Frankish scribes.

The process would have profound effects upon Western music. The completion of the codification process would give rise to Church prohibitions against changing the text or the notes of those chants included in the in the official sacred liturgy. Later musicians, for the most part monks, would find other ways to contribute to Church music, and their solutions would lead to the highest achievement of Western music, harmony.

Reliquary Bust of Charlemagne

Notation

Codification presented special problems. No system of notation existed that could be used to record the music. In the earliest notation, , which first emerged around the ninth century and which were obviously resultant of the new efforts to codify the musical litrugy, marks derived from Greek or Latin grammatical accents were placed above the text as an aide memoire. The accents, called neumes (Greek, "sign" or "nod"), corresponded to the acute, grave, and circumflex accents that survived into modern French. The lines on the left portion of the leaf indicate sections in which the last syllable is sustained throughout a melodic phrase called a melisma (defined below).

Notation using heightened neumes represents a second step toward accurate notation. As in staffless notation, the singer was required to commit to memory the entire chant repertory as it was handed down by the older monks. Obviously, the neumes placed further above the text indicated higher pitches.

A critical forward step in accuracy came with the application of a horizontal line. The line represented a single, fixed pitch, and the singers could use that pitch as the standard against which to determine the relative location in sound of the other notes.

Staff notation, consisting of a four-line system, permitted the accurate notation of chant and, more importantly, the capability of a singer who did not know the chant ot render its notes correctly. The advance is recorded in Guido d'Arezzo's Micrologus (c1025) (Guido's contributions are assessed in subsequent Supplemental Lectures). A single but profound problem that remains today lies in interpreting the rhythm of the neumes.

Within chant, there are three classifications of the relationship of the text to the words. A syllabic setting is one in which one note is matched to one syllable. In a neumatic setting, several notes are matched to a single syllable. In a melismatic setting, many notes are sung to a single syllable. Florid melody typifying the last treatment is sometimes called a melisma.

Early Christian Thought On Music

Early church leaders and thinkers such as Clement of Alexandria, Origen, St. Basil, St. John Chrysostom, St. Ambrose, At. Augustine, and St. Jerome retained the opinion of ancient Greek philosophers that music had the power to influence, for good or evil, personality and behavior. For them and their followers, beauty, including musical beauty, was a reminder divine and perfect beauty. Music for worldly pleasure was to be avoided, though early church fathers saw a clear use for music in worship. The inclusion of musical instruments in public music was initially prohibited. The frequent references in the Psalms to the use in worship of the psaltery, harp, organ, lyre, and other musical instruments, however, presented early leaders with a dilemma. In the end, worship music was regulated so that its orchestration, choir size, level of elaboration in singing, and other similar features reflected the proper reverence and eschewed pagan and secular spectacle. St. Augustine, a music lover, wrote and revised six volumes on music between 386 and 409 C.E. The first five volumes explained the principles of rhythm and meter. In the last volume, St. Augustine turned his attention to the asthetics, ethics, and psychology of music.

Early Music Education: Capella and Boethius

Music in Medieval Europe also benefited directly from the writings of the ancient philosphers, arithemeticians, mathematicians, and music theorists. Their findings and empirical conclusions survived the tremendous political and social upheavals of the Fall of Rome in the writings of Martianus Capella and Ancilius Manlius Severinus Boethius.

Martianus Capella (early fifth century)

Martianus Capella was an important figure in the transmission of the knowledge of the ancient Greeks. His exstensive writings on the liberal arts had a significant impact upon the development of education in the West. He called the first three of the liberal arts, the verbal arts grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric, the trivium, or three paths. The remaining liberal arts consisted of the mathematical disciplines, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and harmonics. The mathematical arts were called by Boethius the quadrivium. The last of these, harmonics, consisted of the system of ratios in the intervals between musical pitches. Hence the study of music, albeit in a scientific form, became established early as a critical component of education.

Manlius Severinus Boethius (c480-c524/6)

Boethius was a Roman theorist. His compendium, De institutione musica (The Fundamentals of Music), became one of most important and influential documents of the Middle Ages. Boethius compiled is multi-volume work from the writings of other authors, most notable among them the Greek sources of Nicomachus and Ptolemy. Of the five volumes, the first three conveyed Pythagorean findings and conclusions. The fourth volume derived its content from Euclid and Aristoxenus. The fifth, which was partly anti-Pythagorean, was drawn from Ptolemy. The contradictions among the volumes did not seem a point of concern to medieval readers.

Boethius' most original contribution, however, was his division of music into three categories. The first, musica mundana, explained the movement of the planets, the changing of the seasons, and the elements as evidence of an underlying, orderly numerical system that controlled all aspects of the universe. The second category, musica humana, explains the relationship of the soul and the body and its regulation.

His third musical type, musica instrumentalis, focused upon audible music, whether produced by an instrument or the human voice. Like the earlier Greeks, he used the ratio of numbers to explain the intervals between musical pitches as an orderly system and stressed the behavioral impact of music upon humans. To this end he regarded musica instrumentalis as a critical component of education.

As noted in the entry regarding Capella's contributions, Boethius named the four liberal arts that embraced the mathematical disciplines the quadrivium. Boethius' musica instrumentalis fit into the category of harmonics. His understanding of musical study was not that meant in modern terms, that is the study of singing or playing an instrument. Instead, he advocated the study of the relative nature of musical pitches. He maintained that the true musician was not the singer, who sings by instinct, but the philosopher-mathematician who studies, measures, and critically assesses the medium and the relationships of the sounds produced in it.

Medieval Developments

2006-04-09T16:58:00.000-07:00

The Church, the Feudal System, and the Peasant: Daily Life in the Middle Ages

The Organization of Medieval Society: the Feudal System and the Church

Feudal government was an outgrowth of several different Roman client systems. At the foundation, the relationship of landowner and the farmer was simple: the landowner provided capital or, more often, protection, and the farmer paid taxes, rents, or both to the landowner. The tenet created two large classes, the lord and the vassal, and one smaller but critical peripheral class, the soldier. The clergy constituted a fourth class fundamental to society but not fundamental to the economic workings of the feudal system. The members of the landed class often descended from regional warrior kings but were also created by the bestowal of immunities. An immunity could be granted by the king.

The recipient of an immunity gained the right to rule over his landholdings, within the canons of civil and Divine law, but owed his ultimate loyalty to the king, the only person who could supersede his word in law. Since the king lived a considerable distance and was usually preoccupied by more pressing matters, the rule of the lord was, for all practical purposes, unchallenged. Landowners often unscrupulously added to their power by adding to their landholdings.

The Church also shared some portion of the power with the king and the lords. Divine law had its source in Christianity, and the officials of the Church were its administrators. In practical terms, the king could and sometimes did participate in making religious or superseded the Church entirely, particularly if the implementation of religious law had civil consequences. Charlemagne, for example, ruled with a free hand in all matters. His coronation as Emperor was meant to signal the coming of yet another Roman Empire, the Holy Roman Empire. In fact, the coronation added credence and military support to Pope Leo III, a pope whose office was losing lustre and whose power base was rapidly dissipating.

The Church and its properties played a significant role in the distribution of the Medieval population. Roman roads already created an interlaced highway system that permitted travel through Europe. These roads, built to enable the rapid deployment of Roman troops had also facilitated the spread of Christian ideas. In the middle ages they continued their military function but allowed trade and contact among communities. Charlemagne took advantage of the monasteries that had been constructed along these roads by Irish monks. He assigned multiple responsibilities to them. They became the centers of village and town by offering critical services to the vassal. In addition to spiritual guidance, the monasteries often possessed the large machinery, such as the grinding wheel, that was critical to agriculture but too expensive for the vassal to construct. The monasteries were also made to fulfill roles as education centers, hospitals, wayfarer hostels, and the like. Ultimately the great cathedrals sprang from communities whose spiritual, social, and economic lives rotated around the dual hub of the Church and the lord.

Vassals came under the control of the lord in a variety of ways. Some were successful free farmers who fell under increasing threat from foreign invaders such, as the Muslims who invaded Europe in lightning raids. Others entered into relationships in the same was as the tenant farmer. The remaining class, the soldier or knight, traded his skill at arms and, if necessary, his life, in return for support. The knight occupied a place of privilege within Medieval society, although he did not necessarily hold land.

Aside from the nobleman and his family, the local Church officials, and a handful of civil administrators, the entire population of the fief existed in a state of servility. Although the nobility did not work for a living, they gainfully filled their time with war, high adventure, political intrigue, and sport.

The vassals divided into several distinct classes. The largest classes were the villeins and the serfs. Villeins were small farmers who surrendered their lands in exchange for protection but were not part of the property. By law, the villain could be taxed but only within the limits set by civil law. Serfs, by contrast, were bought and sold with the land, and their labor could be exploited without recompense at the whim of the lord. By the thirteenth century, the distinctions between villain and serf had disappeared. Surprisingly, the position of the villain did not degrade to that of serf, the position of the serf had instead improved to that of the villein.

The class of cotters and crofters was far smaller in numbers. This group had no defined place within feudal society. They lived in shanties at the outskirts of the community and hired out to the wealthier villains. They lived hand-to-mouth, that is, in abject poverty, and were not welcome anywhere. Many had descended from slaves. Slavery was an institution that became virtually extinct by the beginning of the twelfth century, yet the stigma of heredity held the cotter-crofter class down. The few slaves that remained after 1000 A.D. actually fared physically better than the crofter since they were employed as household servants at the manor.

The fiefs physically reflected their class structure. The landowner, his family, and his soldiers lived within the walls of the fortifications. The vassals lived on parcels of farmland outside the gates but could withdraw into the fortifications in times of attack. The further from the fortifications the location of one’s house, the lower one’s station. The bastion against attack for the furthest houses might not be a wall, but a hedge.

Daily Life

A singular significant advance of the Middle Ages was the large scale cultivation of the land and the domestication of animals. The control over the land, which meant the clearing of significant portions of it of woods, helped to eliminate food shortages throughout the year. It also meant that not all members of the society need be occupied in acquiring food. Hence in the origin of agrarian advances one finds the beginning of professional specialization within the society and the consequent beneficial rise in the society of the quality of goods, education, and organization.

Improvements of agrarian techniques and their application did not spell the end of earlier hunting and gathering activities. Not so much of the forest had been pushed back from civilization’s structures that wild animals did not flourish. Dangerous animals such as bears often wandered in search of food into cultivated areas and presented real danger. Hunting and gathering filled the table in lean times and supplemented not only the basic available foodstuffs, but offered a necessary variety in diet and hence nutrition. Without refrigeration but with new sources available, new methods of preparing and storing food developed. For example, wine became a means to hold perishable fruit, cheese permitted a longer life to cow’s milk, and bread became important as a way to convert inedible stored grain to digestible form. Spices became increasingly important and were often used to disguise rancid meat.

Hardships of environment were shared by the nobility and peasant alike. Manor houses were dark, dank, and drafty. Many of the health hazards of the peasant house, such as smoke from wood fires used to cook and to heat, were present in equal proportions in the best houses. The walls of peasant houses were constructed of wattle and daub (mud and straw). The thatched-straw roof had a hole in the middle to allow the smoke from the cooking and heating fire to escape and duly allowed in the rain and snow. The floors were dirt, the beds were fashioned from a box of straw, and the furniture was a table and several three-legged stools.

The peasant diet was limited and monotonous. He ate bread, porridge, and cheese year round. In the summer, the diet was augmented by vegetables from his garden. Further additions came from the berries and other fruits he was able to gather and from the game he was able to kill. Game meats were fresh, but those available in the open markets were often badly cured and half putrid. If crops were bad, he suffered, and death from starvation and disease were commonplace. Beer and wine were always available, and they doubtless, and this is not said flippantly, helped dull the pain of existence.

The peasant workday lasted from sunrise until after dark. Life was not regulated by the clock, since accurate time measurement did not evolve until later in the period, but by the daily cycle of the sun and the yearly cycle of the seasons. Once the animals were secured for the night, the peasant had his dinner and a few hours for himself.

Religion and the Peasant

Throughout the Middle Ages, the portrayal of Christ began to evolve in a way that made Him more accessible to the vassal. In the early Middle Ages and in concurrent Byzantine culture, emphasis had been placed upon the glorified, omnipotent, and distant Christ. Around the tenth century, the Passion began to move to the fore. The telling of the Passion and its depiction in art made Christ more accessible by making him more accessible and more human. No longer just a remote icon, He was seen in his human suffering and sacrifice, facts of life central to the vassal, and His reward for his virtue was driven home. The shift in conceptualization permitted the worshipper to empathetically embrace Him, and prompted enthusiastic lay participation in cathedral worship and cathedral building.

For the dispossessed elements of feudal society, the crofters, vagabonds, beggars, and the like, a class of people in a chronic state of uncertainty of survival, institutionalized religion was inadequate. For the class of people outside the mainstream, standard religious ideas became inadequate in the face of developments that threatened existence, namely any disturbing, frightening, or exciting event. New types of preachers, some drawn from clerical ranks and others from the laity, emerged to teach greatly expanded interpretations of a religion that already embraced mystery, sensuality, and superstition.

Excess was part of mainstream Catholicism, in action and symbolism. Self-flagellation was common practice during the plague. The gargoyle of Gothic architecture, terrible nightmare beasts that represented evil, adorned cathedral exteriors. Some were carved into the wall, at eye level, as warnings. Large gargoyle sculptures are always mounted to face outwards to symbolize the flight of evil from goodness. In mechanical function, they were often rainspouts.

Graphic and gruesome gargoyle warning to sinners

Gargoyle rainspout on Notre Dame Cathedral

Psychological Relief: High Holidays, Feast Days, Weddings, and Funerals

The Church often furnished the majority of bright spots in the life of the peasant. Sunday Mass offered a relief from the relentless routine and labor. Special occasions were truly special. The High Holidays of the Church, Christmas and Easter, were foremost among holidays and entailed feasts, splendor, and elevated ritual. By the late 1300s, the Church calendar embraced upward of fifty holidays, or roughly one per week, that involved the commemoration of the apostles, saints, and martyrs. Most welcome to the vassal, they meant the cessation of labor. In turn the vassal supported the central source of his worship, the cathedral church, with his endowments and gifts. Inns remained open, not so much to furnish drink, but rather to furnish meals for visitors.

Other occasions that permitted feasting and social intercourse were weddings and funerals. The wake was conducted considerably different than in our time, turning more often than not into crude and rowdy bacchanals called “ales” in England. Occasionally, the lord would furnish feast, perhaps in good harvest years or to celebrate a military victory or other significant event. The weddings, funerals, and occasional princely fetes gave occasion to secular music and social dancing.

Chivalry

Manners and gentility did not evolve until relatively late in the Middle Ages. Prior to the emergence of a chivalric code, gluttony was among the most common of vices. The quantity of alcohol consumed was staggering by any standard. At dinner, everyone carved his bit of meat with his own dagger and transported it to his mouth in the fingers of his free hand. The dagger never left the right hand throughout the meal; it was needed in defense against assassination. The reality of dinner-time danger lingers today in two customs. The setting of cutlery on the modern table retains the position of the knife to the right, in easy reach of the hand in which most medieval diners held their weapon. Americans switch hands, grasping the fork in the right hand after they’ve cut their meat. Europeans do not switch, however. They transport the cut portion with the fork held in the left hand and retain, throughout the meal, the grip of the right hand on the knife.

Scraps were not pushed to the side of the plate and placed later into the garbage bin, they were thrown to the floor for the ever-present dogs to fight over. Women were regarded as marginal to existence. The basic fact set the rules: women were physically weaker than men. Hence women were treated, at best, with indifference and, at worst, with brutality and violence.

The emergence of the chivalric code in the twelfth and thirteen centuries brought with it significant improvements in social interaction. The code had its origins in the cult of Mary, the Virgin mother of Jesus, and came to represent the acme of social and moral behavior. Under this value system, the virtuous woman was equated with the Virgin and so warranted respect and protection. The idea never really entirely worked, and the balance of idealization and hormonal drive led to the double standard of behavior that is current today. Chivalry brought with some very fine standards. The ideal knight strove to be virtuous, loyal, brave, generous, truthful, dutiful, and reverent. He was required by code to be kind to the poor and defenseless, to disavow unfair advantage and sordid gain, and, of course, to give his life in defense of his nobleman. Chivalry elevated the status of women to high cult and elevated knighthood to an art form. The love poetry and love chansons of the late Medieval period attest to the new social organization and to the spread of education down the social ladder. Vestiges of chivalry are everywhere today, from the grace of opening a door for another to ideals of fair play in sport and war.

Practical and Educational Advances: Guido d’Arezzo

Guido d'Arezzo (d. after 1033) made significant contributions to practical music in his Micrologus (c1025-28). For one, his book contains the first description of a four-line musical staff that permitted accurate pitch notation.

He is also credited with a system of singer's training, known as solfege, which is employed today and which is known by the syllables do re mi. He developed the "Guidonian hand," the naming of the various joints of the hand after the notes. A choir director could use the hand to teach his choir new music quickly, efficiently, and accurately simply by pointing with the index finger of one hand at the appropriate joint of the other.

Another important contribution is his definitive identification of the eight Church Modes, the scales in use in contemporary music. There were four "authentic" and four "plagal" forms. In the authentic forms, the melody ascends from the tonic note and returns to it at the end. In the "hypo" or "plagal" forms, the melody descends from the same tonic note and ascends to it to end. In all, Guido gave eight modes.

Each authentic mode was assigned a name according to its starting note and the pattern of half and whole steps within the octave. The modes and their ranges are given below. [W=whole step, H=half-step]

Dorian (D-E-F-G-A-B-C-D)

Phrygian (E-F-G-A-B-C-D-E)

Lydian (F-G-A-B-C-D-E-F)

Mixolydian (G-A-B-C-D-E-F-G)

The Dorian is similar to the modern minor scale except that the sixth degree or note is raised. The Phrygian mode is also similar to the minor scale except the second degree is flatted. The Lydian mode resembles the modern major scale except that its fourth degree is raised. The Mixolydian is like a modern major scale with the seventh degree flatted.

A comparison of Guido's church modes to Ptolemy's tonoi reveals that they are the same scales and same names are used. In Guido's account, however, the names are assigned to different modes that in the tonoi. Ptolemy's Phrygian mode is Guido's Dorian, and so forth. The mismatch demonstrates the educational schism and disruption of the transfer of information from earlier to later times caused by the invasion of the hordes from the central steps of Asia, the ancestors of modern Europeans, and the subsequent fall of Rome in the fifth century C.E.

Chant: Trope and Sequence

Church canon prohibited changing the notes of the chant that had been codified and standardized through the efforts of Pope Gregory II, Charlemagne, and others. Musically inclined clergy felt their creativity stifled and sought ways to make musical contributions to the liturgy without violating rules. One solution was the trope.

The practice of troping embodied the addition of music, text, or both between lines or at line ends of a chant.

The example that follows gives the textual additions but not the music. Moreover, the example is not an actual trope but nonetheless demonstrates form resulting from the trope process. Here additional material is added before and after the Psalm verse. As noted, chant was sung as a means to enhance texts drawn only from the Book of Psalms. The trope texts invariably furnished additional commentary on the meaniing of the Psalm or "set the stage" for the Psalm.

A study of the score reveals that the Psalm does not begin until the marker "Ps" in the fourth line. The Psalm itself is a well known-verse.

The text that precedes the Psalm is part of the the Mass celebrating Christmas:

A child is born unto us; a Son is given unto us, whose government is upon His shoulder, and His Name shall be called the Angel of the Great Council.

The Psalm verse (marked Ps in the score) follows:
Sing ye onto the Lord a new canticle, because he hath done wonderful things.

The ending is the Gloria Patri,:
"Glory be to the Father, Son and to the Holy Spirit."

The letters "E u o u a e" appear at the end of the score and do not form a word. Instead each letter is the first letter of each word of the standard closing formula of the musical portions of the Mass "as it in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen."

Tropes became more extensive with the passage of time. By the Middle Ages, the trope sections had spun off into a variety of new forms. One particular type of trope, the Alleluia jubilus exerted special influence. In the jubilus, a florid line of new music, or melisma, is sung to the last syllable "a" of the word alleluia.

The Alleluia jubilus ultimately grew into the sequence or sequentia. The sequence became separated from the alleluia and became a self-contained composition. It is especially important because it is among the earliest vocal music to feature musical repetition. The line scheme of the sequence is A BB CC DD, AA BB, CC, or similar variant such as AA BB, etc.. The sequence was a chant with newly-composed text and music ordered in paired versicles. Sequences were sung as ancillary music to the Mass, for example, as music to accompany processions, or as music in monastic or private worship. Another important Medieval spin-off that resulted from the troping of the Introit was the liturgical play. As a result of its popular nature and use, however minimal, of costumes, staging, and action, the liturgical play was pushed to the front steps of the cathedral and offered as an entertaining prelude to the Mass.

The strict Church canons against changing chant melodies or text led to the addition of a second (and later third and fourth) line of music below or above the chant melody. The new process, called organum, had profound consequences on Western music, leading to the emergence of rules regulating combinations of simultaneously sounded pitches. These rules are today called harmony. The highly sophisticated system of harmony is a crowning achievement unique to Western music. Only with the global spread of Western influence in recent centuries did harmony become part of the music systems of other cultures.

Despite the inception and rise of polyphony in the ninth century, new monophonic chants continued to be composed. As noted, they were not included in the liturgy proper but used in ancillary worship. A principal composer of new chants as well as sequences was the charismatic Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179). She is the earliest composer to whom a specific body of musical works can be ascribed.

The Rise of Organum and the Notre Dame School

The origin of organum is unknown, but the earliest records of it are found in manuscripts dating from the ninth century. Originally, organum was a type of improvised polyphony in which a second melody was fashioned above or below the melody of the chant. In its earliest form, the two voices moved note against note at the interval of a fourth or fifth.

Parallel organum

Within a short time, the musical texture began to evolve. Each note of the chant melody began to be held longer than its normal value in the original version. The protraction of the time values was described by the French verb tenir, to hold, and from the verb comes the name for the voice that sang the chant, tenor. Around the same time, the tenor was assigned to the lower voice and became known as the cantus firmus, literally “firm melody.” The improvised voice no longer sang note against note with the tenor, but instead featured melismatic passages. Since the improvised higher voice contained many more notes than the chant, care was taken that when notes of the two voices occurred at the same time, they would sing perfect consonances. This use of the chant as the musical basis became the primary compositional method, albeit with significant advances, throughout the period from the twelfth to early seventeenth centuries. Each voice sang the same liturgical text in Latin, though at different rates. The early form of this type of orgaum is called florid organum or Aquitane organum. It has become associated with the St. Martials monastery in Limoges in southwestrn France.The cantus firmus is found as the lower voice in the present example. The cantus firmus is already protracted in comparison to the upper voice. Note that there are now indications of the values of duration for any of the notes.

Aquitane, St. Martial, or florid organum

Two outstanding composers of organum, each working at Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, emerged in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Leonin (fl.1163-1190) was known as the master of organum purum, the type of organum which naturally evolved from Aquitane organum. Here the notes of the cantus firmus are held even longer, and the voice part could be described as a drone that occasionally changes pitch. In the folowing example, the opening notes of the chant are given. These same notes are seen in the cantus firmus in lower voice of the organum purum.

Chant and its use by Leonin as a cantus firmus

The second composer, Perotin (fl.1180-c1238), was known for his compositions in a newer type of organum, discant. Organum purum and discant differ in the treatment of rhythm. In organum purum, the singers had to take care only that the notes intended to be concurrent were sung at the same time. The slow-moving tenor permitted the quicker moving voice, the vox organalis, to unfold in rhythms not dissimilar to chant. In discant, the tempi of each voice still differed but the rhythm of each voice was closely regulated. To this end, composers borrowed several rhythms from poetry and applied them to music. The system of values was known as the rhythmic modes. Each value of each poetic voice was based in triple meter, that is, each lasted for the duration of three beats. The six rhythmic modes and their values follow. Long values, indicated by L, received two beats; short values, indicated by S received one. Triple longs values, indicated by T, received three beats. All are executed against a three count, or triple meter.

I. Trochee: L S

II. Iamb: S L

III. Dactyl: T S L

IV. Anapest: S L T

V. T T

VI. S S S

One can see a typical application of the rhythmic modes in the present example of discant by Leonin. The upper voice primarily follows the rhythm of the trochee. The lower voice, which contains the cantus firmus (melody of the chant), unfolds in the fifth mode. As noted, the application of the modes permitted easy alighment of the voices and imbued the music with a strong, dancelike, beat.

The rhythmic modes permitted the easy and accurate alignment in time of two or more voices and permitted the voices to move more quickly in relation to each other. Since all the modes are based in triple meter, different modes could be simultaneously used in different voices. Modes I and V were the most common and. in a two-voice texture that features these modes, the upper voice would express a L-S combination for every T in the cantus firmus below it.

The effect is very similar to dance music and, indeed, the three available textures, monophonic chant, organum purum, and discant permitted Leonin and Perotin to construct compositions of extended length on a single chant. A typical mass movement might follow a pattern:

Monophonic chant---purum---discant---monophonic chant---discant---purum---discant

Each section could be based in a different phrase of the cantus firmus. When the chant was exhausted, composers simply began the cantus firmus again or reused some portion of it. The upper voices of the purum and discant sections were newly composed, and each purum section and each discant section differed musically from earlier or later ones, even if the same phrase of the chant were used as the cantus firmus for more than one section. Composers, especially Perotin, began to compose substitute discants, that is, use the cantus firmus from an existing discant and compose new music for the upper voices. The new discant often substituted for the original one. The practice also prompted musicians and listeners alike to begin to regard the discant as an independent or free-standing composition.

Late in the thirteenth century, new texts were replaced to the liturgical text in the third and highest voice in discants. The texts sometimes added commentary with regard to the liturgical text of the cantus firmus, but sometimes the text dealt with a wholly different topic. The additional text was occasionally not in Latin, the language of the lower voices, but in French. Compositions of this type were called motets after the French word for word, mot. The motet became the most important genre of composition after 1250 and remained so into the late sixteenth century. The motet also underwent a process of secularization, so that it no longer appeared exclusively as supplemental music to the Mass, but began to take on a life as independent secular pieces enjoyed by the educated upper class.

Cathedral of Notre Dame, Paris

Medieval Christian Art: Vestiges of Earlier Times

2006-04-08T14:22:00.000-07:00

Ancient Formal Elements

The art of ancient world offered the early Christians a wealth of formal models which they could modify and use to define their culture. The formal aspects of the models were absorbed but, in the process, the models became new icons with new meanings.

Several characteristics from ancient art are notable. In Egyptian bas relief, the artist did not portray the human figure naturalistically. Instead he depicted each part of the body from its most definitive view. Legs and arms were shown from the side view while the trunk was viewed from a full-frontal vantage point. No attempt was made to create a sense of depth of field, or illusion of "foreground-background" relationship. Here the artist worked from what he knew, not what he saw. The result was an idealized abstraction of human form, an icon whose parts reaffirmed and validated the Egyptian concept of the body. Other figures, such as birds, were similarly reduced, condensed, and abstracted. The Egyptian artist did not concern himself with relative proportions.

Portrait Panel of Hesy-ra, from Saqqara, c2650 B.C., example of Egyptian bas relief

The abstraction of form in Egyptian bas relief did not carry over into Greek or Roman painting or sculpture. The aim of the Greeks was clearly the visual celebration, not cerebration, of the beauty, power, and drama of the human body. Naturalistic rendering better suited their purpose. Whereas the Greeks portrayed gods and atheletes, the Romans built upon the Greek style by adding specific identities to their busts.

"Portrait of a Roman," dated c80 B.C.

The different needs for meaning of each society determined, of course, the nature of the realization. For the Egyptians, the figuration represented man on a fundamental level, a kind of self-validation of order. For the Greeks, the figuration offered a model of beauty and power. The embrace of beauty was far more than just sensual. The figuration conveyed visually the standard of physical conditioning to which each citizen should aspire, a physical prowess absolutely essential to survival in a world of city-states and empire-building. The Roman addition of the facial features of leaders aggrandized these leaders and helped to institutionalize them in a state larger than life.

Rome left its mark throughout the Mediteranean world and Europe in the institutions it founded. Visibly, it used the city gate and the arch as its trademark. Although the arch represents an engineering advance, it was distilled into a standardized symbol in Roman architecture. Viaducts used it, though as much for its structural strength as for its aesthetic value. The dome is simply the arch pulled around a central point. Nowhere did it have such symbollic value, however, as in the gate. To enter a Roman city, a traveler had to pass through an arch. Frequently smaller arched alcoves, one on each side of the gate, would contain busts of the Emperor, his wife, or the son in line to succeed him.

The Market Gate from Miletus, example of Roman gate, c160 A.D.

European Christian Application: Changes in Symbollic Meaning

European Christian architecture incorporated the arch. Although used in the context of their religion, the evocation of the power of ancient Rome, and the transfer of that power to the kingdom of God, was undeniable. European architects used it as a primary aesthetic and engineering component of their churches, and artisans used it as the frame in manuscript illuminations, altar frontispieces, stained-glass windows, and book covers. By fortuitous coincidence, the Roman gate had three arches in its layout, a number of immense value to the younger culture's central symbol, the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit).

The significance of the arch as a portal is paramount to understanding its meaning in the Christian belief system. One enters the church, "God's house," through the portal of the arch. Inside the ceiling might consist of a tunnel created by extending arch in its depth. The altar itself is framed by another arch, and the portal created by this arch over the altar is the one that leads through true belief to the afterlife. On a side note, the most churches, then and now, have the cross as the footprint of their floor plans.

Santa Maria de Naranco, completed 848, exterior view

Santa Maria de Naranco, interior view

The two architectural examples presented here, one Carolingen, the other Gothic, are separated in time by three hundred years. Another architectural style, Ottonian, enjoyed currency in the intervening centuries. All three styles display the features described above, the arch of Roman might now imbued with the meaning of God's omnipotence and promise.

Chartres Cathedral

Between the time of the rule of Charlemagne in the ninth century and the high Gothic in the fourteenth, cathedrals grew dramatically in size and height. The cathedral played a special role in the religious and economic life of the Medieval community. The grand dimensions of the cathedral far exceeded any structure a layman could build. Once inside the front arched portal, the parishioner entered an "other-world." This "other-world" was filled with magnificent and expensive religious art, unusual light effects, sophisticated and ethereal music, "true" relics, and mysterious ritual. In brief, the rituals of belief inspired in the faithful a sense of spirituality, piety, and awe, and this emotional state was bolstered mightly by architecture on a scale so grand that it was difficult for the peasant layman to apprehend.

The cathedral could also add considerable monies to town coffers that relied primarily on aggrarian earnings. The cathedral became a source of revenue when it assumed significance as the destination point of religious pilgirmage. Size, aesthetics, music quality, and the quantity of sacred objects, such as relics, figured prominently in the success of the cathedral in attracting tourists.

The development of the flying buttress (see exterior view of Notre Dame in "Rise of Organum") permitted new architectural features. The buttresses absorded the load of the roof and diverted it outward, eliminating the need for the thick, heavy walls of earlier structures. Not only were thinner walls and considerably higher roofs made possible, but large areas of the wall could be replaced by stained-glass windows. The stained-glass windows profoundly improved the interior aesthetics. Earlier cathedrals had relatively lower ceilings. Their thick walls could safely accomodate only small windows. Inside, then, these structures were dark and gloomy. The high ceiling of the Gothic cathedral was itself a stunning achievement, and now the windows allowed multicolored light to set the vast interior space awash with light.

Chartres Cathedral, view of upper gallery windows

Moreover, the stained-glass windows fulfilled another critical function. The typical parishioner was illiterate. The windows were used to educate, and the scenes portrayed in the window designs were intentionally drawn from the Bible. The window designs themselves incorporated hundreds of shards of geometrically-shaped glass joined together at the ends by strips of lead. Similarly, the scenes were filled with abstract figures, recognizable in their identities by their activity, but not developed, as in ancient Greek or later Renaissance, Baroque and Romantic art, for their realism or beauty of human form. In a final but dangerous point, at least for this author, is the casual and unresearched suggestion that the halo and the Roman arch are not so disimilar.

Chartres Cathedral, detail depicting the "Death of the Virgin"

Icons for the Educated Class: Illuminated Manuscripts, Book Covers, and Altar Frontispieces

Not surprisingly, the arch and abstracted figuration found in Medieval architecture and stained-glass windows are also the prinicipal components in the art that adorned religious manuscripts of the period. All material items were made by hand. Books were copied by hand by monks in the monasteries for use in-house or by the literate members of the ruling families. Religious messages supplemental to the text could be conveyed in a variety of ways that also greatly enhanced the beauty and value of a manuscript. One common means, manuscript illumination, was the pictorial decoration of the first letter of the first word on a page. Another means involved scenes on the covers. Bookcovers were often carved from ivory or made from precious metals and studded with gemstones. The eqaution of power and wealth is a very old one.

The examples that follow span four hundred years, yet they all share common characteristics. One would expect to see some change in the artwork over so long a period of time. Indeed, if one visually ordered the examples on the basis of "evolution," the "Vespasian Psalter," the crudest realiztion of the set, would be placed first and the "Lorsch Gospels," the most naturalistic rendering, would be placed last. Different artisans in different regions worked to their own sensibilities, guided foremost by the tenet that the image must express a meaning that teaches, reminds, or reaffirms.

The Medieval world, then, was one ruled by symbols. Symbols pervaded every aspect of life and assumed a critical role. To moderns, the orientation toward symbology reveals a fundamental aspect of Medieval man's view of life. He lived outside the suffering of his everyday reality. He would be relieved in the afterlife and, in the meantime, he could glimpse the world to come in the intellectual, intermediate world created by the icons and signs that surrounded him.

As noted, the following manuscript illuminations have common elements. All of the examples are narrative in nature. The arch appears in some form in each example. There is no development of spatial relation within the field, that is, there is no effort to create the effect of "foreground-background." Although differing degrees of realism are found among the renderings of human form, all of them are essentially abstract. The characters are recognized by the scenes in which they are immersed or by ancilary features such as objects that a figure might hold. The open book, for example, was the symbol for the teacher. The degree of abstraction is apparent, even in the more naturalistic figuration of the Lorsch Gospels, in that the folds of the clothing define the body, not vice-versa. As in Egyptian art, scale is not important.

Gospel of St. Matthew, manuscript illumination

Lorsch Book Cover, Ivory, c810 (Museo Sacro, Vatican, Rome)

Vespasian Psalter (British Museum Cotton MS Vespian A, England, Canterbury, c800). David, Traditional Author of the Psalms with his Musicians

Gospel Lectionary (British Museum Egerton MS 809, Swabia, possibly Hirsau, c1100). The Ascension

Salvin Hours (British Museum Add. MS 48985, England Lincoln, possibly Oxford, c1270). Christ Before Pilate

The "Madonna in Majesty" is a painting. The gold paint contains real gold. Here the arch is abstracted into a point (review the interior view of Chartres Cathedral, above), but the flat field and abstracted figuration of earlier manuscript illuminations are still intentionally present.

Cimabue, Madonna in Majesty (Louvre, Paris; executed originally c1295-1300 for Church of St. Francis, Pisa, taken to France by Napoleon as spoils of war)

The Arch in Later Times

The subsequent examples date from the late Middle Ages and reflect the discoveries of perspective of Giotto (see Kamien). Curiously, the mathematics (geometry) that made the realization of perspective in art possible had been in place since the second century. "October" hints at the radical shift in art and society that Humanism (see "Humanism" in Renaissance Lectures) would shortly bring.

First, there is the perspective. The figures, though not well-developed by Renaissance standards (the clothing defines the body), make meaningful strides forward in gestures that are representative but also possess elements of realistic depiction. The figure on the right is sowing seeds for a winter crop, and the viewer can almost see the motion of his arm. Unlike the earlier images, this sower is not static.

Like the paintings to follow, however, the gesture conveys an activity of grace and refinement, not one of hot, tiring, dirty labor. The world in which this activity unfolds is one of tranquillity and purity, a significant shift in social attitudes since this world of tranquillity is earthly. Moreover, the Roman arch, by this time more a Christian symbol than an Imperial one, is interpreted in terms of the Zodiac. This arch, then, is not a portal to the Christian afterlife, but one to some small patch of peace, well-being, and relief on earth.

Limbourg Brothers. "October" from Les Tres riches <>heures du Duc de Berry, (1413-16)

"Madonna with Child and Saints" offers a curious study. First, the painting features perspective, but its execution is not convincing. The viewer sees three distinct fields instead of a graduated foreshortening that geometrically recedes into the horizon. The saints occupy the first plane, and the Madonna and Child define a second. personal plane not shared by any other figuration. The Roman arch, present in its most classic reiteration, is actually the agent of perspective.

Each of the figures holds a gesture, but only the second figure from the left expresses a "body language" that is dynamic or believable. The eye is drean to this figure instead of to the Madonna and Child, the supposed central figure. In part, the veiwer's eye is drawn to him because he wears fewer clothes than the other figures but, more importantly, because the his posture displays a natural relaxation and an element of motion.

Domenico Veneziano, Madonna and Child with Saints, c1445, Uffizi Gallery, Florence

The final examples date from the reign of Louis XIV, the "Sun King," of France. Louis's patronage and the consequent contributions to art, architecture, and music are unprecedented. The first example features the interior view of his chapel at Versailles; the second shows the interior of a "town house" belonging to a contemporary member of his aristocracy. In both examples the arch is the dominating visual element, but here it is no longer used to evoke the power of ancient Rome or the kingdom of God. Instead, the arch conveys its power upon its owner. During Louis' tenure, art and architecture in France would be intensely regulated by classical formalism and, as a consequence, the symbols and formal precepts of ancient Greece and Rome would begin to assume new meaning.

Under Napoleon, classical formalism would continue to be nourished. The ancient symbols would transfer to him as Emperor. Indeed, he would fill Paris with buildings that follow the formal models offered by the ancients. He would help to make Paris one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and in turn his influence would be felt to this day. Once freed from Christianity, the arch and other ancient architectural features would later serve governments. A quick perusal of the architecture of Washington, D.C., verifies this point, and the effect of this architecture is the same as it was on the Roman citizen.

Versailles, late seventeenth century, interior view of chapel

"Salon d'or" in the Paris house of Comte de Toulouse, late seventeenth century (now Banque de France)

The Ars Nova and the Transition to the Renaissance

2006-04-06T14:17:00.000-07:00

Ars Nova

Significant strides in musical notation in the thirteenth century, ascribed to Franco of Cologne, permitted the indication in score of even finer and more independent rhythmic ideas than the system of rhythmic modes could accommodate. Modern concepts of meter have their origins in Franconian notation. Even greater strides, strides that would spell the end of the rhythmic modes, were made in the fourteenth century.

The movement derives its name, Ars nova, from the last sentence of a treatise by Philippe de Vitry (1291-1361). Ars nova, "New Art," came to denote the style of French music in the first half of the fourteenth century. The movement's contributions were twofold. The first concerned the acceptance on an equal footing of duple meter (regular groupings of two or four beats) alongside the traditional triple meter of the rhythmic modes. Although duple meter would seem more "perfect" to the modern mind because it is easily divisible into halves, the association of triple meter with the symbol of the Trinity, the "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit," generated resistance.

The second contribution concerned the inevitable division of the standard written note durations into increasingly shorter values. In modern terms, if the whole note equals four beats in duration, it can be divided into two notes of two beats each called half notes. The half note can in turn be divided into smaller units, yielding two notes of a single beat each called quarter notes. The quarter note can also be divided into two notes of half-beat durations called eighth notes. Triple divisions are also possible. For example, a half note, usually two beats, could be divided into thirds. The symbol for the quarter note would still appear to express the division, but the number "3" would be written above the group of three quarter notes to indicate the irregularity.

Isorhythm

The interest of Ars nova composers in the articulation of vastly different rhythmic and metric values also extended to the use of rhythm to plan and control with uniformity an entire composition. Isorhythm was a compositional technique that evolved to meet this need. Isorhythm contained two components, the talea and the color. The talea was a rhythmic pattern that was chosen and repeated throughout the piece. Similarly, the color was a set of notes treated in the same way. Although isorhythm was usually applied to the cantus firmus, it could also be used in other voices.

In composing, the notes of a cantus firmus could supply the color and a rhythm chosen to sing the notes. Upon repetition of the cantus firmus, the duration of the notes could be changed relative to the first statement but not relative to each other. If one sings do-re-mi-fa-mi-re-do and assigns four beats to each note, the talea and the color are established. If one sings the same notes but holds each note twice as long, then the talea has been modified isorhythmically. Here the ratios of duration from one note to the next have remained the same. The device is useful as a unifying element to the sections of the music, since each statement resembles the other, and avoids literal repetition of the material in the isorhythmic voice. Isorhythm is extremely subtle and often revealed by study of the score rather than by hearing. A principal composer who used the technique was Machaut.

Formes fixes

The formes fixes were used in song composition and were derived from contemporary poetic forms. The formes fixes featured repetition of both musical lines and some lines of text. New content was given as the music progressed, but each new verse of text was sung to one of the two lines of music already presented. To exemplify, the schemas of two of the formes fixes follow, the virelai and the rondeau. A third important form, the ballade, followed the scheme AAB. The primary chanson form in Italy, the ballata, is essentially a virelai.

The letters indicate different lines of music. Capital letters indicate that the text has not changed and the numbers that follow give the poetic line. In the example of the virelai, the "A" indicates a refrain, that is, the same line of music and the same text.

Virelai: A (1 2) b (3) b (4) a (5) A (1 2)

In the example of the rondeau, the A B sections that begin and end the form are the refrains. A partial refrain occurs at midpoint.

Rondeau: A (1 2) B (3) a (4 5) A (1 2) a (6 7) b (8) A (1 2) B (3)

Transition to the Renaissance: the Harmonic Advances of Dunstable, Dufay, and Ockegham
John Dunstable, an Englishman working in France in the early fifteenth century, is generally credited with a large role in the transmission from England to the continent of the intervals of the third and sixth as consonant intervals. A two-voice example of the new consonances is given in an exerpt from a hymn by Dunstable, Salve santa parens. The text has not been included. The intervals of the thirds and sixths are indicated between the systems. Likewise, the fauxbourdon is indicated (see definition given below).

John Dunstable, "Salve sancta aperns"

The adoption of these consonances by Burgundian composers Guillaume Dufay and Giles Binchois and the later Franco-Flemish composer Johannes Ockegham, set the stage for the evolution of a new musical entity, the chord. [A chord is formed when intervals of the third are stacked above a note. For example, a C chord results when an E note (C-E=3rd) and a G note (E-G=3rd) are sounded above a C note. The C note is called the root and lends its name to the chord]. A sixth results when the interval of a third is inverted. In this process, the lower note is moved an octave higher so that C below-E above becomes E below-C above]. Passages of consecutive sixths became a strong characteristic of the music as early as Dufay, and the passages became known as fauxbourdon. Fauxbourdon remained a feature of music through the sixteenth century. The passages of parallel sixths, or fauxbourdon, can be seen below in Dufay's Gloria. They are found in measures 4-5, mm. 7-8, m. 11, mm. 14-15, and mm. 19-20.
(Right click to better view the image).

Dufay, Gloria from "Si la face ai pale"

When studying the score, consider that the "8" that appears below the clef sign on the second system indicates that the line is an octave lower than written Hence when counting the sixth actually counts out visually as a third and vice-versa.The fifteenth-century composer recognized that thirds and sixths added a sweetness to the music that was lacking in compositions from earlier centuries, yet did not recognize, as we do today, stacked thirds as entities containing specific identities and specific functions. Vestiges of fauxbourdon abound in modern music, particularly the popular song.

Fauxbourdon Vestiges in 16th Century Lute Music

Term and Study Guide for Ancient, Early Christian, and Medieval

2006-04-06T02:12:00.000-07:00

Accomplishments of Mesopotamia and Babylonians

Uses of music within these ancient cultures

State of music theory in Mesopotamian and Babylonian cultures

Enheduanna

hymn

Types of Instruments

Monophony

Heterophony

Pythagoras

Aristotle and Plato

Doctrine of Ethos (or Imitation, whichever pleases you)

Harmonia

Aristoxneus

Ptolemy and Cleonides

Octave Species, tonoi, echoi

Lyre

Kithara

Harp

Aulos

Apollo and Dionysus and their symbolism

centonization

motif or motive

Constantine and establishment of Christianity as state religion

Byzantium

Constantinople

Dates of division Eastern and Western Empires and significance of split

Elements of Jewish worship carried into Christianity

Church calendar

Offices (names and rough times of at least two services)

Mass

Proper (function and musically significant portions Introit, Alleluia, and Communion)

Ordinary of the Mass (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei)

Meanings or ritual function these Mass portions

plainsong, chant, Gregorian chant

chant text origins

syllabic, neumatic, and melismatic setting

direct, responsorial, and antiphonal

Likely characteristics, language, and possible musical forms of each musically significant portion of the Mass

Psalm Tones

Antiphon

Fall of Rome and significance of Significance of invasions of Hordes to Western Culture (names of a few of these tribes)

Capella and Boethius

Trivium

Quadrivium

Pope Gregory I

Pope Gregory II

Pepin the Short

Charlemagne

Guido D'Arezzo (not a book) and his contributions

Micrologus (book)

Authentic modes

Differences authentic and plagal modes

trope

sequence

liturgical drama

Wipo of Burgundy

Hildegard von Bingen

Alleluia

Alleluia jubilis

Possible origins of organum

Parallel organum

Aquitane organum

cantus firms and cantus firmus technique

Notre Dame School

Perotin

Leonin

organum purum

discant

rhythmic modes

motet

Franco of Cologne

Franconian notation

Ars Nova

Philippe de Vitry

Guillaume de Machaut

Messe de Notre Dame

Isorhythm and components

formes fixes

Francesco Landini

Jacopo da Bologna

madrigal

monophonic and polyphonic conductus (and relationship to sequence)

estampie (relationship to sequence)

Cult of Mary and chivalry

Goliards

Menestrals

Troubadors and Trouveres (regions, linguistic differences, station in society)

Minnesingers

Guilds

The Social and Educational Underpinning of the Renaissance: Humanism

2006-04-05T16:40:00.000-07:00

The Rise of Humanism

The humanist movement actually had its origin in late fourteenth-century classical studies, a discipline which included grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history, and moral philosophy. Indeed, all humanist studies sprang from the classical literature of Greece and Rome, and a profusion of newly discovered or translated manuscripts fueled this new study.

Humanist methodology differed significantly from that of the medieval world. Classical thought supplied a means to study the world in a systematic, objective way that eliminated preconceived notions. Here direct experience furnished the tools of gathering. Conclusions could be verified by logic and held to comparison with models furnished by ancient history and philosophy. The profound effect of humanism upon Western culture is evident in the rise of modern science, social science, and historical method.

Humanism also embodied the development of all human virtue, not only qualities of kindness, mercy, and understanding, but also qualities that had public application. These qualities included judgment, prudence, eloquence, honor, and fortitude. In the Renaissance, the humanist was obligated to public participation to reform society and culture to the fullest of human potentiality. Hence humanism required a combination of education and action, and the realization of the individual was expected to project outward from him through his actions to the realization of the society and the state. That successful or able members of society contribute to the improvement of society through public service is a tenet that exists to this day.

The investigation of the elements that make humans human, conducted from an impartial viewpoint, was central to humanism. First and foremost, humanists asserted the dignity of man and his activities. They did not shy, however, from critical examination of his frailties, doubts, moral shortcomings, or folly. Social reform did not result from remaking man, but from reshaping social order in light of his nature. Humanist critical assessment freed the individual from preconceived and inherited institutions and programs, but it placed responsibility of thought, action, and choice squarely upon his shoulders.

Francesco Petrarca

The role of Francesco Petrarca (1307-74), or Petrarch, in the rise of humanism was profound and inestimable. His contributions were manifold. For one, he actively encouraged the discovery, recovery, and translation of classical texts, so providing the model and the impetus for generations of scholars to follow. As an ordained priest, he promoted humanism as an alternative to medieval barbarism, and propounded that humanism, based upon classical writings, and Christianity were mutually fulfilling. His letters and prose works developed the ideas that became central doctrine to the later movement. Preeminent among them were the ideas of moral autonomy, awareness of experience, adherence to reason and nature, and the supreme value of human virtue.

As a poet, Petrarch's secular, vernacular poetry proved Italian as a viable literary language alongside Latin and Greek and the sonnet a highly expressive poetic vehicle. He maintained that poetry promoted virtue and was the vessel of hidden truth. His sonnets were the prototype for all subsequent Renaissance lyric and the standard by which all subsequent poetry would be judged. Modeled after Dante, Petrarch's sonnets inspired those of Pietro Bembo and the epics of later important writers such as Ariosto and Tasso.

Pietro Bembo

Many of the key components of humanist education were in place by the turn of the fifteenth century, and schools that embraced its tenets were established in Italy. Curricula included arts and sciences, Latin literature and composition, Greek literature, Quintilian rhetoric, and Roman history. Additional subjects included music, drawing, and astronomy. Athletics were also incorporated as a key element. The advent of printing and the upsurge of writing in the vernacular helped greatly in the dissemination of humanist thought not only to the Italian society at large, but also to other parts of Europe, where humanist education became established and widespread by the sixteenth century.

Commercial printing also proved to be a boon to music, and editions of amateur music to be used in the home, embracing both vocal and instrumental music, became widespread in their availability. More importantly, printing made other social upheavals possible. The ideas of Martin Luther, the author of the Reformation, could not have effectively or quickly spread without printing. Not surprisingly, the number of Bibles printed in the sixteenth century easily eclipsed the combined number of all other volumes on other subjects.

Pietro Bembo (1470-1547), who served as cardinal from the 1530s, was, like Petrarch, a champion of the vernacular. To this end, he was among the first to write an Italian grammar. His lyric poetry in the vernacular contributed significantly to the establishment of Italian as a literary language. Bembo's poetry was of the highest quality. He modeled it so closely upon the Petrarchan sonnet that his imitation became known as "bembismo." The wide dissemination of Bembo's poetry and new editions of Pertrach assured the acceptance of the sonnet as a principal humanist poetic form. The sonnet also became the wellspring of texts for the important new music genre of the sixteenth century, the madrigal.

Josquin and Pervasive Imitation

2006-04-04T16:30:00.000-07:00

Theoretical Advances: Josquin and Pervasive Imitation

Josquin Desprez (c1440-1521) was an important figure in the promotion of a radical new treatment of the cantus firmus. From the organum of the tenth century to Josquin, composers used a preexisting melody as the basic of their musical compositions. In the case of improvised organum, the composers of Notre Dame, and Machaut and the mass composers of the Ars nova, the melody was a chant drawn from the musical liturgy. Church law forbade changes to the notes of the melody or the text. Later composers sometimes adapted melodies from other sources such as popular song, yet they continued to treat the song melody as if it were a chant.

To make the borrowed melody, or cantus firmus, viable as the superstructure of a musical movement, composers held each note significantly longer than in the original rendering. In addition, the line was placed in a lower part, first the lowest voice and later the tenor. Other faster-moving lines were composed around the borrowed melody. With the notes of the borrowed melody protracted and the borrowed melody itself embedded in a highly complex polyphonic texture, it became very difficult to recognize.

In the music of Josquin, the cantus firmus is retained in its original form. Rather than disguise the melody, Josquin treated each phrase of the melody as the subject of imitation (canon, as in "Row, Row, Row Your Boat"). The melody no longer remained confined to the tenor but was presented in turn in canon in each voice. Moreover, fragments of the melody were allowed to migrate, even in non-canonic sections, through all the voices. The resulting texture was one in which canonic expositions alternated with free polyphony. Each phrase of the borrowed melody is used as the basis of a new canonic exposition, and each new exposition marks a new section of the composition. The term "pervasive imitation" describes both the compositional technique and the musical texture. An exerpt of the "Gloria" of Josquin's Missa pange lingua. The first section is constructed by imitating a single sublect. The second section, given incomplete in the example, is cinstructed siilarly but on a new subject. The third and last section, not given in score, follows the same procedure using yet another subject. The entrances are marked.

Josquin, Kyrie, "Missa pange lingua" (Right click to view score)

Fifteenth-Century Composers and Their Imitative Prototypes

Pervasive imitation was a technique of immense sophistication. In earlier compositions, particularly those of Dufay, the music unfolded in long sections of free polyphony, anchored by a long-note, embedded, unrecognizable cantus firmus. Dufay used canon in his polyphonic compositions of the early fifteenth century, but not in an extensive way. In Dufay's work, short canonic expositions usually appear at the beginning of new sections or phrases, and the subject of each canon is only a few notes in length. The expositions usually involve only two voices. Free polyphonic passages begin in each voice as soon as the fragment of the subject is stated.

Dufay unified his works, however, by the use of motives which he embedded in each voice part. The motives invariably derive from the most recognizable part of the cantus firmus melody, the opening notes. The motives could be used to generate new but related ones by adding notes to the intial motive, inversion, or sequence. In inversion, the basic idea is in a mirror image. If the motive, as in this case, descends stepwise four notes, the inversion ascends stepwise four notes. In sequence, the mitve is given intact but starts on a note other than the original motive. The musical texture then contains the cantus firmus superstructure in the tenor voice, and other voice parts woven around it that contain occasional short canons but are saturated with motives dervied from the opening notes of the cantus firmus.

Canonic fragments in "Si la face ai pale"

Ockegham also used canon and was a master of it, but his application was so subtle and understated that the listener did not apprehend canonic sections even as they unfolded. In the music of Josquin, the canons are deliberate and obvious, and attention is paid that the identity of the cantus firmus is not obscured.

In application, Dufay and his fifteenth-century contemporaries most often restricted imitative procedures to occasional important structural points such as section beginnings. The imitative subjects could be derived from the cantus firmus but, often, they were formulated to fit the cantus firmus without drawing their contours from it. The subjects were generally recognizable only in their opening notes, even if the subject was protracted. In this usage, then, the opening notes function as an identifiable motive before continuing in free polyphony. Nonetheless, one finds a more systematic and logical application of motives then in chant, early organum, or the isorhythmic music of the Ars nova.

Franco-Flemish Chanson and the Fantasia

2006-04-03T16:26:00.000-07:00

Pervasive Imitation and the Chanson Exemplified

In the pervasive imitation of Josquin, the listener is given clear references to the borrowed melody with each new canonic exposition. The technique was applied to the most serious composition of the day, the motet, but was so successful that it found application in the Franco-Flemish chansons of the first half of the sixteenth century as well as the fantasia. Texts that talk about love in French rather than Latin furnish the first clue that the music is a chanson, not a motet. Other than the text, the most significant differences between the chanson and the motet are the faster tempo, shorter overall duration, and freely composed musical subjects of the chanson.

In the chanson, the composer invented his own themes rather than importing them from existing music. Most often, the subjects that were used in the imitative expositions of a chanson were variants of the initial one. The analysis that follows is presented with permission of the publisher from my Chansons of the 16th Century: Franco-Flemish and Parisian Chansons Printed by Pierre Attaingnant (Pacific, MO: Mel Bay, 2002). The chanson to be studied, "Vive la Marguerite" or "Long Live the Daisy," appeared in a print dating from 1529. It beautifully exemplifies both pervasive imitation and the spinning-out of new subjects from a single original.

Franco Flemish Chanson "Vive la Marguerite"

The motive that constitutes the subject appears as the first seven notes in the soprano voice. It is followed in close imitation immediately in the alto and bass voices. Two new variants appear even before the bass has finished its statement. The first variant is found in the alto voice in measure 3 and contains the interval of the third of the initial subject. The second variant appears in the soprano voice of measure 4 as the interval of the inverted third. A third variant appears in a new exposition beginning as the upward leap and subsequent descending scale beginning in the second half of measure 4 and continuing in an exposition that ends in measure. Here the subject is given in inversion, expanded the interval to a fourth, and presented in faster note values. Even as the exposition finishes, the original subject appears in the soprano beginning in measure 7.

A fourth variant appears in the soprano in measure 9. Its opening leap is derived from the second half of measure 4. The variant continues from measure 9 in a protracted version of the variant that appeared in the soprano at measure 5. At the same time, the original subject is presented in the bass in measures 9-10 and supports the same subject in parallel thirds in the alto above. The variant that is found in the soprano at measure 9 is answered in the bass at measures 11-12. A fifth variant, a hybrid, enters in the second half of measure 15 and is answered in the next measure in the soprano. The same exposition repeats in measures 20-21. The ascending scale of the original subject enters in the bass in measure 22. A refrain begins at measure 25. With it comes an exposition on a final variant of the initial subject, a strong echo of the starting idea in its texture and formality. The exposition is followed in measure 27 by another, the nearly literal repeat of the exposition found beginning in the second half measure 4.

The Wordless Motet or Chanson: the Fantasia

The fantasia was an instrumental composition for lute, harpsichord, and sometimes small ensemble. It was, for all practical purposes, a motet or chanson composed without a text and with special consideration to the idiom of the instrument. The fantasia remained immensely popular throughout the sixteenth century. Fantasias appeared in print sources or copied by amateur and professional musicians into their household manuscripts into the early seventeenth century. The fantasia owed its long currency to its artistic merit but also to its use as a tool in humanist education.

The technique of pervasive imitation not only permitted some of the most sophisticated and intellectually satisfying music of the day, but also set a standard for musical composition that church officials, music theorists, and scholars declared worthy of emulation and study. It became known as the "learned style."

Frottola and Chordal Texture: Bass Frameworks and the Parisian Chanson

2006-04-02T16:21:00.000-07:00

Theoretical Advances: the Frottola and Chordal Texture

As noted, the acceptance and incorporation use of thirds and sixths as consonant intervals beginning in the early fifteenth century by Dunstable, Dufay, Binchois, and Ockegham, set the stage for the emergence of the chord. By the late fifteenth century, early evidence of the slow process of recognition of chord identity and function began to appear in Italian songs. The frottola, a type of popular song that evolved from canti carnascialeschi, or Italian carnival songs, featured a new texture. Here the music consisted of a single strong melody over block chords. The music was also sung in simple repeated stanza, or strophic, form. Petrucci, the earliest music printer, included frottole in his first collection dating from 1501, including pieces by Marco Cara (c1470-c1525). Between 1504 and 1514, Petrucci printed no fewer than eleven books devoted exclusively to frottole. The lowly frottola, or, more importantly, its chordal texture had an impact on Western music that is felt today. An example follows.

Frottola

Bass Frameworks and Dance Music

The next step of evolution is found in manuscripts from the same period. One important manuscript, a late fifteenth-century Spanish song collection called the Cancionero de Palacio, uses specific, standardized chord progressions to support important sections of the different songs in which they appear, such as refrains. The progressions elicited positive but intuitive responses in the listener that other contemporary progressions did not. Early sixteenth-century lutenist-composers, working extensively with dance music, adopted the most successful of the chord progressions, invented new ones, and incorporated them all into their music.

Both the lute and its dance music played a critical role in chord evolution. The technical demands and musical range of the lute make chords easier to play than polyphonic textures. Dance required clear phrases, regular metric structure, and the capability to signal pauses, section ends, and the like in order to dovetail in a practical way with dance choreography. Polyphonic music was not well suited to the lute or to dance, but short, strophic compositions with frottola texture and form fit easily. Because dance music of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and early eighteenth century is essentially chordal in texture, it may be regarded as an important instrumental descendant of the frottola.

These sixteenth-century chord progressions are known today as bass frameworks. As formal entites, they were used as the superstructures of musical compositions in the same way the supporting chords of modern Blues do not vary from one song to the next. Although each blues song features a different text and melody, the chord progressions remain unchanged. Another example is found in the "Doo Wop" style of the 1950s and early 1960s. Much of this early rock music was composed over a single chord progression, C-A minor-F-G, or its equivalent in other keys.

Bass frameworks were important harmonic test beds. Here the relationships and behavior patterns among chords of varying degrees of stability instability were settled. At one end of the spectrum, the tonic chord, the chord built on the first degree of the scale, represented stability and repose. It served as the starting point of the music and as the final target of resolution and closure. At the other end of the spectrum, the dominant chord, the chord built upon the fifth degree of the scale, contained the least stable notes of the scale and hence was itself the least stable chord in the key. Its appearance in the music created the tension and crucial necessary to propel the music forward, but also demanded resolution to the tonic chord. The remaining chords stood somewhere along the continuum and each developed a specific function in building pathways between the tonic and dominant chords.

Bass frameworks reflected melodic changes introduced by singers and so played a crucial role in determining the two key types, and hence they came in two family types. The folia and its derivatives, the folia bastarda, the passamezzo antico, and the romanesca represented the minor-key family. The passamezzo moderno and its close relative, the ruggiero, represented the major-key family. The evolution of harmonic function and key paralleled and was, in part, driven by developments in the treatment of melody by singers using the church modes. An example of the passamezzo antico, "Passo e mezzo," follows. It was copied into an Italian keyboard manuscript (Venice, Biblioteca Marciana MS Cl. IV No.1227, collazione 11699) around 1520. Observe that the melody, which moves in smaller values than the lower parts and is supported by sustained or block chords. The piece not only illustrates the bass framework but, more importantly, the chordal, frottola texture described above. The chord pattern is given below the score.

Passa e mezzo

Impact of the Frottola Upon the Chanson: The Parisian Chanson

By the late 1520s, the impact of chordal texture began to be felt in the chansons composed by French musicians. The new type of chanson, the Parisian chanson, displayed none of the imitative characteristics of the Franco-Flemish chanson favored by northern composers. The new chanson reflected court life and manifested the chivalric spirit. The Parisian chanson began to appear in print around 1529 in the music collections of Pierre Attaingnant. Attaingnant was the most important music publisher in France in the first half of the sixteenth century. In fact, the effectiveness of his multiple-impression printing method, a revolutionary step forward, placed him in the forefront of the international marketplace. The widespread currency of his music books in Europe is evident in the significant numbers of “canzone francese,” French chansons, are found in Italian manuscripts and prints.

Two composers emerged as leaders in the new chanson type. Claudin de Sermisy (c1490-1562) composed masses and motets but also participated in the development of the new chanson. He served as singer or music director under three consecutive French kings. Like many other composers of the courtly, love-oriented, Parisian chanson, he was affiliated with Sainte Chapelle, a small but exquisite cathedral a few blocks northwest of Notre Dame in Paris. He was appointed canon at Sainte Chapelle in 1533.

St. Chapelle, interior of entrance

St. Chapelle, interior of chapel

Sermisy’s chansons are treble-dominated and feature chordal texture. Occasional snatches of secondary melodies occur at line ends. The poetry he set was courtly, addressing itself to matters of love, and his melodic treatment of the texts are charming, delicate, and strophic. The term “strophic” indicates that the musical sections are repeated with new words. One of his most famous Parisian chansons, “Tant que vivray,” is given in video as an example. The music form is described as A A B B. The first stanza of text follows. The translation and musical arrangement come from my book. Both appear in my book. The text to "Tant que vivray," and that of "Martin Drove His Pig To Market," appears here with permission of Mel Bay Publications.

As long as I live and am able,

I will serve love, God willing,

In deed, word, and song.

For many days I languished,

But later mourning turned to rejoicing,

For I have the love of a gentle beauty.

Our alliance,

She’s my betrothed,

Her heart is mine,

My heart is hers,

Shunning sadness,

Embracing life,

When one loves, he has so much joy!

A second important composer of Parisian chansons was Clement Janequin (c1485-c1558). Janequin was a minor cleric who struggled financially his entire life. The reputation of his chansons during their heyday was not built, as of those by Sermisy, upon their charm and sophistication, but instead upon their narrative, descriptive, and programmatic character. He favored rustic settings and characters, and spun out their little scenes with wit and often with ribald humor. Imitations of non-musical sounds such as battle cries, street-vendor pitches, and birdsong were often included. Since his texts were narrative, the supporting music tended to be through-composed (no repeated sections). The text of “Martin Drove His Pig” follows:

Martin drove his pig to market,

With Alex, who, in the big field,

Entreated Martin to snatch a peach by standing “piggy-back.”

And Martin asked him, “and who shall hold our dainty pig?”

“Who?!,” says Alex, “here is a good solution!”

Then he tied the pig to his leg,

And Martin climbed clumsily upon his shoulders

The pig became frightened and then Alex cried out

“Hold tight, Martin, our pig is dragging me away!”

Parisian chansons could be performed by several singers, by solo singer with lute accompaniment, or as a piece for solo lute. The genre fell from favor after 1560.

Dance Music in the High Renaissance

2006-04-01T16:19:00.000-08:00

Chordal Advances Applied: Later Dance Music

Social dancing has been part of human activity from the earliest times. Social dancing furnished its practitioner with the opportunity to have amiable interactions with other members of his social group, meet potential mates and to advertise to them desirable physical traits as stamina and strength, and to benefit from the exercise inherent in a healthful diversion.

The first Western European dance music that comes to use in recorded, that is, written form is actually quite recent, dating form the the estampie. A larger body of recorded music, the basse danse, comes to use from the late fifteenth century.

Basse danse derives its name from its steps. Here the dancer kept his feet close tot he ground, avoiding high steps. Its music comes to use in collections of melodies. The melodies were played as the lowest voice in the musical texture. Second and third musicians who played higher-pitched instruments then improvised over the basse danse melody.

Basse danse choreography reflected the character of the melodies. The melodies tended to have considerable length, the ones from Italy running for over a hundred modern measures without repetition. Hence the choreography for any single basse danse had to be learned, practiced frequently, and then matched, on the spot, to the music. To make matters more complex, the dancer had to memorize a significant number of choreographies since he could not determine which basse danses or the order in which the musicians would play them.

By the last decade of the fifteenth century, several important musical developments made the life of the social dancer easier. An important development was the emergence of the basse danse commun, a variant in which the number of measures in each musical phrase was reduced to even numbers usually falling between eight and twelve. Furthermore, dance-step patterns emerged that were universal to the number of measure in the musical phrase.

A second development was the emergence, in the first decade of the sixteenth of new dances and music to accompany them. The music reflected the new dances, and the older longer forms of the basse danse were abandoned in favor of shorter sectional forms.

A preference for eight, ten, and twelve-measure musical periods or sections were evident as early as the first large-scale printed collections of dance music in the 1520s and 1530s. The eight-measure period has remained the musical standard in Western music to this day and is found in music as diverse as the Classic symphony and the American rock 'n' roll tune.

<>Last, construction of the music over the bass danse melody was supplanted by structures built on chord progressions and the bass frameworks. The advances in basse danse choreography, including standardized steps and stanza limited stanza lengths (i.e. eight measures), remained as important features regardless of construction and were also carried into newly-emerging dances.

The music forms of the new dances were constructed in sections, each of which was repeated immediately. There was no set number of sections. A dance could contain as few as two sections or as many as five or more. Hence a typical form might be AA' BB' CC'. Each letter represents a different period of music, and the prime mark on the second letter of each pair indicates that the musicians emblished the melody upon repetition. The most typical way to ornament the melody was to connect the principal melody notes with fast runs most typically called passaggi.

The Favored Dances of the High Renaissance

By the 1570s, three dances, the pavan, the galliard, and the allemande, had been established as the most important. The pavan, a slow and serious dance in duple meter (4/4), became a serious vehicle for art music. The galliard was a moderate-tempo dance in triple meter (3/4) and was the most popular of sixteenth-century dances. The allemande, the relative newcomer, was a moderate-tempo dance in duple meter (4/4). The passamezzo, one of the bass frameworks, also survived, especially in Italy. In dances of the second half of the sixteenth century, a bass framework could underpin an entire dance composition, a section of a dance composition, or not be used at all.

The pavan and galliard, under the names pavana and salterello, appeared by the first decade of the sixteenth century. The allemande, which means "German," first appeared around 1540. The allemande had a formal quality. It survived into the seventeenth and eighteenth-century dance suite. Its stately nature lent it to use as processional music and, more importantly, in the dance suite, it became the movement in which the composer sought to make art music. The allemande ultimately evolved into the first movement of the Classic era sonata allegro.

The new dances were important for social reasons, but they were also critical in the development of a functional system of chords. The composers of dance music were largely lutenists. They were among the first to understand chords and apply them as the underpinnings of their compostitions (see "bass frameworks" in the previous lectures).

The lute was one of only a handful of instruments that could play chords. The other instruments were the keyboard (harpsichord, organ) and the harp. Keyboard composers did not participate in the creation of dance music on a significant scale until the end of the sixteenth century. The harp of the day was severely limited in the notes that it could play.

As noted, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the lute became the most important musical instrument. Skill at playing was developed by members of the educated class, and the aristocratic households always retained at least one professional lutenist. The lutenist did not provide music for dancing, but background music. The music used in dancing was also used for listening, and here the lutenist fulfilled the role taken in modern times by the CD player. The dance music repertory was augmented by the chanson and fantasia, both forms cultivated as part of the "correct" Humanist education.

Girl playing the lute

Humanist Poetic Forms: the Sonnet

2006-03-31T16:16:00.000-08:00

Humanist Poetic Forms: the Sonnet

Chansons of the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries utilized three poetic forms, the formes fixes. The sonnet breaks with the repeated text and music lines found in formes fixes stanza schemes. The single stanza of the sonnet, itself in turn divided into shorter sections, contains the entire thought or message. In the musical setting of the madrigal, no music is repeated, and the composer fashions music that best expresses the emotion or thought of
each line of text. The music of the madrigal, then, is through composed.

Two sonnet forms dominated the sixteenth century, both in poetry and in the madrigal. They were differentiated by form, language, and geography. The first, of course, was the Petarchan sonnet. It was written in the Italian vernacular and was used in the madrigal primarily in Italy. Petrarch's sonnets are in iambic pentameter (see rhythmic modes) and consist of a single stanza of fourteen lines. Iambic pentameter is an ancient poetic meter that places the syllabic accents in the pattern of weak-strong. The lines of the stanza are in turn divided into two groups of eight and six lines. The first group is called an octet or octave; the second, a sestet. Smaller line groups sometimes occur. Four-line units are called quatrains, and two-line units are called couplets. The rhyme scheme of the octet of the Petrarchan sonnet is usually abbaabba. Variants include abbacddc and abababab. The rhyme scheme of the sestet may also be one of several variants including xyzxyz or xyxyxy. The following sonnet, written by Petrarch, follows the rhyme scheme abbacddc xyxyzz. The final rhymed couplet of the sestet is a variant that was carried into English language sonnets.

Octet:

As oftentimes a foolish butterfly,

Used to the light, in the hot weather will

Fly into people's eyes his joy to fill,

Whence comes that others weep and he will die,

Like this I turn toward the fatal rills

Of the eyes from which comes a ray so bright

That Love tears reason's fetters in despite,

And who discerns is conquered by who wills.

Sestet:

And I see well how great is their disdain,

I know that this will mean true death to me,

My valor being lesser than my pain;

But Love dazzles my sight so pleasantly,

That I mourn others' wrongs and not my breath,

And my blind soul consents to its own death.

A second form, developed first by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-1547), is today called the English or Shakespearean sonnet. Its language and geography are self-evident. It follows the form of three quatrains and a couplet, and features rhyme schemes such as abab cdcd efef gg. Sheakespeare's Sonnet VIII follows as an example of the genre. The lute, the principal instrument of the sixteenth century, makes the music Shakespeare describes in the sonnet. The first quatrain addresses the most powerful contradiction of hearing music.

Sonnet VIII

First quatrain:

Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?

Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.

Why lovest thou that which thou receivest not gladly,

Or else receivest with pleasure thine annoy?

Second quatrain:

If the true concord of well tunes sounds,

By unions married, do offend thine ear,

They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds

In singleness the parts that thou shouldst hear.

Third quatrain:

Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,

Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;

Resembling sire and child and happy mother,

Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing;

Rhymed couplet:

Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one,

Sings this to thee: "Thou single wilt prove none."

As Vesta was Descending

First quatrain:

As Vesta was from Latmos hill descending
She spied a maiden queen the same ascending,
Attended on by all the shepherds swain,
To whom Diana's darlings came running down again.

Second quatrain:
First two by two, then three by three together,
Leaving their goddess all alone, hasted hither,
And mingling with the shepherds of her train,
With mirthful tunes her presence entertain.

Rhymed couplet:
Then sang the shepherds and nymphs of Diana,
Long live fair Oriana!

Madrigal: the Marriage of Musical Textures

2006-03-30T16:13:00.000-08:00

A New Art Form, the Madrigal

The motet of the early sixteenth century still used the cantus firmus technique, but was informed by Josquin's pervasive imitation rather than the poetic form of the stanza of the text. The Franco-Flemish chanson, although it did not use canti firmi but instead substituted newly composed melodic ideas, likewise was structured by pervasive imitation techniques rather than poetic form. In sharp contrast, the frottola, and it derivatives the Parisian chanson and dance music, unfolded in simple strophes sung in a trebled-dominated texture. Instead of the sophisticated imitative polyphonic texture pioneered by Josquin, the musical texture consisted of a soprano melody supported underneath by block chords.

From the point of view of the newly emerging madrigal, however, neither genre wholly suited. The imitative motet texture was too restrictive in expressing the sonnet and its music too rigid and technical to be highly expressive. The frottola texture, while giving the composer free rein in constructing expressive melody, was not sophisticated or interesting enough for art music. Composers drew upon both textures to express the emotive content of the sonnet, switching rapidly from one to another as the text demanded. Imitative expositions no longer shared thematic material. Instead, when imitation was used, each subject was newly composed to express the textual idea. The subjects were not derived from a cantus firmus and no two subjects within a madrigal were related to each other. Once an imitative expostion ceased to serve expressive ends, it immediately gave way to sections of chordal or frottola texture.

Important Madrigal Composers

Early experiments in the first third of the century made apparent that madrigal poetry required a marriage of the two musical textures. In the early part of the sixteenth century, northerners held the important musical posts in Italy. Northern composers working in Italy such as Adrian Willaert (c1490-1562) attempted to assimilate the madrigal, but the music frequently resembled the motet, with polyphonic musical textures that were too busy and heavy to properly treat the poetry. Other northerners such as Franco-Flemish composer Jacques Arcadelt (c1505-c1568) fared better. His madrigals featured square rhythms and homophonic texture that linked them to the frottola. The musical line did not always, however, follow the poetic line, and a pause point in the melody would sometimes occur before the line of text was stated completely.

Italian composers such as Cipriano de Rore (1516-1565) expanded the expressive character of the madrigal in the second generation. The music began to feature a combination of textures, often in alternation in the music, borrowed and reworked from the imitative style of the motet and the chordal motion of the frottola. Imitative procedures were retained, but the concept of a cantus firmus, a pre-existent melody from another often, liturgical source, was wholly abandoned. Instead, melodies were fashioned that expressed the meaning of the text. The melodies could change their contour, rhythmic values, tempo, and even keys to suit the expressive needs of the text. Madrigal melodies often introduced extensive application of chromaticism, that is, the usage of sharps and flats.

To expressive end, composers often took dramatic musical license, called tone or word painting, to create or reinforce pictorial elements of the words. A line "from the highest spire" might be supported by a melody that leaps downward from a high note or the description in the text of a babbling brook might be sung to a running line. The graphic musical representations are also called "madrigalisms." Despite expressive advances and sometimes excesses, the madrigal may be regarded as a hybrid of the two important genres of the period, the motet and the frottola, and their highly individual textures, which composers manipulated in alternation to expressive ends.

Luca Marenzio (1533-99) defined the "classic" madrigal. His efforts took the madrigal to its highest state of development. His music utilized the full arsenal of devices of the madrigal, yet his settings reflected both a finely honed sensitivity to the meaning of the text and sense of restraint and balance. His music was transmitted to England in the Musica Transalpina (1588), the book of Italian madrigals that planted the seeds of the genre among native English composers. Of all Italian madrigal composers, Marenzio exerted the greatest influence upon the English madrigalists, and his sense of balance and expression echoed in the madrigals of the English school. Thomas Weelkes and Thomas Morely were among the most prominent madrigal composers in England.

Renaissance Term List

2006-03-29T20:00:00.000-08:00

Late Medieval and Early Renaissance
Isorhythm-review by listening and score analysis the isorhythmic works from the Ars nova
Means by which Machaut unified the non-syllabic movements of Messe de notre dame
English polyphony including imitative forms
Italian imitative forms caccia and madrigal
French chausse
Characterisitics of English music as compared to continental music
General history of England and France (King and Burgundy) in the first half of 15th century
faburden and fauxbourdon (differences and similarities and who used each)
John Dunstable
Giles Binchois
Guillaume Dufay
formes fixes
International song style (impact of Ars subtilior and Johannes Cicconia)
Franco-Flemish composers (importance and impact)
Antoine Busnois
Johannes Ockhegham

Mid-Renaissance Vocal
Pervasive imitation and impact upon form and composition methods
Josquin Despres (or Des Prez or Desprez)
motet
Franco-Flemish chanson and spin-off, the fantasia
Methods of Mass composition (i.e. parody, cantus firmus, etc.)
canti carnascialeschi
frottola
Marco Cara
Villancico
Juan del Encina
Cancioniero de Palacio and contemporary MSS (MSS=manuscripts)
Parisian chanson
Claudin de Sermissy
Lutheran chorale

Late Renaissance Vocal Music in Italy and Spain
Adrian Willaert
Council of Trent
Giovanni de Palestrina
Tomas Luis de Victoria

Dance Music in the very late 15th and entire 16th Centuries
basse danse and basse danse commun (texture, form, and composition method)
Early new dances-pavana and saltarello
Characteristics of late favorities-pavan (also pavana or pavane), galliard, and almain (also allemande)
bass frameworks and significance-you should know progressions for folia and passamezzi (antico and moderno)
Significance of Canconiero de Palacio and contemporary Italian MSS
variation form
passaggi, diferencias, glosas, diminutions
English Lute and Virginals School (especially John Dowland and William Byrd)
lute ayre and its derivative settings

English Renaissance Sacred Vocal Music
Reasons for Anglican Church
Service and types
Anthem and types
William Byrd

Rise of Music Printing
Ottoviano Petrucci
Pierre Attaingnant

Italian Madrigal in 16th Century
Sonnet form
Petrarch
Pietro Bembo
"Bemb-isms"
Adrian Willaert
Jacques Arcadelt
Cipriano de Rore
Luca de Marenzio
Carlo Gesuado
Musica transalpina
Thomas Morley
Thomas Weelkes

You should describe the styles of each composer in the list and note his contribution. Perhaps more critical is the polarity established between pervasive imitation and homophony during this time span. The single most significant point of looking at all this material and listening to all this music is that you understand and establish geneologies, tracing each thread through all the subsequent related genres. to do this, make two columns, one marked "pervasive imitation" and the other "homophonic." List each genre according to type.

Toward a New Genre: Opera

2006-03-29T16:10:00.000-08:00

New Modes of Thinking

By the 1580s, theoretical advances in music and the madrigal's apparent shortcomings in expressing emotions caused music thinkers and practical musicians alike to seek new directions. Although the madrigal continued in England into the early seventeenth century, it began to loose its vitality and import in Italy.

As noted. the madrigal was a hybrid form, a combination of highly-regulated imitative techniques and frottola texture. Despite the beauty and sophistication of the genre, the rules imposed upon the music in the imitative sections effectively prevented the construction of natural melodic lines, creating instead music that seemed plagued by artifice. Madrigalisms such as tone painting, so revolutionary and exciting at inception, became targets of mockery.

Two developments, a philosophical shift in thought based on Greek drama and a new concept of musical texture, led to the creation of the opera and recitative and effected developments that would resonate in all the other genres except the fugue in the period to follow.

The Florentine Camerata: New Concepts of Melody

The Florentine Camerata (fl. 1573-92) was a loose group of intellectuals based at the home of Count Giovanni Bardi in Florence. As noted in the text, the group included Vincenzo Galilei, father of the astronomer and a significant music theorist in his own right. The central figure, however, was Girolamo Mei. Mei was a humanist who immersed himself in the newly discovered and newly translated ancient manuscripts made available as part of the flowering of humanist scholarship. In particular, Mei read in Greek every available ancient treatise about music.

Dissatisfied with the shortcomings of the madrigal, he sought in Greek knowledge other musical means to express human emotion. His studies led him, as evident in his letters around 1577, to a startling conclusion: Greek drama was powerful because it was sung throughout. To Mei, effective melody should reflect the natural inflection of speech. For example, excited happiness is externalized in speech by a rise in pitch and an increase of speed. In anger, the voice drops and speech slows.

Monody and Recitative

The application of Mei's concepts regarding melody could not be applied, however, without the concurrent development of new concepts of musical texture. The singer Giulio Caccini (c1550-1618), along with singer Jacopo Peri (1561-1633), poet Ottavio Rinuccini (1562-1621) and others, experimented with grafting Mei's new ideas of melody to contemporary musical texture in little pastoral scenes produced at the royal apartments of Bardi and confederate members of the nobility.

Caccini's Le nuove musiche, likely composed in the 1590s but not printed until 1602, was the first music collection to feature a new musical texture, monody. The term derives from the Greek monos, alone, and aieden, to sing. The chordal textures promoted in the frottola and nascent bass frameworks served as the starting point. In monody, the soprano and the bass lines, the voices most clearly audible, became the most important and highly developed and the inner voices were reduced to filler chords.

In their early experiments, Peri and Caccini sought to reconcile the emotive power of speech with tradition concepts of melody. The result was a style of singing, called stile recitativo or recitative, which was essentially part song and part speech. The music was conceived for a solo singer and hence featured no imitative writing, contained no strophic or repeated sections of music as in dance, and no regular or repeated harmonic plan.

Instead, the music was through composed and roamed, free of the strictures of the learned style, through whatever harmonies and key areas as the composer thought best to express the emotion of the text. The rhythms were also extremely flexible to reflect speech. Note the similarity to the procedures and character of early Christian centonization. Similarities are also shared with the recitation of epic poems (chanson de geste) during the Middle Ages.

Peri's opera Euridice, mounted in 1600, is the first opera to survive in its entirety and the first to contain true recitative. It was sung by a few singers and accompanied by a few lutes, hidden from view by a screen, in a private apartment. The story is derived from the mythological tale of Orpheus and Euridice.

In the myth, a snake fatally bites Euridice. Orpheus charms the gods with his music upon the lyre and they allow him to retrieve his beloved from the underworld, provided neither look back as they ascend. Orpheus loses Euridice not only once, but twice. In a precedent that set the tone for the vast majority of later operas, the story focuses upon love and loss. Caccini also set the myth as an opera. The term "opera" is the plural of opus, or "work." Hence "pera" is the list of musical works to be performed and the musical equivalent of word "menu."

A few years later, in 1607, Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) also set the myth as an opera, Orfeo. Monteverdi is a difficult figure to address in music history because he was at once a master of the older madrigal style and the newer style of monody. Caught up in a debate about the merits of monody, he coined two terms which have remained both accurate and in circulation. Stile antico referred to music governed by the tenets of the learned style, or pervasive imitation. Stile moderno referred to monody and recitative.

One contribution is certain: Monteverdi saved opera. Peri and Caccini's operas suffered from the very element that made them progressive, recitative. The early operas contained too many extended sections of recitative. To the literate, the marriage of music and poetic text represented a valid entertainment. To those with poorer educational circumstances or who did not understand the language, recitative could present a true listening challenge.

Monteverdi's musical treatment in Orfeo did not diminish recitative, but he was careful to offer relief in the form interpolations of music in other styles. Strophic, monodic arias with dance rhythms and orchestral pieces were placed strategically to relieve the recitative and to frame scenes. His large-scale planning was careful that the each section of music related in a tonally coherent way to the preceding and following ones. Even his recitatives featured formal harmonic plans instead of wildly freewheeling. In addition, Monteverdi used a relatively large orchestra. Although he included no pieces in which all the instruments played together, he used different smaller combinations to create color and additional relief.

By mid-century, the recitative portions had been significantly diminished in size and consequence. Public audiences grew less interested in the emotional impact of the recitative and more interested in the beauty of the aria, the competition of singers talents, the ever-increasing flamboyance of stage scenery and costumes, and the general entertainment value of a night at the opera. Recitative was reduced to transitional material. It still featured melody that imitated speech and was dense in textual material, but it assumed the role of giving the information necessary to move the story along, set the scene, or prime the next aria. By mid century, opera became a series of pretty arias with short recitatives inserted between them.

The art and music of the Baroque era can be described as one of contrasts. The contrasts do not seem as clearly defined as in later periods, but during the period from the late sixteenth century until the end of the the seventeen century, artists and musicians strove to infuse their work with emotion.

For the musician, embracing affect was limited somewhat by the lack of plasticity of form. The technical capabilities of the instruments of the time also imposed constraints. For example, contrasts in dynamics (loudness and softness) could be attained only by suddenly paring down the number of musicians playing.

New Ways to Notate Monody

2006-03-28T16:07:00.000-08:00

Figured Bass, Thoroughbass, and Continuo

A new, shorthand notation evolved to indicate the chords, now reduced in function to filling in the texture between the important outside voices. The notation system was called figured bass or thoroughbass. The bass line was written in musical score but the notes of the chord were not. Instead, numbers were written below the bass note indicating the specific notes to be added by the lutenist or harpsichordist, and the player could place them where he pleased. In the Baroque period, then, the chord player did not read a completely written part, but learned to improvise them at sight from a notated bass notes and numbers!

i>Continuo or basso continuo actually refers to the musical texture of the accompaniment. Here one must have both a chordal instrument playing the chords indicate by the figured bass and a bass instrument playing the notated line. The bass instrument was usually a violincello of a bassoon. The title "Sonata for Two Violins and Continuo" tells the reader that he will hear two violins, a harpsichord or lute playing chords, and a cello playing the bass melody.

The texture of two soprano instruments and basso continuo also illustrates the "trio sonata" texture pioneered by Arcangelo Corelli in the late seventeenth century. Note that the trio sonata texture requires four players, and the term shows clearly the diminution of overall importance of the chord fill. The figured bass notation did not remain long the exclusive property of opera. The monodic texture was quickly adopted for all genres of Baroque music except imitative fugues and motets, and suites written for solo lute or harpsichord.

Score for two soprano instruments, a bass instrument and a figured bass part for keyboard or lute.

Astronomy and the Church: the Scientific Revolution and a New Concept of God

2006-03-26T16:05:00.000-08:00

Strides in astronomy helped to revolutionize man's concept of the universe, his concept of God, and validated once and for all the empirical approach advocated by the humanists. One central scientific issue of the sixteenth century was the ordering of the solar system. The view purported by Ptolemy in his Almagest (150 A.D.) and revered as both Church and scientific doctrine described a universe in which the sun, moon, and planets revolved around the earth. Concentric crystalline spheres that surrounded the earth supported the celestial bodies. The planets moved as the spheres rotated. Beyond the spheres lay the realm of God and the angels. Aristotelian physics justified Ptolemy's universe, and the construct stood unchallenged until the sixteenth century.

Andreas Cellarius (c1596-1665), "Location of Earth with Celestial Circles" (1661)

The Astronomers

Difficulties with Ptolemy's system had been recognized for a considerable time before Copernicus (1473-1543) published his De Revolutionibus Orbitum Coelestium (1543). His assessment of contemporary astronomy did not differ from that of Ptolemy except for a single point: if the sun were the center around which the planets orbited, the mathematical problems and inconsistencies present in the Ptolemic system were essentially resolved. An important tenet of humanism that Copernicus stressed and that later became a basic component of scientific method was that no process, in his case mathematics, could be applied without empirical data and observation.

Tycho Brahe (1546-1601), a scientific amateur, was able to furnish the next evidence for a sun-centered universe. He did not agree wholly with the Copernican view, but his objections gave Copernicus's ideas wider circulation. His contribution was in a form that Copernicus advocated, the collection of empirical data. Although he was not able derive mathematically verifiable theories of the order of the universe, Brahe's naked-eye observations of the celestial motion were the most accurate and comprehensive tables to be generated in centuries.

Andreas Cellarius (c1596-1665), "Brahe's Planisphere" (1661)

<>Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) inherited Brahe's data. Kepler embraced Copernicus's idea of a solar centered, but his reasoning actually derived from the Neoplatonist honoring of the sun. Brahe's observations did not support the concept of circular orbits, put forth first by Ptolemy and retained in the theories of Copernicus. In On the Motion of Mars (1609), Kepler used Copernicus's model and Brahe's motion tables to correctly identify that planetary orbits were elliptical, though he could not mathematically justify his conclusion.

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), the son of Florentine Camerata member Vincenzo Galilei, increased the body of empirical data by the use of a new device, the telescope. He discovered stars where none had been known to exist, spots on the sun, craters on the moon, and moons orbiting Jupiter. His revelations did not prove the Copernican view, but they did disprove that of Ptolemy. Furthermore, the discovery that the universe was vast beyond comprehension unnerved many contemporary scientists and churchmen. His book Dialogues on the Two Chief Systems of the World (1632) earned him the wrath of the Catholic Church, and he was forced to recant his findings.

Andreas Cellarius (c1596-1665), "Northern Stellar
Hemisphere of Antiquity" (1661

<>Like Copernicus, Galileo believed that the universe was explainable in mathematical terms and behaved with mathematical regularity. His belief extended far beyond astronomy, however, and one of his crowning achievements was the concept that not only did celestial bodies conform in behavior to mathematical principles, but also that every aspect of nature was regulated by the same mathematical laws.

Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) resolved the thorny problems of planetary motion presented by the Copernicans, in particular that of elliptical orbits. In addition, he established a basis for physics that remained viable until the twentieth century. Newton drew upon earlier studies, especially that of Galileo. He agreed with Galileo's assertion that inertia encompassed both bodies in motion and at rest. Newton reasoned that all bodies in the universe moved by attraction to one another, and that gravity caused elliptical rather than circular orbits.

Newton believed in empirical study. No mathematical function could describe a phenomenon that could not be observed. With Newton's contributions came a view of a universe of mathematical law and regularity. Because older divinities and superstitions no longer sufficed to explain the universe and nature, a new concept of God began to emerge. Because the universe was rational and lawful, so must be its creator. Moreover, man was part of the creation, and a new concept of man as a rational being gave hope that he could improve his condition free of traditions and superstitions of the past. The rise of science did not seem incompatible with religion but, for some, science dispelled much of the mystery and the ethereal quality of spirituality. The new God was colder and further removed from man than the one of earlier times.

The French Clavecin School and the Creation of the Dance Suite

2006-03-25T15:55:00.000-08:00

Dance music played a central role in the social life of the Renaissance, and it's importance as private entertainment continued through the Baroque period. As in the Renaissance, lutenist-composers were the pioneers in the field of dance music, not the harpsichord composers. The English virginals school of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries imitated contemporary lute music. The virginals is a type of small harpsichord named supposedly after the assumed virtue of Queen Elizabeth I, who, in addition to being one of the most brilliant and fair statespersons in history, was a talented and avid player.

A parallel situation arose in early seventeenth-century France. Lutenist-composers such as Robert Ballard, Rene Mesangeau, and Ennemond Gaultier and his nephew Denis began development of a higher genre of dance music. To dances that survived from the Renaissance, the allemande and galliard, the composers added the courante and the sarabande to form a composite musical work called the suite. Francois Couperin, composing in the early eighteenth century, called his suites ordres.

The lutenists tended to play stray movements as a unit. The harpsichord composers who followed, beginning around 1640 and called the French clavecin school, were more careful to unify their suites. "Clavecin" is the French name for harpsichord. The term suite comes from the French verb suivre, to follow. The name likely came into use by the custom of writing "suite" at the end of a dance to indicate that the next dance in the manuscript or book should follow.

As the dances were formally arranged by the clavecinists, all the dances shared a single key, each component dance featured a different meter, rhythmic characteristic, tempo, and affect, or emotional element. The clavecinists were centered at the court of Louis XIV in Paris.

Louis XIV

Notable members included its founder Jacques Champion de Chambonnierres, Louis Couperin, Jean-Henri d'Anglebert, Nicolas-Antoine Lebegue, Jean-Philippe Rameau, and Francois Couperin, Louis Couperin's nephew.

<>Jean-Baptiste Lully, though not a harpischordist but a guitarist, must also be included as a member of the school. Lully was the most powerful musician a the court of Louis XIV. He was a talented guitarist and dancer but, first and foremost, he was an innovative composer of dance and operatic music. In France, opera and a new art form, ballet, were combined into a single genre. Lully often expanded the dance portions of his opera-ballets by incorporating dances that originated in the provinces of France.

Jean Baptiste Lully

The additional movements were included orchestral suites that featured the dance movements from a particular opera-ballet. Harpsichord arrangements for home use of the orchestral music were also hastily prepared and were often made available to the public within days of the premiere. The folk movements Lully added to his opera-ballets found inclusion in the later suites of the French clavecin school. Lully is also the author of the French ouverture.

The Suite Proper

The suite proper required a minimum of an allemande, a courante, and a sarabande. The most serious movement was the allemande, and in it the French lute composers came closest to art music. The term allemande means "German" or German dance. The allemande was a moderate tempo dance cast in duple meter that assumed a serious, often majestic character. The serious character of the movement and its high level of musical sophistication later cast it as the prototype from which the Classic Period sonata-allegro would derive.

The courante, or corrente in Italian, derived its character from the French verb courir, to run. The name more accurately describes the Italian version because Italian musicians preferred even-note running lines. In French hands, the courante assumed the character of frequent metric shift. The movement was always written on compound meter, that is, with a number of beats in each measure that could be interpreted as either duple or triple meter. Hence six beats may be divided by accent into two groups of three or three groups of two. The shift may be demonstrated by counting aloud evenly 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 1 2 1 2 or 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 3 1 2 3.

The sarabande has the most curious history of all the suite movements. It originated in the New World, likely Mexico or Peru, and came into Spain with the returning treasure ships in the late sixteenth century. Initially, the sarabande was a quick, lascivious dance that so offended the Spanish that it was outlawed! By the middle of the seventeenth century, both fast and slow versions existed side by side. The slower version was often indicated by the word grave in the title. By the early eighteenth, it had slowed enough to become one of the stateliest and saddest movements in the suite. The sarabande was a triple meter dance. In French music the accent fell not on the first beat of the measure, but on the second. To get an idea of the effect, slowly count aloud 1 2 3 1 2 3, making the "2" slightly louder.

As noted, other dances promoted by Lully were included in clavecin suites by the second half of the seventh century. The gigue, which followed a metric scheme defined by four groups of three even notes that could be counted for effect:

1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3

1 ----2-----3----4-----

The gigue was a lively dances that originated in the British Isles as the jig.

The gigue became a permanent feature of the suites written by northern composers by accident. Johann Jakob Froberger (1616-1667), a keyboard composer whose publications served to disseminate French innovations to Germany and other northern countries, included gigues in the final section of his last book of dances. The book was not published until after his death and his publishers, not sure of the distribution of the dances, moved each gigue from the final section and appended each in turn to the suite in the same key.

French provincial additions of Lully included the country-dances the gavotte, the bouree, the minuet, the passpied, the loure, and the rigaudon, among others. These dances were placed in the order after the nuclear dances. The gigue usually stood midpoint between the sarabande and the provincial dances. The French suite followed the pattern:

Prelude (if included)-Allemande-Courante-Sarabande-Gigue-Followed by the optional dances, in typical order, Gavotte and Minuet

In the suites of northern composers such as J.S. Bach, the gigue was placed at the end and the additional dances were inserted between it and the sarabande. The minuet is the only suite movement to survive intact into the repertory of the Classic period. The German suite followed the pattern:

Prelude (usually always included)-Allemande-Courante-Sarabande-optional
dances, inserted before gigue in typical order, Gavotte and Bouree-Gigue

Sometimes an extra movement was played before the suite, and this movement derived from the French ouverture (from opera), toccata, fugue, fantasia, or prelude (see subsequent blog; also see Pervasive Imitative blog). The movement was often rhapsodic, with sharp contrasts of tempo, figuration, texture, and affect. It nearly always embraced extensive imitative writing in its second half. Its origin was the motet of the Renaissance, but in the Baroque period it was constructed to sound dramatic and improvised.

Dancing consumed a considerable portion of life at the Sun King's court. The suites for lute and clavecin were intended for listening rather than dancing, but the same movements as found in the suites for solo instruments, when played by orchestra, were clearly intended for dancing. To that end, dance masters were employed to develop choreography for professionals dancing in the opera-ballets, but also to teach members of the nobility the dance steps proper to each movement. The written instructions and manuscripts by the dance masters are essential to conscientious modern performers in understanding how each dance should be played.

The Principal Composers of the French Clavecin School

2006-03-24T23:35:00.000-08:00

Jacques Champion de Chambonnières (1601/2-1672). Chambonnières is generally regarded as the first important figure of the French clavecin school. He was the first composer to adapt the elements of the lute style to the clavecin and develop them within its idiom. His predecessors in the French lute school were Antoine de Francisque, Pinel, Robert Ballard, Pierre de la Barre, Richard, Monnard, Ennemond and Denis Gaultier, among others. Rene Mezangeau, whose brisure was among the most highly-developed, probably supplied Chambonnières with some of the most sophisticated lute models.

Chambonnières' family name was Champion yet he took his grandfather's title, which he seems to have used unchallenged. Chambonnières' reputation as a harpsichordist flourished in the early 1630s and by 1632 he had already filled his father's post as chamber musician to Louis XIII. His playing was praised in the writings of Pere Marin Mersenne (Harmonie universelle, 1635-6), who described him as "without peer." As part of his efforts to insure employment and social rank, Chambonnières also cultivated his skills as a dancer, appearing before Louis XIII and dancing later with Louis XIV and Jean-Baptiste Lully.

In the 1650s, Chambonnières met the Couperin brothers Louis, Charles, and François (not François Couperin, “le grand,” who was a nephew of Louis, the most prominent figure in the last generation of clavecin composers, and an important figure in the transition to the classic style). Chambonnières recognized their talents and helped to establish them in Paris. Chambonnières might have met Johann Jacob Froberger during the latter's visit to Paris. It is likely that Froberger received, sometime between 1649 and 1651, some of Chambonnières' clavecin pieces from Constantjin Huygens, a champion who served as a conduit to the Netherlands for Chambonnières' reputation and music.

In 1657, Chambonnières suffered serious economic setbacks including the appointment of Etiene Richard as the royal harpsichord teacher and expensive litigation against his property by his estranged wife (with whom he continued to live until his death) and others. A plot to replace him at court with Louis Couperin ran aground when Couperin refused to participate. The king was so impressed by Couperin's loyalty that a new post was created for him, although as a violist. A letter dated 1662 by Huygens mentions the influence of the 'low and evil clique,' likely a reference to the new appointment (1661) of Jean-Baptiste Lully as Superintendent de la musique de la chambre, as responsible for the low salary paid Chambonnières at the French court. A few months later Chambonnières' brother Nicolas died and, in economic desperation, Chambonnières sold the post held by Nicolas to Jean-Henri d'Anglebert.

That Chambonnières' retirement and Lully's appointment had more than a coincidental relationship is found in a comment of violist Jean Rousseau, uncovered by Francois Lesure. Rousseau states that Chambonnières could or would not accompany from figured bass. Chambonnières spent most of his life cultivating his solo style of playing. The adaptation to accompaniment from figured bass would have meant the forfeiture of that solo style and his roles as harpsichord master and aristocratic connoiseur to sit as an anonymous member in Lully's orchestra. Most of Chambonnières' music was composed in the 1630s and 1640s, but he did not publish it until 1670 (Pieces de clavessin, Livre premier).

For most of his life, Chambonnières posed as a connoisseur of the arts and aspired to the aristocracy. Chambonnières' pretensions were often underscored by his poverty, and stories about this poverty circulated around Paris as jokes at his expense. On the darker side, he often sought to destroy the careers of his competition. Even his father took steps shortly before dying to legally protect his wife and other children from Chambonnières. Chambonnières' attitude to his students and favored collegues, however, was one of generosity. In addition to the Couperins, other important musicians such as Hardel (whose music most closely resembles his), Nicolas-Antoine Lebêgue (1631-1702), Cambert, Nivers, one of the Gaultiers or Gautiers, and d'Anglebert all profited from association with Chambonnières. Couperin's refusal to displace him at court and d'Anglebert's “Tombeau de Mr. de Chambonnières” bespeak their affection, regard, and possible indebtedness.

Louis Couperin (c.1626-1661). Louis Couperin and his nephew Francois ("le grand") are the best known members of a large family of musicians. Louis Couperin is best known for his compositions for keyboard, including both the harpsichord and the organ. Little is known about Couperin's early years, but his association with Chambonnières and his talent led to immediate success in the Parisian musical world early in 1651. He served as the organist to St. Gervais from 1653, and around this time, he was offered and refused Chambonnières ' post. Louis Couperin is known to have played in at least four royal ballets but, more importantly, his musical activities allowed extensive contact with many of the most important musicians of his day. Among these was Froberger.

Couperin's output of clavecin music includes the basic suite movements; the prelude non mesuré, for which he developed the initial notation; and chaconnes and passacailles. Couperin is the first to recognise the affective potential of these forms. Of the twelve chaconnes, nine are rondeaux, establishing a link between these two forms. Couperin's music is more detailed and complex than that of Chambonnières, and the melodies and textures are more akin to contemporary lute music. Couperin never published his music, but it is preserved in the Bauyn and Parville Manuscripts. The numbering of Couperin's suites in this anthology follows that of Alan Curtis.

Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687). Lully was born in Italy as Giovanni Battista Lulli. He did not come to France in 1646 as part of Marazin's "Italian invasion" of French music, but as garcon de chambre to Mlle. de Montpensier, who wished to practice her Italian. Through good fortune he became the single most powerful musician in France. He was the most important composer of dramatic music in France. His greatest contributions are to theatrical music, including the concept of tragedie en musique, although he also composed sacred music. Lully's output includes ballets de cour, dramatic music for the stage such as the comedies-ballets and the tragedies-lyriques, and music for the church. His influence was felt throughout Europe, especially in the ouverture, the orchestral suite, and expansion of the suite by the addition of native French dances such as the gavotte, bourée, rigaudon, and passpied. The keyboard arrangements made by d'Anglebert of the ouvertures to Phaeton and Prosperpine were both composed in the last five years of Lully's life.

Lully was a dancer and a violinist, but his first instrument was the guitar. He arrived in France at a time when the guitar was becoming established as an important aristocratic instrument. The favor bestowed upon the guitar was largely the result of Louis XIV's interest in playing it and the books of his teacher, another Italian emigré, Francesco Corbetta. Lully's competence on the guitar and his Italian origins, which gave him familiarity with its music, positioned him perfectly to take advantage of the new guitar rage, but it was his dancing that secured his entrance into the employment of the king. Early in 1653, Lully and Louis XIV first danced together in the Ballet de la nuit. Within a month, Louis appointed Lully Compositeur de la musique instrumentale du roi. Within eight years, Lully, who had by this time changed his name and become naturalized, rose to the rank of Surintendant de la musique et compositeur de la musique de la chambre. The following year he was appointed Maitre de la musique de la famille royale.

As composer, Lully spent the first ten years of service heavily involved in the production of ballets de cour. This period was essentially devoted to the differentiation of national styles and the absorption of French elements, such as the dotted rhythm, into his music. A guitar element that remained in his music was the chaconne. Louis Couperin would be one of the most important developers of the chaconne for the keyboard; Lully, for the orchestral medium.

Nicolas-Antoine Lebêgue (1631-1702). Lebêgue was, like Louis and François Couperin and Jean-Henri d'Anglebert, an organist as well as a harpsichordist. Like Rameau and Louis Couperin, he was not native to Paris but moved there in the 1550s to seek employment as a musician. It is not known if he studied with Chambonnières. By 1661, Lebêgue had established a reputation not only as an organist, but also as an organ builder. His contributions to the keyboard repertory consist of two books of suites for the clavecin (1677 and 1687) and three innovative books of music for the organ.

His clavecin suites follow the basic scheme of dances established by the lutenists and found in the music of Chambonnières and Couperin, but he also included many of the optional dances promoted by Lully. These dances were often repeated with doubles. Lebêgue was an innovator in the notation of the prelude non mesure, using differing note values to indicate important melodic segments. Lebegue began each suite in his first book, Les pièces de clavecin (1677), with a prelude, but wholly abandonned the practice by the time of his Second livre de clavecin (1687). Although clearly indebted to the music of Chambonnières and Couperin, Lebêgue 's harpsichord music is far less warm and intimate. It does display, however, the same sophistication as the music of d’Anglebert, his contemporary.

Jean-Henri d'Anglebert (1635-1691). D’Anglebert, who was both clavecinist and organist, was also possibly a student of Chambonnières. His earliest post was as an organist, but in 1662 he purchased the post of Ordinaire de la chambre du Roy pour le clavecin from Chambonnières. He held it until his death. His complete works include four suites, transcriptions of works from Lully’s operas and ballets, and six fugues for organ. The influence of the contrapuntal style of the organ works is also seen in his allemandes, courantes, and gigues for clavecin. The breadth of his movements exceed those of Chambonnières and contemporaries such as Louis Couperin, and the breadth of the his movements anticipates the expansion of the scope of the French suite-movement of the early eighteenth century.

The primary source of d'Anglebert's clavecin music is the Pieces de clavecin...diverse chaconnes, ouvertures, et autres airs de Monsieur Lully...quelques fugues pour l'orgue et les principes d'accompagnement (Paris 1689). His publication included a section on accompanying but, more importantly, a table of ornaments that is the most comprehensive in the French classical repertory. Many of the symbols he included appeared there for the first time but later became standard in Baroque music.

Jean-Henri D'Anglebert

Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764). Rameau was the most important French composers of dramatic music in the eighteenth century and a principal figure in the codification of harmonic theory. Rameau's total output includes clavecin pieces; stage works such as the opera-ballet, the tragedie-lyrique, and the comedie-ballet; and sacred cantatas.

Rameau received his only musical instruction from his father, who was the organist at Dijon. Rameau abandoned his law studies and in 1702 was appointed to his first post as organist. For the next twenty-four years he supported himself with similar posts and by teaching. Rameau's earliest published works consist of three books of music for clavecin (1706, 1724, and 1728) and his important theoretical tract, Traité de l'harmonie (Ballard: Paris, 1722).

The Traité de l'harmonie, Noveau systeme de musique theoretique (1726), and several articles established Rameau as a theorist in Paris, where he settled for a time in late 1722 or early 1723, but this notoriety actually ran counter to his desire to be considered as a composer of dramatic music for the stage. A change in fortune came in 1731 when he entered the service of Alexandre-Jean-Joseph Le Riche de la Pouplinière, one of the most important patrons of music in France, as organist, conductor, composer, and teacher. Under the protection of la Pouplinière Rameau produced, at age fifty, his first opera, Hippolyte et Aricie. It was given privately at la Pouplinière 's in July 1733 and again at the Opera several months later. Greater public success was achieved two years later with the opera-ballet Les Indes galantes, and in 1737 Rameau produced Castor et Pollux, which is generally regarded as his best dramatic work.

Jean-Philippe Rameau

Not all members of the Parisian musical intellegentsia, however, accepted Rameau's stage music, finding it forced, mechanical, difficult, and unnatural. Moreover they regarded it as subversive of the French opera tradition established by Lully. Rameau flourished nonetheless and later would see many of the same detractors defend his music, alongside that of Lully, in a later debate in the 1750s, la guerre des bouffons.

As a theorist, Rameau was a Cartesian who sought to establish his principles of harmony in the laws of the newly emerging science of acoustics. The core of his harmonic theories is based upon the results of studies by Pere Marin Mersenne and particularly of Joseph Sauveur (Memoires de 1701, presented to the Académie des Sciences) in which the primary consonants (the octave, fifth, and major third) were proven to be the strongest overtones produced by a vibrating body.

Rameau was among the first to recognize the identity of a chord regardless of its inversion and the significance of root motion in harmonic progression. His recognition and description of chord function serve as the foundations of modern functional harmony. His chord labels tonic, dominant, and subdominant are still in use today. His writings and music precipitated the perception that musical content in counterpoint and thoroughbass is determined by harmonic superstructure and governed by the rules of harmonic progression. His writings exerted a critical influence upon the development of several national schools in music theory into the nineteenth century in France, Germany and England.

Rameau published sixty-five keyboard pieces in four books (the last dates from 1741). The first three books antedate his dramatic stage works. Although Rameau's clavecin music contains elements of linear writing and is hence reminiscent of the keyboard music of Françcois Couperin (le Grand), many other elements may be traced to the earlier lute and clavecin models. Many of the clavecin pieces, particularly in the first two collections, are almost lute-like in their scope, texture, figuration, and tessiturae.

The contents of the first book comprise a suite, and the pieces of the second are dances or character pieces grouped by key but not organized in suites. Despite the small scale of these dance movements, they reflect nevertheless Rameau's power and depth as a composer and the successful application of his harmonic theories.

François Couperin (1668-1733, “le grand"). François Couperin was the son of Louis Couperin's brother Charles and the namesake and godchild of Louis' other brother, Francois (“le jeune"). No compositions are ascribed to François “le jeune," but he had a reputation for a willingness to extend a music lesson as long as the carafe were refilled. Couperin “le grand" composed for a variety of media including organ, harpsichord, chamber orchestra, and voice. His harpsichord music represents the late French classical school.

His early career was as an organist, and his only organ compositions date from 1690. Around this time, he likely stood in at the clavecin for d'Anglebert, whose failing eyesight often made the fulfillment of duty difficult. It was as organist, however, that Couperin first attracted employment at the court of Louis XIV, where in 1693 he took his place among the other court organists and Chambonnières associates, Nivers, Lebegue, and Buterne. This post opened other possibilities of employment to him, notably as clavecin teacher to members of the nobility.

From 1700 his activities became more diversified and included secular performances at Versailles and elsewhere and composition for the court. Some of these compositions were later compiled in the Concerts royaux (1722) and Les gouts-reunis (1724), in which he sought to reconcile the elements of the French and Italian styles of music. The publication of his harpsichord music began in 1713 with his Pieces de clavecin...premier livre. The instruction manual L'art de toucher le clavecin, which is known to have had an impact on J.S. Bach's harpsichord technique, followed in 1716 and was revised in 1717. The Second livre de pieces de clavecin also appeared in 1717. The third and fourth clavecin books were published in 1722 and 1730 respectively. As his health failed, his daughter Marguerite-Antoine substituted for him at the harpsichord and assumed, in 1737, the same post held by d'Anglebert until 1691.

Francois Couperin

By the first decade of the eighteenth century the publication of books of harpsichord music dramatically increased, and the music in these books gathered the newer dances of French keyboard music into a characteristic suite format centered around the older obligatory dances. These suites usually contained no more than ten movements, but this number represented an increase in size over the suites of the early school. This expansion was anticipated in the music of d'Anglebert. In Francois Couperin's first collection, however, the average number of movements per suite was fifteen and, in the second, he included no fewer than twenty-three. A new descriptive term also appeared with this collection, the ordre. Although his second publication shows sensitivity to maintaining a single mood throughout each ordre, there is a clear movement away from the traditional suite. Nuclear dances were often omitted. Couperin instead included many of the optional dances brought into the suite by Lully as well as character pieces not linked by title to a specific dance but still maintaining a general dance character. Often these character pieces bore whimsical titles such as “Les matelots provençales” (“the provincial sailors”). An important feature of Couperin’s orders is that he did always adhere in his movements to a single key. His collections do not include any preludes non mesuré.

Couperin preferred three different structural types in his clavecin music: the binary dance, the chaconne, and the rondeau. As in the music of Chambonnières and his uncle, Louis Couperin, he often combined rondeau form with the chaconne. François Couperin’s binary pieces highlight the differences between French practices and those of contemporary German and Italian composers. In French music, the first sections were often substantially shorter than the second and the initial measures of the sections are not related motivically. Frequently the second section features new materials instead (see la Tenebreuse). In the binary character pieces, Couperin sometimes melded two binary dances into a single, larger movement. He often used different meters, different tempi, and even different keys, the most frequent relationship being a juxtaposition of minor and relative major, to create contrast within two conjoined binary movements

Further important differences are found in the textures of the music. The lute style still forms a core and is especially apparent in the older and weightier movements such as the allemande, but a linear counterpoint, with roots in the contrapuntal training of the organist and in ensemble writing, becomes more evident in other movements. Two-part writing, a clear Italian influence, also becomes evident, especially in the second book. That two-part writing is less idiomatic to the keyboard than the arpeggio textures adopted from the lute. Couperin believed, however, that two-part texture was not irreconcilable to the clavecin and represented a more modern manner of writing. Clear linear textures may be found in this anthology in d'Anglebert's clavecin transcriptions of Lully's dance movements from the ballet-operas and in Rameau's dance-movement transcriptions from his own opera-ballet, Les Indes galantes. Couperin's music also displays elements of the galant style, an important early manifestation of the transition from the Baroque to the Classic style. Like d'Anglebert, Couperin also concerned himself with ornamentation, producing tables of ornaments and writing the ornaments into his scores with great care. The failure of other players to accurately reproduce the written ornaments frequently provoked rage in Couperin.

Josquin's Legacy in the Imitative Prelude, Toccata and Fugue; the Non-imitative Prelude and the Role of the French Ouverture in Prelude-Fugue Pairs

2006-03-23T15:54:00.000-08:00

The learned style of the motet of the Renaissance, once held up by the church as the apogee of musical composition, did not flourish in church music in the seventeenth century. Beyond the polychoral choral works of Giovanni Gabieli (c1555-1612), the lineage of great Catholic Church composers came to an end. Pervasive imitation, so powerful in the Renaissance, did not get carried to its apogee of development in the Baroque in sacred Catholic music. Ironically, imitative composition flourished in solo instrumental music, particularly in organ by northern composers, under a variety of names, and in the movements of the J.S. Bach's Lutheran cantatas. The impact of imitative techniques would also pervade other genres of instrumental music including the dance suite, the sonata, and the early concerto. Here, however, imitation would not be applied pervasively but would be combined with continuo!

Imitative compositions for lute or keyboard had existed from the 1530s as the fantasia, a music composition that was essentially an instrumental motet or wordless Franco-Flemish chanson.

Improvisatory lute pieces, both imitative and non-imitative, made the transfer to the keyboard in the second half of the sixteenth century. The non-imitative prelude types have been linked to musical “warm-up” or tuning exercises employed by lutenists, both in the earliest days and again in the evolution of French clavecin music. Venetian organist Claudio Merulo (1533-1604) helped to lead the way in transferring lute music to the organ, further developing a genre of music that, while in reality composed, was designed to give the impression of extemporization. The "improvisatory" character led to the application of the name toccata, from the Italian verb toccare, to touch. Other names were also applied to these pieces, including intonazione and prelude. Whereas Merulo's music was not imitative, it did fully utilize the idiomatic capability of the organ to sustain notes as well as explore the rhapsodic (flashy) possibilities of this quasi-improvisatory music.

In the early seventeenth century, keyboard composers such as Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1643) retained the imitative fantasia concept, but followed Merulo's lead and imbued the music with a more rhapsodic and improvisatory character. The term fantasia, already in common use to describe truly imitative pieces based on the motet or Franco-Flemish chanson, was applied to toccate and similar pieces. These pieces were often used to introduce other music.

In subsequent development, the different subjects of each imitative exposition were reduced to a single one. To attain variety and keep the music driving forward, the subject appeared at each exposition in a different key. Early monothematic pieces that served as the transition to the fugue were called ricercare. The earliest imitative ricercare appeared at mid-sixteenth century and appears to have been heavily influenced by the Franco-Flemish chanson. The ricercare may be regarded as a sub-type of fantasia. The monothematic ricercare did not emerge until the close of the sixteenth century and the early decades of the next. For a time, the composition of the monothematic ricercare overlapped the Renaissance fantasia, and both imitative types can be found anywhere in the late sixteenth-century literature. The name “ricercare” made occasional appearances in the literature to the time of Bach.

By the mid-seventeenth century, Geman composers actively cultivated large-scale imitative works for the solo keyboard, in particular the organ. These compositions included the full range of possible variants under the names toccata, prelude, fantasia, fugue, and, occasionally, ricercare. These composers also developed new genres such as the chorale prelude in order to meet the needs of the Protestant church service.

Important early northern organ composers were Samuel Scheidt and Jan Pieterzoon Sweelinck. Later composers included Johann Jacob Froberger, who was also critical as a conduit for musical ideas from Italy and France to the north, Johann Pachelbel, and Dietrich Buxtehude, Bach's teacher. Organ music reached full bloom in the early eighteenth century, of course, in the works of J.S. Bach.

The rhapsodic characteristics of the toccata remained fairly constant throughout its life. The toccati of Bach, though far more mature musically, still essentially retain the basic dramatic elements of those of Frescobaldi. Other titles began, however, to imply different types of music, and a prelude by Bach was more often than not rhapsodic but not imitative. This practice is demonstrated in the widespread pairings among his works of prelude and fugue. In Bach's prelude-fugue pairings, the influence of the French ouverture of Jean Baptiste Lully is evident.

Like the slow section of the ouverture, Bach’s preludes sometimes feature elements of “measured” recitativo and dance in a way to create suspense and drama in a slowly unfolding music. Here the melody spins out in a meandering, almost speech-like fashion reminiscent of recititavo, but the melody can also be informed by the dotted rhythm of French dance music or the rhapsodic figuration of the toccata. Bach's preludes are invariably carefully planned. Dazzling figures are never incorporated for their" show" value, but for their capability to build contrast and heighten tension. Unlike the fast "imitative" section of the ouverture, which often gives way to polyphonic and even homophonic passages after the initial imitative exposition, Bach's fugues are true and powerful ones, conceived and executed on a grand scale. Bach composed other keyboard preludes, such as those in Das wohltempiert Klavier (Well-Tempered Clavier), often dispense entirely with the recitativo-type of melody. Instead, they consist of a single arpeggio pattern applied to ever-changing harmonies.

Although the chorale prelude represents a separate genre that we will study later, “improvisatory” pieces used to introduce larger works went under the titles fantasia (and sometimes ricercare), toccata, prelude or preludium, and, occasionally intonazione. The various terms were not universal in describing imitative forms and were often casually applied. Beyond general expectations about the character of the music that the title implied, the listener never really knew what the music would be until actually hearing it.

We can, however, list these general expectations. The fantasia remains pretty solidly within the definition of the wordless motet or wordless Franco-Flemish chanson, that is, a piece that employs pervasive imitation on a variety of subjects. Ricercare may be regarded, as noted earlier, as a sub-type of the fantasia, differing from the fantasia in that it is monothematic. The toccata may or may not be imitative but will develop n the listener’s ear the impression that the music is improvised. As we learn, the toccata of Merulo is not imitative but the later toccata of Frescobaldi and Buxtehude use the same techniques as the fantasia and ricercare. J.S. Bach’s toccati are not generally imitative, but do retain the rhapsodic character inherent in the genre from the earliest examples. The prelude of Buxtehude is essentially the imitative toccata, but the prelude non mesuré of the clavecin suite does not use imitation at all. Similarly, the opening portion of the ouverture of Lully functions essentially as prelude but resembles non-imitative “processional” homophonic dance music. The first movement of the Corelli-type concerto is also a binary homophonic processional dance movement that resembles the ouverture. The prelude of Bach can possess a variety of traits ranging from a measured version of the prelude non mesuré to arpeggiated chords, but one trait that is not found is imitation.

The Baroque Trio Sonata and Concerto and their Forms

2006-03-23T13:02:00.000-08:00

Italian composers never embraced the dance suite that the French clavecin composers so diligently and joyfully developed between the 1640s and the 1720s. Instead, the Italian need for instrumental music was met in the late seventeenth century by the trio sonata and the concerto. Two different types of concerti emerged between the 1680s and the 1730s, one related in concept to the French dance suite and the other modeled on the form of the fugue.

An early developer of the trio sonata was Giovanni Legrenzi (1626-1690). In his concept, the trio sonata was a composition for four instruments, two soprano instruments (usually violins), a bass instrument (violincello or bassoon), and continuo. This texture is called trio sonata texture, and became the typical texture for small instrumental ensembles or for standard vocal accompaniment. Legrenzi was not the innovator, however, of trio sonata texture. It emerged in the early Baroque in all the genres of music as a consequence of the Florentine Camerata’s late sixteenth-century innovation of recitativo. Legrenzi’s trio sonatas followed a three movement scheme. The movements were often played without a pause between. The first and third movements were played at fast tempi; the central movement was played slowly. All movements were imitative and, not surprisingly in Italian music of this period, all three movements also featured sequence.

The early trio sonata and concerto attained their “classic” form in the music of Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713) For Corelli, the difference between trio sonata and concerto lay in the number of instruments, the latter employing considerably more by doubling melodic parts. In his work, both the trio sonata and concerto were informed by different applications and differentiated in titling. The sonata or concerto da chiesa was a work intended as supplemental music to the Catholic Mass. The sonata or concerto da camera was a work intended to entertain in the private chambers of the aristocracy. Both da chiesa and da camera sonatas and concerti showed the heavy influence of the French dance suite, and both were multi-movement works. Corelli’s concerti were published into the first decade of the eighteenth century.

The intended use of the music had serious consequences with regard to form and the names given to each of the movements. The sonata or concerto da chiesa had to conform to church decorum. Da chiesa compositions could not reveal the relations to the dance suite, and each movement was titled to describe tempo and character rather than any relationship to dance choreography, regardless of any dance elements that might be present in the music. Hence an allemande might be titled as “grave.”

Sonata and Concerto da chiesa
The sonata and concerto da chiesa was generally contained four movements, though many examples contain more. The usual arrangement was slow-fast-slow-fast. All movements featured imitation between the upper voices and occasionally permitted the bass voice to participate. The texture represented a true blending of the textural possibilities and the compositional trends of the time: the upper-voice imitation was supported by an obbliggato bass and chord fill furnished by a harpsichord or, occasionally a lute. It is in trio sonata texture that the stile antico (imitative composition) and the stile moderno (chordal texture from the frottola) were reconciled.

The first movement of the sonata and concerto da chiesa borrowed heavily from the allemande grave, as did the slow segment of Lully’s ouvertures, so that the character of the music was most frequently slow, stately, processional, and serious, often possessing tension resulting from a dramatic undertone. Imitation was often employed, but not in the overt manner of the fugal exposition. Instead, imitative entries were close, and canon was used in place of true fugue. The use of canon, especially at close intervals such as the unison, permitted the two voices to move along in a closely-spaced duet separated roughly by the interval of a third. By avoiding large leaps in the subject melody, the two voices sounding imitatively actually blend so that chords form on accented beats, and the impression of chordal texture, not contrapuntal music that stretches the bounds of dissonance, is created.

The second movement unfolded so that imitative exposition, and the excitement such expositions generate, was the most predominant feature. Here the bass voice often participated by carrying one of the entrances of the subject. The character of the subject was often rousing, and the music drives forward a relatively quick tempo. The similarity of the first two movements of the early sonata and concerto to the French ouverture are more than likely not coincidental. Moreover, the pairing of a slow, essentially chordal movement with a faster imitative one was a practice that became common in later works of composers such as J.S. Bach. The prelude non mesuré also often featured two sections. The first section consisted of rhythmically, harmonically, and melodically free-ranging chordal textures. The second section was imitative and tightly rhythmically organized so that a strong, regular, and fairly rapid beat drove the music forward.

The third movement was slow and often assumed the metric and rhythmic characteristics of the sarabande. Unlike the early, wild guitar sarabande or the somewhat calmed-down sarabande of the clavecin suite, the upper voices of this sonata or concerto movement utilized integrated close imitation. The sarabande influences are heard in the slow tempo, triple meter, and sarabande phrasing. The phrases could be identified by a second-beat accent or by two-measure phrases that end on the third beat of the second measure.

The fourth movement of the sonata and concerto commonly resembled the compound triple-meter (12/8) gigue of the clavecin suite. The fourth movement was quick in tempo, imitative, with the bass voice stating one of the subjects, and, unlike any other movement in the sonata or concerto, binary in form. Like the clavecin gigue, imitation opens each section but, after the last entrance of the subject, continues to the section end in free polyphony. The binary form most closely identifies this fourth movement with the dance suite. Although the other movements of the sonata or concerto obviously borrowed dance characteristics, they tended to be through-composed.

Sonata and Concerto da camera
The sonata and concerto da camera were similar to the suite. There was no predetermined order of movements and impact upon the listener of the ordering could become a consideration to the composer or conductor. As in the sonata da chiesa, the movements were not, for the most part, linked to their dance models by title. Music that was effectively an allemande or a sarabande was not labeled as such but instead identified by its tempo or character. Dance titles were occasionally given, however, and these most often appear on pieces that would have been to Lully’s suites the optional movements. Hence, titles such as “minuet” or “gavotte” were not uncommon. As in the clavecin suite, these movements were presented in the second half of the aggregate.

Ritornello Concerto
The ritornello concerto came into popularity in the early eighteenth century and remained the preferred Baroque concerto form until the end of the period at mid-century. The principal developer of the ritornello concerto was Giuseppe Torelli (1658-1709). His concerti comprised three instead of four movements in the order fast-slow-fast. This order was adopted by subsequent composers and remains somewhat the normative to this day. Each of the fast movements used the ritornello form. Torelli’s concept of the possibilities of usage inherent in the orchestra was more modern, as well, breaking from Corelli’s somewhat casual view that the sonata becomes a concerto by the addition of players. Here Torelli pitted the larger group of the complete orchestra, called the tutti or ripieno, against a group of soloists, called concertino or soli.

The ritornello concerto does not draw upon the French dance suite for its form, rather several different contemporary forms. First and foremost in its conception is the ideal of melodic materials that return throughout the composition. The concept is first illustrated by the ritornello of the opera aria. The melody of the aria ritornello often anticipated the melody to be sung, but often the melody of the ritornello was an independent, unrelated one. Bach, of course, took the independence of the aria ritornello to the extreme, so that what he created could accurately be described as a “piece within a piece.” The aria melody (to be sung) served as a cantus firmus and was derived from the chorale repertory, and the aria ritornello was a piece unto itself that could omit the aria melody and still be a complete, high-quality composition.

Another model “return” form was the French rondeau. Here the “theme” material, usually the first section of eight measure length, is alternated among theme statements and episodes. The episodes contained musically unrelated materials. The materials could consist of new melodies with chordal support or even be imitative. They new materials were contrasting, not derivative. When the “theme” material returned, however, it was literally restated.

The third model for the ritornello concerto was the fugue. The fugue is through-composed but may be divided into two types of sections. The first is the exposition. Here the subject is presented and developed imitatively. The episode, the second type of section, is neither imitative nor related melodically to the exposition. It usually consists of a new melody that is used in sequence. In each subsequent exposition, the key of the exposition changes and order of entrances of the voices differs. The episodes, then, not only offer relief from the subject and the imitative texture, but serve as the transition to the key area of the next exposition.

The ritornello concerto movement borrows elements from all three forms. The theme music recurs throughout the movement but, unlike the rondeau and like the fugue, it recurs each time in a new key. The final ritornello statement is, however, in the tonic or original key, balancing and grounding movement. The recurrence of the theme, like the rondeau but not like the fugue, is in Italian concerti not in imitative exposition. In the concerti of Bach, ritornelli may be imitative, though they are not always so. In the ritornello concerto, musical materials are not part of the theme are musically unrelated to the theme. This practice is shared with the episodes of both the fugue and the rondeau. Like the fugal exposition, ritornello concerto episodes use sequence as primary device and are transitions to the next key area of the theme.

Moreover, Torelli uses the orchestra to further differentiate function, heighten contrast, and vary dynamics. The ritornello is assigned to the tutti, and the episodes are assigned to the concertino. Ritornello concerto movements tend to be more free-wheeling and less intellectually weighty than fugues. In practical application, a ritornello in a concerto movement is defined as any fragment of the initial theme, regardless of how sort it might be. The only prerequisite for a melodic fragment to function as a ritornello, besides the fact that it must be derived from the initial theme, is that it is recognizable to the listener as being derived from the theme. The device, even as a fragment, is remarkable for its ability to unify an extended movement by reminding the listener of the “home” idea.

Torelli’s ideas regarding concerto were developed further by Italian contemporaries such as Albinoni and Vivaldi, though not all concerti composed by Vivaldi follow precisely the ritornello model. German composer J.S. Bach, who learned a considerable amount about concerto by reading scores by Vivaldi, was another practitioner of the ritornello practice. His concerti, like all his works, tend to combine elements, and his ritornelli can be simple melodic fragments or full-blown imitative expositions, even in the same movement. Curiously, G.F. Handel’s output of concerti follow the Corelli model. One might speculate whether he stayed with the concerto he learned during his time in Italy or whether his choice was based on preference. The elements of style galant in the late operas show that he was abreast of musical developments on the continent.

Opera, Oratorio, and Cantata in the Late Baroque

2006-03-23T09:09:00.000-08:00

Oratorio and cantata were two genres that re-emerged in the first half of the eighteenth century. They were already important musical alternatives to opera by the mid-seventeenth century, but differed in nearly every respect from the genres of the same names found in the early eighteenth century. As genres late in the period, they both bespoke the traditions from which they originally sprang and permitted new recombinations of the musical elements of these same traditions.

The oratorio and cantata of the eighteenth century were both linked, unlike opera, to religious themes. Although intended for very different uses and circumstances of performance, all three genres contained musical commalities. Not surprisingly, the three genres would share similarities given the restricted number of available forms. On a superficial level, the three genres could be said to differ in delivery and intent rather than in musical content. All three genres featured recitative, solo and duet arias, choral movements, many of the same forms, and even dance elements.

The opera is based upon one of the variants of the timeless story of love and loss and involves staging. The oratorio is also based upon a story, but a sacred one with Biblical origins rather than a secular one. Oratorio is not staged and is not used as part of worship. A significant feature is the use of the chorus as narrator. The cantata addresses a religious topic, but it is not narrative. Rather it is a collection of commentary set to music, and the cantata is used in worship. In the religious music orb, the work methods of the two most important composers, G.F. Handel and J.S. Bach differed extensively.

Opera
As early as the middle of the seventheenth century, the aria had supplanted the recitative as the most important musical component of the opera. This hierarchy remained intact throughout the Baroque period. The earlier forms of the aria, including strophic, ostinato, and dance, continued to be used, but in the late seventeenth century a new alternative emerged. The new form was the da capo aria, and it earned its name from its appearance in the written score. The da capo aria follows the scheme ABA, and the words "da capo," written at the end of section B indicated that the musicians should return to the beginning of section A and saved the scribe/publisher the time and effort to rewrite the section.

A major figure in the development of the new aria form was Alessandro Scarlatti (1660-1725), the father of Domenico Scarlatti and an important figure in the adaptation of the Baroque binary dance form into the later sonata allegro form. Scarlatti contribution to the development of the da capo aria was his recognition of its dramatic possiblities. Section B could be used to present very different and contrasting emotions that were bolstered by very different and contrasting music. Recitative also took on a new character, with greater use of arioso making it more melodic and dramatic (in a musical sense) and less declamatory. Arioso demonstrated a blurring of lines between aria and recitative. All aria continued to be a vehicle for the ever-entertaining virtuoso singing, regardless of the genre in which it was imbedded.

As noted, more than a single tradition or musical element were often combined in later works. In opera aria, "Dido's Lament" from Henry Purcell's opera "Dido and Aeneas" exemplifies this melding. The aria is based on an ostinato, but the music that the character of Dido sings above the ostinato is actually in a modified strohic form AABB!

Oratorio
The best know examples today of oratorio are those of G.F. Handel. Handel arrived at the realization of the commercial possiblities of the genre only after changes in the musical taste of the English public had turned against Italian opera. The average Englishman did not speak Italian and did not particularly care to listen for extended periods to music in language he did not understand. The Beggar's Opera, little more than a lowbrow collection of popular songs and crude parodies on opera arias and there dramatic airs, drove the last nail into the coffin of Italian opera in England and drove Handel to bankruptcy. Handel's discovery of oratorio was quite accidental and came in the form of a commission from Dublin. His appreciation of its possibilites was immediate, and the die was cast that he would devote the rest of his creative life to composing in the genre.

Handel's libretti were drawn literally from the Bible, though the verses he used were not necessarily consecutive ones. His musical style in the oratorios is a reversion to the high Baroque idiom, and in oratorio he abandonned the fashionable new stile galant touches he used in in his last operas in hopes of saving them from financial failure. His choral style resonates with fugal writing, but this too is affected by older traditions. His fugues are not the monthematic ones that German organ composers wrote to fill the time before the worship service. Instead the subjects could change as the work unfolded or the imitative texture could be abandonned altogether. The music was controlled by the dramatic needs, not requirements of musical form, and, in this respect Handel's choral fugues show a direct and strong linkage to both Grand Concerto and madrigal! Another madrigal element is Handel's use of music to set mood or depict events. In madrigal, tone painting was a rather local and sometimes puerile device; in Handel, musical depiction occurs on a grand and alomost profound scale. Handel's oratorios also approach recitative differently than opera and cantata. Recitative is often assigned to the chorus, not a soloist. Arias, which are not nearly as frequent in Handel's oratorios as they are in contemporary opera or even cantata, retain all the features of contemporary opera. They are quite beautiful, but they are also presented as both musical relief for the listener and as the opportunity for the singer to make grand display of his talents.

Cantata
The German cantata actually offered a happy accomodation to both the Pietist and Orthodox factions of the Lutheran Church. Introduced by Erdmann Neumeister in 1700, the cantata was explanatory and meditative poetry on Biblcial passages that were sung to music. This poetry offered a satisfactory balance of the objective and subjective and the formal and emotional. Early cantata incorporated all the great musical traditions to their time including the Lutheran chorale, the solo song, the concerted style, and added to these the dramatic possibilities of operatic recitative and aria. The cantata, then, does not tell a story nor is its text drawn literally from Biblical sources. Rather, each movment reflects upon some aspect of the religious sentiment or holiday at hand.

Bach composed no fewer than five complete cycles of cantatas, of which three complete cycles and part of a fourth surivive. The majority were composed at Leipzig, where he was cantor. Although the works follow a variety of formats, several components are retained in all of them.
Bach usually based the music of each of his cantatas upon the melody of a single Lutheran chorale. Although the chorale melody usually serves as the superstructure for more than one movement, new texts are often used in place of the one originally afixed to the chorale. Other cantatas use more than one chorale melody, and yet other cantatas exist in which only the chorale text and not the melody appear in the work, the chorale melody appears only in the presentation of the chorale as the last movement, or neither the melody nor the text are incorporated.

Bach's development of the chorale melody in cantatas that retain the chorale melody can vary. The most common application of the melody mirrors another contemporary Lutheran organ-music genre, the chorale prelude. Here the melody is presented in an internal voice but pushed to the fore by the use of organ stops that imbue it with a distinct timbre. Around the chorale melody Bach constructs a polyphonic but not imitative texture that actually could exist as its own, free-standing composition. The chorale prelude procedures are carried into at least one of the movements of the cantata. This use of the chorale melody does not differ in concept from the cantus firmus technique used in Catholic music from the ninth century to the advent of pervasive imitation in the late fifteenth century. Moreover, the conceptual equivalent is also found in the Baroque period as the ostinato, though the ostinato is invariably constructed for its melodic value and the possibilites of development of the upper voices. It is also kept short in length.

A second procedure of note is found in the architecture of the first movement of "Ein Feste Burg" (no. 80). Here Bach creates a motet, using the full orchestra and the chorus. As in the motet, each line of the chorale is developed fugally. Bach goes one step further--the chorale melody also appears in the high trumpet as a cantus firmus! The blatant use of older compositional techniques is likely deliberate. "Ein feste burg" was a battle hymns, and Bach's desire to imbue it with even greater power could have meant "borrowing authority" from the older institution of the Catholic Church. A similar borrowing is found in the incorporation of the Roman arch by both the Catholic Church and countless secular Western governments inluding our own. Similar technical melding is found in "Wachet Auf." Here the first movement contains cantus firmus technique, French dotted rhythms, Italian violin passaggi, and fugue. The arias in Bach's cantatas do contain virtuoso singing, but this singing is not blatantly "showy" as in the arias of Handel's arias. Rather Bach is careful to retain control in his passaggi so that each is at once subdued and musically meaningful.

Advances in Music Theory during the Scientific Revolution: The Cartesians and Modern Music Theory

2006-03-22T15:42:00.000-08:00

Pre-Baroque Developments
In addition to the great artistic merit and beauty of the music of the Renaissance and Baroque periods, this music was also the test bed for the evolution in the late Baroque of a coherent theory of triadic tonality.

The Florentine Camerata's innovation of recitativo was far more than forward strides toward a more emotive music, it represented a stage toward a chord-based rather than linear- based music. It also represented the culmination of performance practice and theoretical evolution that had begun as early as fifteenth century.

The intial step toward a cohesive triadic tonality, of course, was the embrace by continental composers of the English view that the vertical intervals of the third and sixth were consonant. The addition of a fourth voice to the musical texture of the motet and mass movement in the fifteenth cnetury also contributed a critical voicing to the cadence, what we call today root motion from the dominant to the tonic chord (V-I). This motion has become a signal of closure in the cadence of Western music, as well as the determinant of harmonic motion when the interval occurs in the bass within a harmonic progression.

The signal function seems to have been established fairly early in major keys, and the fact may be verified in cadential treatment in the major-key bass frameworks that emerged in the Renaissance. The minor-key bass frameworks were another matter, however, and nearly a century and a half passed from the first appearance of the folia family of minor-key bass frameworks until musicians arrived at a universal and modern definition of the dominant harmony in minor keys. In minor key bass frameworks, one always finds VII-i and V-i juxtaposed, as if the Renaissance ear could not quite decide which chord really fulled the function of the dominant chord. VII-i ultimately evolved into the V-vi "deceptive" cadence in the major key, and V-i became the standard modern cadential treatment in minor keys. The lack of clear definition of function of these chords, however, lingered well into the Baroque period.

A second performance practice from the fifteenth century contributed siginificantly to dominant-chord definition as well as modern triadic theory. Singers began to routinely apply musica ficta to "smooth-out" the melody at the final cadence. Here singers heard that the upward motion of a half- step between the seventh and eighth (tonic) scale degree created more effective closure than whole step motion between the minor or lowered seventh scale degree and the tonic. This alteration of the seventh scale degree of the various modes played out in the bass framework, the minor seventh degree being applied in the progression VII-i and the raised, major seventh degree being applied, in the same progression, in V-i. Hence the minor key bass framework presented the two possibilities in close proximity, and the Renaissance and early Baroque "ear," over time, made the final decision regarding desirability. The passamezzo antico, one of the fundamental bass frameworks, followed the progression:

i-VII-i-V-i (or III)-i-V-i

Musica ficta also had profound effects upon the Church modes, the second critical part of this evolution, ultimately reducing the Church modes to the two modern scales, major and minor.

The first step came in the work of Hemricus Glareanus (1448-1563). In his Dodecachordon (1547), Glarean cited twelve Church modes instead of the traditional eight, and here he added two new modes. These new modes were the Aeolian (based on the note A) and Ionian (based on C). Respectively, these modes are the modern natural minor and natural major scales. In this instance, the scale discovered by Pythagoras (c 500 B.C.E) in his division of the monochord and used for centuries in Western music education became a scale that was actually used in real music. In his Institutioni harmoniche (1558) a decade later, Giosefo Zarlino (1517-1590) reordered the modes modes, which had begun on the note D, to begin on C, laying the foundation for modern concepts of the C scale as the model for all other scales and the starting point in music study.

The impact of singer's application of musica ficta, along with the changing concepts already noted, drove Western music toward a two-scale system. The Phrygian and Locrian modes, both minor modes which are characterized by half-step intervals between the first and second degrees, fell from use and were ultimately discredited by theorists. The remaining Church modes already divided into major (Ionian, Lydian, and Mixolydian) and minor types (Dorian, Aeolian). As noted, the Ionian and Aeolian modes already shared the same intervallic patterns as the modern major and minor scales, respectively. Lowering the raised fourth degree of the Lydian turned it into a major scale, as did raising the lowered seventh degree of the Mixolydian scale. Similarly, raising the seventh degree of the Aeloian mode yielded the modern harmonic minor scale, the scale that permits the change of the v chord in minor to the modern dominant chord V, and raising the seventh degree in the Dorian mode creates the modern melodic minor scale.

The Contributions of Pre-Cartesian Theorists
The use of chords and the recognition of their identity and function within a larger system represents a huge step. Other theoretical tenets had to be in place before a heirarchy could emerge. Johannes Lippius (1585-1612) furnished critical information in his identification in Synopsi musicae novae of the trias harmonia as the most important component of music. In his concept of the triad, the composition shifted from the tenor voice, the voice which in earlier times contained the cantus firmus, to the bass. He recognized, especially in the progressive Italian music of his day, that the bass was the foundation of the music and that it determined which notes could sound above it. Other advances attributable to Lippius are the first use of the word "scale" and his model of the scale as a modern seven-note entity, and his description of possible voicings of the notes of the chord above the bass. He did note recognize the invertibility of the chord, but did recognize that the spacing of the tones of a chord had no impact on their meaning or identity.

The Cartesians
Rene Descartes (1596-1650) was the inventor of analytical geometry, but his most important contribution came in his advocacy of deductive rather than inductive reasoning. His most famous postulate, ego cogito, "I think, therefore I am," distilled his point to its essence, and was the starting point from which he worked outward. This position, of course, stood at the opposite polarity from scientific method.

Descartes contributed significantly to music theory. His most important studies involved the physical nature of sound. He was among the earliest theorist-scientists to attempt to define the relationship between the physical production of sound and the psychological perception of it. The study profoundly influenced later German philosophy of affections, the capability of music to irrationally elicit emotions in the listener. An observation of animal behavior later became the theory of conditioned response.

His other musical studies explain the existence of certain intervals as "residues" or "shadows." In Descartes' system, the division of the octave yields the interval of fifth (three and one-half steps), but the "residue" is the other interval that is created, the fourth (two and one-half steps). The division of the fifth yields a major third (two whole steps), but the residue or the other interval, is the minor third (one and a half steps). Descartes system of octave division offered an important and practical, if not scientific, alternative to Pythagoras' definition of the notes in the octave. Pythagoras divided the string in ratios to find the primary intervals, and then located the remaining notes in the octave by adding and subtracting the ratios of the primary divisions.

Pere Marin Mersenne (1588-1648) was an important theorist who reconciled the accomplishments of the Renaissance and the important new questions of the Baroque. Although he was a priest, he strongly believed in the reason of man and encouraged the development of scientific method in relation to music. He maintained an extensive international correspondence with the leading thinkers of the day including Galilei, Descartes, and Hobbs.

In Harmonie universelle, Mersenne laid the foundation of acoustic physics in his empirical observations on the nature of sound. He correctly identified sound as vibration or pure motion rather than substance. He also was the first to describe correctly the method of sound transmission and formulated the rules governing vibrating strings based on variables such as length, diameter, tension, and mass. Mersenne was also among the first to observe and identify upper partials and their relationship to a fundamental note (see Saveur below). His studies laid the foundations for the study of the speed of sound, resonance and echo, and the character of a vibrating column of air as in the tube of a wind or brass instrument.

Joseph Saveur (1683-1764) was a French mathematician, but not a musician, who presented his findings to the Academie des sciences his Memoires (1701). Starting with Mersenne's assessment of sound as pure vibration, Saveur identified and described the nature of the vibrating string including its "loops" (wave) and "nodes" (stationary points). He devised a formula to predict the behavior of a vibrating string within one percent. Saveur's application of logarithms to measure the octave superseded in accuracy all previous systems from Pythagoras to the present and enabled measurement of intervals "to a speck." His work founded the discipline of acoustics, which he named, and he contributed to the study the terms "harmonic" and the aforementioned loop and node. Saveur was among the first to anticipate the need for standard tuning of musical instruments. Using purely mechanical means, he extended the work of Mersenne and Newton by identifying more than 270 upper partials.

An upper partial, harmonic, or overtone is a note that rings faintly above a note that is sounded. The note sounded, called the fundamental, actually consists of many notes that are produced with it but do not overpower it.

In the overtone series, the first note to ring above the fundamental C note is the C note an octave higher. Above that rings a fifth, the G note, another octave C note, the third, the E note, and another fifth, the G note. Significantly more notes ring faintly above the C-C-G-C-E-G series cited, but do so out of tune. The further from the fundamental, the fainter the note becomes.

The significance of overtones is threefold. The strong presence or absence of certain overtones imbues the various instruments and human voices with their timbre, that is, the quality of sound that permits identification of the source. Secondly, the series cited also describes the notes that are necessary to the major triad. The chord, then, is a natural phenomenon. Third, Pythagoras' first two divisions of the string, the octave and the fifth, are found as the first, second, third, and fifth harmonics. The octave and the fifth constitute the strongest harmonics and suggest more than a coincidence that all music systems use the octave and fifth as their fundamental octave division and their fundamental underpinnings.

Rameau: the Father of Modern Music Theory
Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1716) wore many hats in his lifetime and left lasting contributions in the various areas of endeavor. In addition to being one of France's most important composers of opera and an important member of the French clavecin school, his Traite de l'harmonie (1722) established the modern understanding of music theory. His work explained how the notes of the octave could generate all the intervals and chords, and how they interconnected. He described the formulation of the triad as a natural phenomenon as it was laid out but not recognized in the works of Mersenne. Later exposure to the work of Saveur gave him a stronger argument to support his theories.

Rameau was the first to recognize the possibility of chord inversion, that is, that, from lowest to highest, C-E-G and E-G-C are the same chord but with differently ordered notes. Earlier theorists interpreted the combinations as being different harmonies!

Rameau identified the functions of chords, dividing them into two categories. He recognized the function of the tonic chord, which he named as such, as the chord of repose, and that the chord had a special relationship to the chord built on the fifth scale degree. This chord he called the dominant, identifying it as the chord within the key of greatest tension and urgency to resolve.

Rameau took the idea of the "dominant" chord somewhat further than just a description of the relationship of the V and I chords, and noted that in progression, the most potent bass motion among chords involved the same interval as the motion of the bass of the dominant chord to the bass of the tonic chord, that is, the leap upward of the interval of a fourth or the leap downward of the interval of the fifth. His observations explained the relationships of chords within the harmonic sequence (i.e. i-iv-VII-III-VI-ii-V or the chords Am-Dm-G-C-F-B half- diminshed-V). Here the roots each move as if in a dominant-tonic relationship although the chord qualities are not correct for true V-I motion. The result is a very aurally satisfying terraced chain of consecutive roots, each pair occurring at the next lower pitch level. The dominant-tonic relationship breaks down, of course, between the F and B half-diminished chords since the interval between the roots is a tritone. It is worth noting that this relationship of roots is common enough in other progressions. The progression I-IV exmplifies the point, and the common closing harmonic formula of ii-V-I represents the same root motion.

The combination of Rameau's recognition of harmonic invertibility and his concept of root motion led to another startling breakthrough. Rameau recognized that chords in a progression are actually determined by the motion of the chord roots regardless of whether or not the root is in the bass or even stated in the chord. The root he called the basse fundamentale, and observed root motion controlled the direction and cohesion of the progression. In other words, the progression C-F-G-C is recognizable regardless of the vertical ordering of the notes of each chord. The chord roots C-F-G-C must appear somewhere in each of the chords and form the scaffold for the music.

Rameau's understanding of chord formulation also embraced the addition of a third above to form the 7 chord or below a chord to form the 9, 11, and 13 chords. The concept is employed by modern jazz players in formulating chords that yield richer sound without disrupting basic harmonic function.

Rameau's treatment of the IV chord, however, differed somewhat from the modern approach. The addition a seventh to the chord and regarding it as a "dominant" would have not have explained the function of the chord. The tone a fourth above or a fifth below the root of the IV chord is the root of the vii chord, a chord that cannot be used as a satisfactory target of resolution since it is a diminshed chord. Instead, Rameau added a sixth, calling it the chord of the sixt ajoute. In modern terms the sixt ajoute is a first-inversion ii7 chord. Its advantage is two-fold. First, in the correct motion of voices between the IV and V chords, the only possible four-voice treatment is that the root moves upward and all other voices move downward to the nearest chord tones. The procedure does not yield a wide range of musical options. Composers often avoided the situation by using a three-voice texture and, in keyboard and lute music, composers simply broke the rules, often resulting in the cardinal sin of parallel fifths. The sixt ajoute, however, permitted the composer freedom of voice motion. In my observation, the sixt ajoute is actually a reflection of nearly two centuries of practical usage . The application of the first-inversion ii chord permits the bass to ascend stepwise from the fourth to the fifth scale degree, smoother voice-leading, freedom of motion of the upper voices, and the preparation of a 4-3 suspension over the V chord.

Although Rameau is responsible for assigning the names such as tonic, dominant, and subdominant, which identify both the chord and its function, the assignment of numbers to each chord remained for a German priest, Abbe Volger, a short time later. In Vogler's system, the chord built on the first degree is given the label "I." The chord built on the second degree is called "ii." The case indicates chord quality, that is, whether the chord is major or minor. Upper case identifies major. Both nomenclatures remain in use today on an equal footing. The advantage of each system is that the musician can recognize and label the relationships he hears in music without knowing the key and without having his instrument in hand. Hence he can understand, learn, or improvise over the music more quickly. Hearing in this way constitutes the strongest and most important skills of the jazz musician and the studio musician, both of whom are afforded little time to develop their parts.

Baroque Term List

2006-03-22T15:00:00.000-08:00

Early Baroque

Florentine Camerata

Girolamo Mei

Giulo Caccini

Monody

Figured Bass, Throughbass, Basso Continuo

Jacopo Peri

Recitativo

Euridice

Claudio Monteverdi

Orfeo

Coronazione di Poppea

Plasticity

Aria

Arioso

Continuo madrigal

Cantata

Barbara Strozzi

Oratorio

Carissimi

State of opera by mid-century in Rome and Venice

Aria types

Grand Concerto

Giovanni Gabrieli

Concertato

Heinrich Schutz

Grand and Sacred Concerto

Prelude and Fugue

Imitative Forms and Prelude Types

Renaissance models for the fugue (fantasia, ricercar)

Evolution of fantasia from prelude to monothematic form in the Baroque

Toccata

Girolamo Frescobaldi

Jan Pietersoon Sweelinck

Johann Jakob Froberger

Dietrich Buxtehude

J.S. Bach

Non-imitative preludes

Lutenists of Renaissance and Early Baroque

Claudio Merulo

Louis Couperin

Jean-Baptiste Lully

You should be able to trace the lineage of both prelude types, the interaction of different composers in different geographic areas, and have formulated clear picture and set of expectations regarding the evolution of the prelude-fugue (or toccata or non-imitative prelude-fugue) pair in the late Baroque.

Opera-ballet and Suite

Composers of the French Clavecin School

Jacques Campion de Chambonnières

Louis Couperin

Jean-Baptiste Lully

Jean-Henri D’Anglebert

Johann Jacob Froberger

Jean Philippe Rameau

Francois Couperin

Dance Music of the French Clavecin School

Baroque binary dance

Meaning of “suite”

Nuclear Suite (required minimum mov’ts to make a suite, their musical characteristics, and their origins)

Role of Froberger and the famous clerical publisher error

Common Optional Dances (ditto above where possible)

Prelude non mesuré (its context and influence)

Order of dances in the French suite and in the later German suite

Variation forms: Chaconne and passacaille (and the evolution of the descending bass tetrachord as a musical superstructure including its appearances in oratorio and cantata and implied origins in bass framework and the chaconne and passacaille chord progressions)

Meaning of “en rondeau”

Role of guitarists

Order of mov’ts

French Opera

French Ouverture (its ancestry, relationship to dance movts, and role as possible model for other genres, and genres affected by ouverture)

Opera-ballet (and the relationship between opera and dance including the music of the French Clavecin School, the French lutenists, and French guitarists. i.e. Did dance impact vocal mov’ts?)

High and Late Baroque, Italy:

Trio sonata (how many players, how many mov’ts and their characteristics)

Concerto

Arcangello Corelli

Ritornello

Ritornello concerto (how many mov’ts and their characteristics)

Corelli type vs. ritornello type

Solo concerto vs. concerto grosso

Antonio Vivaldi

J.S. Bach

Late Baroque, England and Germany:

J.S. Bach

Fugue

Cantata

G.F. Handel

Oratorio

Henry Purcell

The Enlightenment: Science and a Changing Social Order

2006-03-21T14:58:00.000-08:00

The Enlightenment was an eighteenth- and nineteenth-century intellectual movement. As a movement, it represented the mature outgrowth of the humanist movement of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It embodied the application and realization of methods of thought established first in humanism, among them empiricism and deductive reasoning. The Enlightenment, like the humanist movement, drew its impetus from the study of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, mathematics, and literature. In this ancient knowledge, thinkers rediscovered the value of the intelligent, reasoned mind and its powers to perceive and understand the ordered workings of nature.

Scientific strides of the seventeenth century had profound effects. As noted, discoveries in the areas of scientific endeavor, especially astronomy and physics, established a methodology of critical empiricism today known as scientific method. The advances radically modified the contemporary understanding of God by removing the definition from the realm of tradition and superstition and placing it under the cold light of scientific truth.

Eighteenth-century thinkers used the new confidence gained from the scientific discoveries of the seventeenth century to challenge conventional modes of thinking and systems of belief, now perceived as irrational. The challenge they mounted affected all areas of life from the long-held historical and moral questions of Christianity to the organization of government and society. Enlightenment thinkers sought to direct critical rationalism, or reason, not only to science, but also to society, believing that political reform, more efficient forms of government, economic growth, and even a more rational ordering of society could be found and used to benefit all mankind.

Throughout the late eighteenth century and first half of the nineteenth, the winds of change swept Europe. The ideal of the rights of man took center stage over the rights of monarchs, aristocrats, and the Church. Society became a system of social contract that every man entered into, and by which every man benefited. Societal change, however, came by violent means. Stimulated by the American Revolution, the idea of change became a genuine popular movement, and the French Revolution of 1789 swept away the authority of the monarch and the Church and replaced it with a republic that threatened the existence of every monarchy in Europe. The revolution unleashed domestic violence unseen since the religious wars, and by the close of the 1790s, French leaders restored order only by submitting themselves to the rule of Napoleon. His armies realized the worst fears of France's neighbors. For more than a decade, his military campaigns overturned every institution on the continent.

To the mid-nineteenth century the rights of man were not the only impetus to political unrest. Uprisings were carried forward by diverse ideals representing the often conflicting goals of different segments of the society. Industrialists sought rights of unrestricted economic activity. At the same time, the worker sought a legal framework for his rights as a foil against increasing hardships imposed by the Industrial Revolution.

The wars of the revolution and the years of Napoleon's empire building also formulated an awareness of sense of national self. Nationalism, a force defined by common language, culture, and history, has proven to be the most powerful ideology of the modern world with uses to justify wars of aggression and the domination of one nation by another.

Scientific advances led to a tremendous forward surge in manufacturing capabilities, the Industrial Revolution, and to the global dominance of Europe as the exporter of goods, influence, and culture. The Enlightenment expired, in part, as the result of its own violence and by immense problems fostered by the Industrial Revolution. Ironically, the very political ideas, intellectual methodologies, and economic skills that allowed Europe to dominate in the nineteenth century were the same tools that the colonial territories would use in the twentieth century against her.

New Intellectual Directions
The conviction that reform was desirable and possible came into its own only after 1700. As noted, the movement gained its impetus and confidence from the discoveries of the Scientific Revolution and the belief that the rational human mind was almost infinite in its power to affect good. The human mind could understand and order the operations of nature for the good of mankind, and man himself could organize his own societies into beneficial ones in which the rights of each member stood foremost.

The most important philosophes, the intellectual leaders who strove to apply reason and common sense to all quarters of human existence, included Voltaire, Montesquieu, Diderot, Rousseau, Hume, Gibbon, Smith, Betham, Lessing, and Kant. For this loose confederation, spread geographically throughout France and the British Isles, the need for reform embraced the rights of the rational moral citizen to make his own way in the world, without the aid of God. These rights engendered, among others, the freedom from arbitrary power, freedom of speech, freedom of trade, freedom to realize one's trade, and the freedom of aesthetic response. The printed word was a primary conduit for Reformation writers in the sixteenth century, and it served the philosophes to the same end. The Enlightenment message was conveyed through books, plays, novels, pamphlets, treatises, encyclopedias, magazines, and newspapers. Most of the philosophe authors sprang from the middle classes; the target of their literary efforts was the same class.

The Enlightenment progressed in several stages. In the first half of the seventeenth century, reform-minded writers sought to use the new scientific discoveries for general attack upon vested interests, political oppression, and religious condemnation. For the enlightened thinker, the future well being of mankind lay in subjugating the power of the earth and its resources to human benefit and living in freedom and peace within societies governed by man's reason. In a common thread, the philosophes viewed Christianity, especially the Roman Catholic Church, as an immense impediment to utopia, and ferociously attacked the influence of ecclesiastical institutions. The future of mankind did not rest with pleasing God or following divine commandments; man did not require clerical intervention to become worthy creatures. In the second half of the century, writers began to address specific abuses and suggest the changes that should be made.

The Important Philosophes
Francois Marie Arouet (1694-1778), known as Voltaire, was one of the earliest and most influential of the social reformers. His first books, prompted by the tolerant political environment he found in a visit to Great Britain, established Voltaire as an important writer. Letters on the English (1733) praised British society and indirectly criticized that of France. The Elements of the Philosophy of Newton (1738) disseminated and made popular the achievements of Isaac Newton. His subsequent literary efforts were devoted to fierce attacks, each in turn, upon evils he perceived in French and European society and institutions. His output encompassed histories, letters, stories, and plays, the last of which is best exemplified by Candide (1759). His acid satire and sarcasm earned him a premier place in European literature.

Francois Marie Arouet, or Voltaire.
Sculpture by Jean-Antoine Houdon

Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1733) was a member of the aristocracy, a lawyer, a member of provincial parliament, and a scientist who belonged to the Bordeaux Academie des Sciences. His most famous work the Persian Letters (1721) was, at the surface, the correspondence of two Persians visiting Europe with friends at home. Behind the humor of the fictitious letters lay a scathing criticism of the cruelty and irrationality of European institutions and life. In his most significant work, The Spirit of Laws (1748) was likely the most influential book of the period. Based upon his observations of both ancient and modern nations, Montesquieu concluded that there could be no uniform set code of law to govern all peoples of all nations in all places. He purported that there existed different political, geographic and political variables, and that the variables determined the type of government, whether it be a monarchy or democracy or any other type, that would best serve its people.

Like the founding fathers of the United States, Montesquieu concluded that the British government represented the best existing model of government. In his view, a monarchy would best serve France, but a monarchy whose power was limited by other political entities including the aristocracy and town governments. Hence different corporate bodies, with powers that a monarch could not supersede, would effectively represent the different segments of the society. The underlying and most widely influential proposition put forth by Montesquieu was the limitation by separation of the power within any government, as in executive, judicial, and legislative branches, to ensure that each branch is held in its influence in balance with the others. Moreover, the exercise of power should be governed by constitutional by-laws.

Denis Diderot (1713-1784) and Jean le Rond d'Alembert (1717-1783) undertook the creation of one of the greatest achievements of the Enlightenment, the Encyclopedia (1751). The Encyclopedia was both a monument to the most advanced knowledge of the day and a collective plea for the right of personal expression. Over a hundred of the most advanced thinkers of the day contributed to the Encyclopedia. The Encyclopedia advanced the most critical ideas in the areas of religion, government, and philosophy. On a more mundane level, it also contained articles relaying the latest advances in manufacturing, canal building, ship construction, and agriculture.

The Encyclopedia sought to secularize learning and to dispel the intellectual assumptions remaining from the Middle Ages and Reformation. The articles on politics, ethics, and society identified problems and proposed changes to the immediate welfare of humanity on the basis of reason. The authors pointedly ignored the obsolete, ineffectual, and self-serving solutions offered by divine law. Instead of drawing models from Medieval Christianity, the encyclopedists held up as examples the theories of government, society, and ethics of antiquity.

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) approached the rapidly changing society in which he lived from a considerably different point of view than his contemporaries. Whereas Rousseau promoted the rights of citizens through democracy or enlightened monarchy and Montesquieu defended their rights through a reformed and revived aristocracy, Rousseau questioned the quality of citizen that the new, economically driven society produced. He argued that the society defined its citizens, and that a society that placed material improvement as a primary achievement could not produce moral citizens but competitors.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, painting by Maurice LaFour

Rousseau drew upon ancient models to define of the ideal relationship of citizen and state. He emphasized that no individual citizen was more important than the state. Since the survival of the state guaranteed the survival of the individual citizen and his freedoms, the first obligation of the citizen was to ensure the continuation of the state. Law was the instrument of freedom and created by general will. Rousseau believed that the general will, since it represented all it constituents, would always be moral and right. Democratic participation in the state served to bind each citizen to it, and his compliance with the laws he helped to create would protect his rights and freedoms.

Rousseau's ideas ran directly counter to the trends to individualism and wealth accumulation ascendant in the highly commercial society of the eighteenth century. Unlike his contemporaries, Rousseau did not believe that the accumulation of wealth at a national level would produce better citizens. He would have preferred citizens of high moral character, even if it meant they remained poor, who created an ideal state through participation in complex and necessary social relationships. Rousseau even went as far as to suggest a common tolerant civic religion as a means to unite the society.

Deism
The proposed common religion, an idea shared and developed by many of the philosophes, was called deism. The basic kernel of the movement was the Newtonian worldview. If nature was rational so must be its creator. The religion used to worship, it followed, should also be rational. Deism embraced a central point, continued belief in the existence of God, deduced from empirical study of the majesty and order found on a profound scale in nature. For deists, God was a "divine watchmaker" who created every atom of the universe and all its interconnections, set the creation in motion, and then withdrew from active participation. Deism, as formulated in the ideal, was empirical, tolerant, reasonable, and capable of promoting reasonable, ethical behavior.

For a short time, one of the post Revolution governments in France experimented with the imposition of deist philosophy. It did not deny the existence of a greater power, but it was crafted to diminish the power of the Catholic Church in France. Had it proved viable, deism would have eliminated religious fanaticism and religious. Foremost among the goals of the philosophes, led by Voltaire, was religious tolerance and in practice, tolerance meant the end of church abuses of the population. Voltaire described as a case in point the situation of a Huguenot, John Calas, executed in 1763 by the Catholic Church. The man was tortured and executed in public, without legal recourse and without confession, for his religious convictions. Voltaire's Treatise on Tolerance (1765) brought the cause of the decedent to the public. Voltaire's tireless efforts prompted a reversal by church authorities concerning Calas' guilt. Without the confession and with the later legal reversal, Calas' execution had no propaganda value. The execution became little more than the arbitrary exercise of power. The enlightened point came into focus: tolerance spelled the subordination of religious values to the consideration of the secular values of human rights.

Economic Theories
By far the most important proponent of the shift in attitudes about economics that accompanied the Enlightenment came in the ideas of Adam Smith (1723-1790). Smith is regarded as the founder of the laissez-faire school of economic policy. In Smith's view, nature supplied boundless resources and opportunities of exploitation for the human enrichment. Smith believed that economic regulation stifled economic development, and to that end he urged the abolition of tariffs, special monopolies, domestic regulations for trade and regulation, and similar legislation. He favored a limited role of government in economic development, preferring instead that markets and manufacturing be linked instead to the initiative of the producer and the demands of the consumer.

Adams did not view, however, all government involvement as suffocating. Smith argued that the government should be responsible for furnishing schools, military forces, and roads. Moreover, he believed that the government should play a significant role in any commercial venture that presented costs too great for the private enterprise to absorb. An example would be the opening of desirable but dangerous trade routes or territories. Smith believed that the world offered boundless resources and that their uninhibited exploitation would furnish the means to the improvement and comfort of mankind.

New Directions: Toward the Classic Style

2006-03-20T14:55:00.000-08:00

No historical period ends with the tidiness that textbook dating would imply. Even as Bach was composing some of the finest Baroque music, indeed finest music ever, the currents that would lead to the next musical style were beginning to flow quietly beneath the surface.

Rameau and Couperin
Jean-Philippe Rameau's codification of music theory reflected newer practices in contemporary music. His rules defining the chord and its forms, the place of chords within a key and their functions in establishing key and driving music forward, the explanation of the formulation and meaning of higher chord forms such as "seventh chords," and other revelations of interconnectivity in music gave later composers clear guide posts. Indeed Rameau sought to follow his own rules in composing, often to public criticism that his music sounded forced and rigid in its clear, careful, and logical formal planning. The music of other contemporary progressive composers such as Antonio Vivaldi also featured tonal clarity and planning, two ingredients essential to the extended compositions of the Classic era.

Other evidence of changing times comes to the fore in the breakdown in the traditional features of the dance suite. Francois Couperin's suites, which he called ordres, were lengthy composites. They differed in several respects from the more traditional suite established by earlier composers. Although his ordres contained the obligatory movements the allemande, courante, and sarabande, they also contained movements that were not based on real dances, but rather were synthesized from characteristics of real dances.

The additional movements far outnumbered the nuclear ones. To these he appended fanciful titles such as "le Petit rien," "The Little Nothing," replacing the names of the dances and breaking radically with tradition. The titles often had nothing to do with the character of the music. With each consecutive published book of clavecin music, Couperin included other elements showing the breakdown of the suite. In the traditional suite, all the movements are composed in a single key. Couperin's addition movements were composed in different keys from the nuclear movements of the same suite.

The most progressive elements are found in the replacement of the heavy, quasi-polyphonic texture of high Baroque harpsichord music by a thinner texture in which the bass furnished support but less melodic material. The busy texture of the Baroque dance is cleared away in favor of a two-voiced, transparent texture.

Comparison of the textures in the music of D'Anglebert and Francois Couperin

Vivaldi and the Motive
Inherent in the music of another Baroque composer, Antonio Vivaldi, was the kernal that would give Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, the important Classic period composers, one of their most powerful tools to construct melody, the motive. The motive is a short fragment of music, and may consist of a melodic snatch, a rhythmic idea, or the two in combination. As seen in Vivaldi's music, the motive has immense flexibility, and this malleability is essential to the protracted and highly developed sonata forms of the Classic period. The following analysis should be compared with the materials presented in Kamien regarding the motive. Closer scrutiny of other examples in the text will also reveal motivic construction.

Antonio Vivaldii, the "Red Priest" of Venice. His red hair
and consequent skin condition made it impossible for him to
participate in normal priestly duties. The Church authoirities assigned
to him the less strenuous duties as music director of a girl's orphanage.

Below is given the melody, in score, to the first part of the first movement of Vivaldi's Concerto in D Major for Guitar and Orchestra. The specification "guitar" is a modern one. More likely, the concerto was written for mandolin. Vivaldi focused much of his professional energies on training the string orchestra at the orphanage where he taught. The mandolin and violin stringing and tuning are identical. A violinist who wishes to play the mandolin need only learn to pluck with his right hand rather than bow.

First section of Vivaldi's "Concerto for Mandolin"

The indication "tutti" indicates the first violin's melody during times when the full orchestra plays. "Solo" marks the point of entrance of the guitar accompanied by basso continuo. A visual analysis of the score discloses that the entire section, as is the following section not furnished here, is built upon two motives and their variants. The first motive is both melodic and rhythmic. Vivaldi uses the three-note kernal to built a longer melody by presenting it at consecutively different pitch levels throughout the section. The rhythm is described, at its simplest, as a rapid two-note motion followed a longer single note. The melody of the motive encompasses the interval of a third. The second motive has a character that is more rhythmic than melodic, but it should be noted that the repeated notes are important to the identity of the motive.

The motive that appears in measures 5-6 and repeated in measures 6-7, under the arched phrase line given above the score, is a hybrid. It features the range of the interval of the third from the first motive and the repeated note and rough approximation of the second. A new feature of the hybrid motive, found as the last three notes of measure 5, is the rhythm. Described in the simplest terms, it is a long note followed by a rapid two-note motion. This rhythmic snatch is derived from the first motive, and is a variant of that rhythm presented backward. The ascending line, beginning in the middle of measure 7 and continuing to measure 9, consists of pairs of repeated notes that climb in successive chromatic steps. The paired repeated notes derive from the repeated notes of the second motive. The last note of measure 9 is actually the beginning of the melody that fills measure 10. The first three notes of the measure derive from the last three notes of the second motive. Like the hybrid motive in measures 5-6, each of the four-note groupings in measure 10 encompasses the interval of the third, the same span as that of the first motive. The musical materials of the solo are handled similarly. The four-note of measure 14 also encompasses the interval of a third, and the repetition of the figure echoes the figural repetition of ideas found in the motives of measures 5-6 and measure 10. The motive in measure 18, repeated also in echo, contains elements of the basic motives. It incorporates the reversed rhythm of the first motive introduced in the hybrid at measure 5. It features the repeated note of the second motive in its central portion. Here, however, the range is extended to encompass the interval of a fourth. The material at measure 20, also repeated in the subsequent measure, represents a metamorphosis of the material of the first measure. The motives of the first half of the measure have the range, like the first motive, of a third, and the rhythm is the derivative one derived from the first motive and introduced at the end of measure 5. The second half of the measure duplicates the rhythm of the second motive and features a similar downward leap. The range of the last two notes of the measure retains the interval of the third.

Vivaldi's use of the motive as the smallest structural unit of melody was extremely far-sighted and anticipated one of the most important characteristics of the music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Musical movements of the Baroque, regardless of genre, featured one thematic idea. The thematic idea was most often a melody of considerable length, so Vivaldi's motivic construction stands in sharp contrast to the general practice.

Toward Sonata Allegro Form
Classic period composers utilized not only these motivic procedures and but also grafted them unto an existing form to develop the sonata allegro. Classic composers built upon the Baroque binary dance form AABB. From the allemande, the Classic composers retained the gravity and high level of writing. They retained its tonal plan as well. Section A moves from the tonic key and ends in the key of the dominant. Section B begins in the key of the dominant and returns, by section end, to the key of the tonic. A significant modification, in addition to an essentially homophonic texture, was the inclusion of a second, contrasting theme to create contrast and tension. The use of motivic themes permitted the greatest possible range of flexibility, not only in the expansion of a single idea but also in the possibilities of combination of elements drawn from both motivic themes. In section B of the Baroque dance, the single idea is explored; the section B of the sonata allegro, both motives are explored, contrasted, and combined in what could almost be called a musical battlefield. Some eighteenth-century Baroque dance movements, especially those of J.S. Bach, feature a reference to the initial idea in the form of a fragmentary restatement followed by a few measures to signal closure of the piece. This "rounding" grew into the recapitulation and coda of the sonata allegro.

Gavotte I

Gavotte II

In the example above, the first gavotte is played with each section repeated. The second gavotte is also played with each section repeated. Upon arrival at the end of the second gavotte, the player returns to the beginning of the first gavotte and plays the dance but without repeating the sections. Here, however, I have chosen to repeat Section A because it gives the work a better sense of balance. The juxtaposition of the two dances and their combination into a s single movement creates the same form found in the Classic period as the "Minuet and Trio." It was not uncommon to find two dances combined in the scheme Dance I-Dance II-Dance I, or ABA, in the late Baroque, and such combinations served as the model for the later Minuet and Trio form.

Bach's "Gavotte I" exemplifies strongly Vivaldi's motivic influence upon Bach and demonstrates the process of "rounding" that occured in binary Baroque dances in the first half of the eighteenth century. Vivaldi's influence regarding the motive is explored extensively in the subsequent Supplemental Lecture.

The motive that the first gavotte is built upon is presented in the first two measures. Nearly all the subsequent music spins out this motive, each time beginning on a new pitch. Note the repeat of the initial motive beginning in the second half of the last measure of the fifth line. This repeat of the initial motive represents the aforementioned "rounding" of the AABB form to create AABaBa. Here the lower case "a" represents the thematic reference. The last few measures form a short coda. A similar development of materials is found in the second gavotte.

Classical composers, in particular Franz Josef Haydn, carried the process of "rounding" further to create a new form, the sonata or "sonata allegro." The form would become the mainstay of Classic period music, especially first movements of symphonies and string quartets, and is still found in some of today's classical compostions. Haydn is ascribed with the development and refinement of sonata form though other composers worked along the same lines.

Inherent in sonata form is contrast. The sonata spins out of two themes, not just one, and the two themes are always constructed to create sharp contrasts. For example, if the first theme has a rousing martial chararcter, the second will be gentle, sweet, and lyrical. Combined with the expanded capabilities of the instruments to contribute timbral and dynamic contrasts, the Baroque mission of dramatic contrast is finally realized in the Classic period in ways unimaginable to the Baroque composer. Moreover, violent contrasts in the music are not a surprise in an era of great political and social upheaval.

Below is a graph which contrasts the rounded Baroque binary dance form and the sonata or "sonata allegro." "Allegro," of course, is a reference to tempo appended because the form was almost exlusively used as the first movement of multi-movement works. In the graph, "T" stands for theme. Listening is essential to understanding. The materials describing sonata form in Kamien are excellent but should be compared to the Bach example above.

Thematic Transformation: New Work Methods of the Classical Composers in the Use of the Motive

2006-03-18T10:50:00.000-08:00

Vivaldi’s ground-breaking change in perception regarding the motive had a profound impact on the compositional methods of the Classic-period composers, Josef Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig van Beethoven. All three began to use a basic motivic idea as the basis for entire movements in their symphonic works, string quartets, and concerti. Haydn’s music tends, of the three, to have the greatest clarity of texture but, at the same time, to be the most angular. The awkward moments in Haydn’s music may be excused, however, when one understands that he was the pioneer of the sonata form. As he composed, he not only grappled with the quality of thematic material and its development but also with fitting those materials into sonata form.

Mozart showed himself to be equally at home using the motive as the musical kernel or at composing long, lyrical melodies sometimes found in later Romantic music. The dichotomy has its origins in his history and employment possibilities. Mozart, unlike Haydn and Beethoven, did not focus his energies exclusively upon instrumental music. Mozart also composed opera largely modeled on Italian models. The traditions of beautiful aria melodies still ran deep in Italian opera, and the traits are found in the ‘singing’ quality of many of the melodies that Mozart composed.

Although he composed a single opera, Beethoven intensely focused his energies upon the genres of instrumental music. His efforts were channeled to create pieces of great emotional content and contrast, but also to exploring the boundaries of the tonal system of his time. The later works juxtapose more violently not only thematic ideas, dynamics, tempi, and even meter, but also key areas that neither occurred together regularly in the music of his time but also in the music of the next fifty years!

Thematic Transformation in Mozart’s Music
The three composers discovered that Vivaldi’s construction of thematic materials from a motive suited their musical aims exceptionally well. For one, the motive could evolve or “transform” as the music unfolded, permitting great developmental strides without the sacrifice of the identity or unifying character of the original motive. Below is the principal theme of the first movement of Mozart’s Symphony No.40 in G Minor (K.550). The motive is found as the first three notes.

Principal theme of Symphony no. 40

As the movement unfolds, the basic motive is “transformed” or modified by the omission of the last note (the tenth note of the previous example):

Transformation by omission of the last note of the theme

Later, the theme is further transformed by inversion:

Transformation by inversion

Thematic Transformation in Beethoven and Unification of Multi-movement Works: Symphony No.5 in C Minor, First Movement

The thematic transformation found in this late work of Mozart only anticipates the extensive treatment applied to the motive by Beethoven. In an example of the kind of thinking that puts him in a class apart and in a role the formal bridge to the Romantic period, Beethoven not only uses the motive as the material of the first movement of Symphony No.5 in C Minor, but as the bases for all the movements of the work! The initial kernel, often described as “Fate knocking at the door,” is given below as the first four notes. The second four-note set is a sequence, and the presentation of a motivic idea and its immdediate sequence, exemplified here, later become an almost standard feature of the expositions of subsequent movements:

Nuclear motive of the first movement, the "Fate Theme" (first four notes)

Beethoven immediately uses his four-note motive as the basis for the melody. The repetition of an idea at different pitch levels is called sequence:

Fate motive used in sequence to create first extended melody

Beethoven expands the motive at the end of this first melody. The resulting figure is known as the “Horn Call” and is appropriately presented by the French horns:

Fate motive expanded into "Horn Call"

As he presents the second theme, the Fate motive does not remain silent but now serves inverted in the role of accompaniment. Moreover, this second, lyrical theme is not devoid of the influence of the Fate motive or the Horn Call in its construction. The final notes of the Horn Call are disguised in the new, lyrical theme as the second, fifth, and last notes of the melody. The basic intervals of the Fate motive are also found as the second, fourth, and sixth notes.

Second, lyrical theme supported in lower voice by "Fate" motive

The triumphant melody that follows later does not seem to bear melodic or intervallic similitude to any of the previous motives. It does feature from the second to the fifth note (first note of the third measure; the tie connecting the first two notes is not counted), however, the same rhythm, albeit much quicker, as the Fate motive. From the third measure, the melody is distinctly heard in four-note patterns that echo the rhythm of the Fate motive.

Moreover, the interval of the third descending, the principal interval of the Fate motive abounds as a structural feature. It is found between the first and sixth notes, the second and fourth notes, the first notes of the third and fifth measures, the first notes of the fifth and sixth measures, and as the last two notes in measures 5-7 The An altered Fate motive is also clear in measures 5-7. Here the first two notes of each measure, if changed to the same note as the third one, would yield the original Fate motive. The relationship of the theme to the original motive is not apparent without scrutiny on paper, but it does resonate in the listener at a subconsicous level.

Triumphant theme with opening Fate-motive rhythm and descending third intervals derived from it

Beethoven further transforms his motives in the opening of the development, which opens with the Horn Call. The idea of the descending third interval is used to create the accompaniment, and the basic Fate motive is given in the soprano in inversion and missing the first note and then in an uninverted form, still missing the the first note, in the last six notes of the example.

Opening of Development: Horn Call, descending third intervals, and shortened Fate motive

Within seconds, Beethoven introduces the Horn Call again, building the subsequent section upon the first and second of the three notes he initially added to the Fate motive to create the Horn Call. By the last four measures, he has inverted the interval of the ascending second to a descending second given between the upper and lower instruments of the orchestra. For example, the highest notes in the fourth and third last measures are B flat and A flat, but the second note, A flat, is given a full octave higher. The section is one in which the direction of the music, and even the music itself, seems to be in a state of suspension. It is a section of suspense, as well, and serves very nicely to add to effect of forward drive in the section that follows.

Motive spun from first and second long notes of Horn Call

Beethoven again uses the Horn Call to open the coda:

Opening of coda

In a fashion typical of his forward-looking approach, he introduces a rising new thematic idea. The idea is not new, however, but yet another idea derived from earlier motivic and thematic materials. The new theme consists of four-note groups that are sequenced in each instance one pitch higher. The are each bounded by a third, and the contour is not dissimilar to the three notes Beethoven added to the Fate motive to make the Horn Call, when regarded inverted and in retrograde (backward and upside down). A similar contour is also found between the second and fifth notes of the lyrical theme above.

New coda theme

Thematic Transformation and Unification Carried from the First Movement into the Second, Third and Fourth Movements of Symphony No.5 in C Minor

The second movement of the symphony also derives its thematic ideas from the basic Fate kernel. The movement is a theme-and-variation form and again, thinking beyond the constraints of tradition, Beethoven imbues the movement with two themes! The first features the sequencing seen earlier in lyric theme of the coda to the first movement, where we now recognize it was given as a preview of themes to follow. The basic kernel is found in the first, second, and last note of the first full measure and the first note of the second. It is the Fate motive again, but with the interval at the end expanded to a fifth as in the first statement of the Horn Call in the first movement. The second, third, fourth, and fifth notes of the first full measure also give the lyric coda theme in retrograde (backward)!

First theme of second movement

The second theme is more obvious. The Fate kernel is found as the first full measure and the first note of the second. Here the motive is inverted and the third note is moved upward one note. Again, the sequencing of the lyric coda theme, and the first theme of the movement is evident. Moreover, if one moves the first note of the first full measure up to the C note (up two notes), the motive is the same as the coda theme!

Second theme of second movement

The principal notes of the first theme are evident in Variation A1 and in Variation A2:

Variation A1

Variation A2

The third movement, the Scherzo or “joke,” begins with a theme that derives its contour less from the Fate motive and more from the accompaniment found supporting the Horn Call in the first measures of the development in the first movement. The accompaniment here anticipates the first notes and contours of both themes of the second movement. The first notes of each contain the same intervals, and the theme of the third movement simply continues the expansion by thirds. The short-short-short-long Fate motive rhythm is found in the second and third measures.

First theme of the third movement

The second theme strongly echoes the Fate kernel, not in its intervallic structure but in its rhythm. Upon hearing, the reference to the first notes of the work is too strong to miss and creates a direct, unifying link to the beginning of the symphony..

Second theme of the third movement

The fugue subject of the second section of the third movement apparently owes the least to the basic motive. The opening of the subject derives from the last three notes of the Horn Call found as the first, third and fifth notes of the first full measure. The rhythmic organization of the same measure into two groups of three rhythmically resembles the Fate motive stated twice but each time denied its last note. The remaining music of the line resemble the melodic contours of the passaggi (runs) found in the variations in the second movement. The final measures hark back to the accompaniment of the Horn Call in the development of the first movement.

Fugue theme of the third movement

Yet another striking progressive element is found between the third and fourth movements. Instead of bringing the third movement to a close, Beethoven connects the two with a dark, low, mysterious filament in the tympani and sustained low strings. Over this static background Beethoven reaffirms his commitment to motivic construction by sequencing a fragment of the scherzo theme, the first theme of the third movement, at ever higher pitch levels.

The first theme of the final movement draws from the outline of the chord, that is, stacked third intervals. Here the scope of the initial descending third interval is inverted and expanded outward to form a complete tonic chord. Moreover, the sense of triumph and fulfillment is enhanced by the tonal motion from the partially stated tonic minor chord in the first four notes of the work to the statement of a complete major tonic triad as the first theme of the final movement.

The rhythm of the first three notes of this theme replicate the rhythm of the first three notes of the Fate motive, but at a far slower pace. Another modified version of the Fate rhythm is given in the dotted figures of the fourth and fifth measures. The rhythm here is created by omitting the second note of the Fate motive. Notice the familiar countour of the melodies of the third measure and ending measures of the example. We have seen it in the Triumphant theme and the coda theme of the first movement as well as echoed in figures throughout all the movements. Of interest is also a special feature, unrelated to earlier motives, found in the first four measures. The theme is a palandrome. A paladrome is a word or musical idea that is the same backward as forward. Examples include the word "racecar" or the name "Otto."

First theme of the fourth movement

Like the first three notes of the first theme of this movement, the “bridge” or transition theme also outlines the tonic triad. The first three notes of the transition are an inverted contour form of the last three notes of the Horn Call. The modified Fate rhythm is present in the dotted figures. Here then, Beethoven has taken an idea derived from the first part of the Fate motive and Horn Call, a contour derived from the last three notes of the Horn Call, and reversed them in order!

The strong motion from the first beat of one measure to the first beat of the next is also reminiscent of the Fate rhythm. The relationship becomes apparent if one sings the rhythm but adds the missing b=middle beat. The two dotted half notes and the tied whole note, when viewed in retrograde, are also a variant of the three notes Beethoven added to the Fate motive to form the Horn Call! Here he is thinking on a very advanced level, and again has created an abstract (but not literal) palandrone!

The theme, which fills the first three measures, is sequenced immediately, drawing a strong relationship to the sequencing found in the Fate motive and both themes of the second movement.

"Bridge" or transition theme of the fourth movement

The second theme is given in triplets, another variant of the Fate motive rhythm, yet the rhythm is also present at another level. A modified form of the Fate rhythm is found given in the relationship of quarter notes that end each triplet. The two phrases are seperated by the dotted half note. In the first phrase, the first note of the Fate motive rhythm is missing; the complete rhythm is present in the second phrase. Moreover, the descending intervallic that finishes each phrase is reminiscent of both the initial Fate motive and the Horn Call.

Second theme of the fourth movement

The intervallic boundaries of the final theme are derivative from the Fate motive but expanded from the interval of a third to the interval of a fourth. The last three notes of the new theme in the second measure are clearly one final reference to the Fate motive rhythm. They are clearly more powerful because they are heard as more final. If one sings the second measure and the first note of the third, he will hear that the theme is not only finished, but the very question presented in the first three notes of the symphony, the Fate motive, is resolved. The Fate motive was dark and imposing because it was given in the minor key and propelled forward by a very aggresive rhythm. Here the tension has lightened by the use of the major key, and the opening rhythmic motive has a final, convincing closing resolution. As in the preceding movements, the motive is immediately sequenced.

The movement unfolds from the theme, and this sense of conclusion or resolution pervades it. The sense of resloution comes from the music's "pastoral" but noble quality. Throughout, we sense that all is well in the world, and that the world is a wonderful, gentle, happy place. For Beethoven, this musical depiction is the embodiment of the implementation of the Rights of Man and the triumph of man's innate goodness, all foretold as destiny by the very first statement of the Fate motive at the beginning of the work.

Closing theme of the fourth movement

Some of Beethoven’s thematic transformations are readily apparent. Others are more abstract. The process by which Beethoven could fashion four different, independent movements from materials derived from a single motive, hence relating them as a larger whole, is testimony to a musical intelligence advanced beyond his time. Few composers and music critics actually understood his late works until more than thirty years after his death! This analysis of the thematic material of Symphony No.5 in C Minor only scratches the surface of Beethoven’s genius but does give a small indication of how he earned his place among the greatest of Western composers

Beethoven as the Bridge to Romanticism in Music

2006-03-17T19:51:00.000-08:00

The duration of the Classic era, which was short relative to the preceding style periods, reflected the pace of the Intellectual Revolution. The musical traits of the three principal Classic composers differed significantly in accordance with their musical experiences, musical goals, and personalities. Haydn focused on making the sonata a viable form and hence his music is more subdued and restrained. Mozart had extensive experience composing Italian opera. His melodies give evidence of this experience in their richly lyrical characteristics.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) was, however, a composer of a highly passionate disposition. Although Beethoven had severe shortcomings in his social skills, he fervently believed in mankind. His thought informed by the Enlightenment and inflamed by contemporary revolutionary events, he sought to embrace and enlist other men in the promise of human fulfillment that these events seemed to offer. He was an early supporter of Napoleon, but was disaffected and alienated when Napoleon sought to have himself crowned Emperor. Beethoven was so appalled by Napoleon’s bid for absolute power, that he tore the original title of his third symphony, “Napoleon,” from the first page and renamed the work “Eroica,” or “Heroic.”

Ludwig van Beethoven

Despite his disillusionment, Beethoven did not digress from his convictions regarding the dignity, potential freedom, and rights of man. The seeds of German Romantic idealism, as noted a more powerful and cohesive train of thought than in other regions of Europe, were taking shape around him as he came to artistic maturity. Beethoven’s familiarity with the writings and convictions of Schiller and Goethe were evident; Beethoven used a text by Schiller in the choral last movement of his most overt symphonic and romantic achievement, Symphony No.9 in D Minor.

Beethoven regarded himself as a classicist, yet in his music he enriched the elements of the classical tradition with his urgent idealism. Beethoven imbued the music with the passion of Romantic idealism by the use of sharp and dramatic contrast. These contrasts pervade nearly all aspects of his mature music including the character of themes within a work, dynamics, key areas, tempi, orchestral color, and even meter. Beethoven’s classicism is also evident in his work method. He sought that every musical component should be in balance and have meaning. He worked slowly and carefully, and labored over the development of themes, the ways in which they could be developed, and even their suitability for development, comes to the modern scholar in his work books.

Despite the almost violent contrasts and character of the late string quartets, written after his deafness became total and around the same time as the ninth symphony, the classicist is nonetheless evident in the working-out of the motivic materials. The late string quartets and piano music were among Beethoven’s most significant, radical, and progressive works. They were not appreciated or embraced for at least thirty years after his death. When confronted by a critic who did not like or understand one of the late string quartets, Beethoven responded to the critic that it was not important since the music was ‘not for you.’

Beyond his immeasurable importance as a composer, Beethoven was also the first composer to be financially independent, that is, to support himself by the sale and performance of his music. As such, he was the first to break with the long tradition of church or royal sponsorship. His works were recognized at first hearing for their importance, power, and beauty. The symphonic works were absorbed directly and immediately into the orchestral repertory, where they have remained in popular usage to this day. The circumstance of immediate acceptance across the spectrum of listener, from the common man to the connoisseur, permitted Beethoven to reach and inflame a broad audience with his passionate ideals and to set the stage for the Romantic composers who would follow.

The Industrial Revolution: the Widening Gap Among the Classes

2006-03-17T14:49:00.000-08:00

In the first half of the nineteenth century, the technological and philosophical advances of the Enlightenment came to fruition in Europe in very different ways than the early philosophes could have foreseen. Technological advances, once believed to be the means to achieve a society in which all members benefited materially and lived in environments in which they could cultivate human virtue, instead led to the creation of three distinct classes and a collision of two basic premises of the Enlightenment.

Enlightenment economics, first propounded by Adam Smith and characterized by a laissez-faire role of government, benefited the middle class and permitted an expansion of its numbers. The emerging middle class, eager to profit, pushed for changes in government and inadvertently prompted changes in the social order that set the stage for nearly seventy years of bloodshed, beginning with the first French Revolution of 1789 and its subsequent Reign of Terror, to the Napoleonic Wars and the revolts across Europe in 1848. To put the human toll into perspective, Napoleon lost nearly 900,000 men in his Russian campaign alone. This estimate represents on a small total of those killed in the period. Wholesale slaughter became such common feature of European life that Napoleon's staggering losses did not present an immediate threat to his power nor diminished his ability to raise an army.

Liberalism
The economic policies prescribed by Smith called for the complete freedom of the merchant and producer of goods to exploit all resources, free of tariffs, in order to meet the demands of the market place. The government, long suspected of corruption, would be limited, in Smith's economics, to a well-defined role. It would undertake, on behalf of industry, tasks that posed danger or expense too great for industry to absorb. Hence the government would assume such responsibilities as furnishing armies, opening new trade routes and protecting old ones, acquiring new resource regions, and building and maintaining roads.

The unbridled quest for profit, called liberalism, led to the further separation of the three classes: the landed aristocracy, the group that held power by virtue of land ownership and long bloodlines; the bourgeoisie or the newly expanding middle class; and the laborer, who did not own land and hence could not represent himself, even by vote, in government.

The liberals, in their expanding class and desire to have government that favored market-place economics, threatened the power of the old order of the aristocracy. At the same time, liberalism ran headlong into opposition with another fundamental tenet of the Enlightenment, basic human rights. Enlightenment economics portrayed the world as a vast storehouse of raw materials to be exploited, but liberal economists drew no distinction in defining raw materials between a vein of coal and the labor force. The treatment of the worker is furnished in below in the description of his working and living conditions.

Wart's Steam Engine

The Dispossessed Working Class
Liberal economics changed the geography of Europe through population migration. The Industrial Revolution began in Britain in the late eighteenth century, considerably earlier than on the continent. By 1830, the continental producers had caught up. The mills, located in the cities, attracted increasing numbers of workers. At the same time, the population of Europe continued to grow rapidly. By mid-century, half the British population lived in cities. On the continent, about one fourth of the population had migrated to urban centers.

The exploding population put vast strains for basic services on the physical resources of the cities. Housing, water, sewers, fuel, food, and lighting were in short supply. Slums of indescribable squalor become a principal urban characteristic. Disease ravaged the population and crime, the only alternative for the unemployed, became a way of life for many unfortunates.

Honore Daumier, The Third-Class Carriage, c1862

Two types of urban worker emerged. One was the laborer who worked in the new industries and learned the skills necessary to run its new machinery. The mill worker had no legislation to protect him. He worked long hours for little pay and watched his children forced into the same work before his eyes. Unemployment was a constant specter; boredom and, in some cases danger, a constant companion at the job.

The second was the urban artisan. He represented the older craftsman, usually producing very fine handmade goods and working in a small shop that employed ten or fewer workers. He was represented by the guild, an institution that dated from the Middle Ages. Despite a finer product, this type of worker was the harder hit economically. He could not keep up with the production rates that accompanied the new technology, and he could not afford to charge less.

Classical economists did not foresee an improvement to the lot of the worker. In his Essay on Population (1798), Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) drew a pessimistic picture. In his view, the population would ultimately outstrip the food supply. Disaster could be averted only by late marriage, chastity, and contraception. Moreover, if wages were raised, the worker would have more children. The children would consume these wages and more food.

In the Principles of Political Economy (1817), David Ricardo (1772-1823) drew an even darker picture by taking the train of thought one step further to formulate a cycle he called the Iron Law of Wages. If wages were raised, the worker would have more children, and the additional wages would not be spent on consumer goods, but on feeding the children. As the children entered the work force, the additional number of workers would drive down wages. With the drop in wages, the worker would have fewer children, thus causing the wages to rise once more and the process to start anew. The concept reinforced the employers desire to justify keeping wages low since, in economic theory, the birthrate of the worker would always assure the minimum level necessary for him to reproduce but not flourish. Ricardo's theory, however, did not take into account that some working families did regulate their own birthrates and hence lived at a higher standard.

Louis Nain (1595-1648), Peasant Family in an Interior (1642).

Principal Intellectual Trends: Romantic Idealism and Nationalism
Romantic Idealism and Nationalism were two related and conservative reactions to Enlightenment thought and the horrors of the French Revolution and Napoleon’s invasions. Romantic idealism was the most important force in the period from 1800-1830.

It was at once a backlash against the cold intellectualism and reason of the Enlightenment and a re-embrace of spiritual values displaced by scientific truth. The movement revered intuitive knowledge that could not be proven by science. It revered nature anew and elevated the common folk to heroes. It eschewed Classical formalism, preferring raw or strong emotion to balance and elegance.

In Britain and France, Romantic idealism wavered between mystic irrationalism and the gallant defense of liberty and social reform. Romantic idealism saw its most cohesive development in Germany, where several fundamental tenets crystallized.

First, Romantic idealism recognized the validity of intuitive or instinctual knowledge beyond that acquired through the reasoned, empirical, scientific, deductive methods of the Enlightenment. Romantic idealism also sought to imbue the universe, described in enlightened terms an infinite, impartial, mechanism (“watch-work”) set in cold and eternal motion, with a spiritual component. To this end, Romantic idealists began to view nature and its functioning in terms of its beauty, majesty, power, truth, and capability to support life and give succor. In brief, Romantic idealists saw goodness in the physical universe, not only in what stood realized before them, but also in a divine plan unfolding, through evolution, for the benefit of all elements of the universe, especially including man. Romantic idealism the means to positive community with a higher entity, whatever it be, gutted from Medieval concepts of God by the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment.

In a second critical Nationalist tenet of Romantic idealism, the individual had no significance except as a participant in a social group. The seeds of the idea of the state as the guarantor of individual rights were sown first in the theories of the Enlightenment philosophe, Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). Rousseau believed that no individual citizen was more important than the state. The survival of the state guaranteed the survival, rights, and liberty of the individual citizen. Hence the first obligation of the citizen was to ensure the survival of the state. His role was to subjugate his own interests to those of the larger whole. He had no rights or freedoms beyond the jurisdiction of the organized society of which he was part.

Moreover, the Romantic idealists believed that society and the state were social organisms and the products of natural evolution, not the artificial creations of man for his own convenience. Society could not be created, as in Enlightened thought, by social contract. These constructs of society became a prominent feature of the theories of several later German Romantic idealist philosophers.

Napoleon’s invasions brought to the fore a question urgent for the citizen and crucial to nationalism: to which social group does citizen prefer to participate, his own or that of a foreign culture imposed from without?

Four Important Romantic Idealist Philosophers
Emmanuel Kant (1724-1804) derived his beliefs in the natural rights of man and separation of powers as necessary to protect man’s rights from Enlightenment thought. Other beliefs, presented in his Critique of Pure Reason (1781), differ significantly from rationalism of the eighteenth century.

Kant divided the universe into two distinct realms: phenomena and noumena. The realm of phenomena embraced physical nature that was knowable and understandable by empirical study and reason. The realm of noumena was the higher, spiritual reality. Here the rational cannot be applied to prove that God exists, that humans exercise free will, or that the human soul is immortal. For example, the beliefs are long held in Western culture that virtue and happiness are linked or that moral laws govern the universe. The assertions are outside the jurisdiction of scientific provability, but linger as feelings to strong to dismiss as mere illusions. In brief, faith, intuition, and deep conviction are just as valid as instruments of knowing in the higher realm as observation and reason are in the realm of the physical natural world.

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814) developed a philosophy in which the world of the mind or spirit was the only true world. In his view, the individual realizes his true nature only by bringing himself into true harmony with the universal purpose. He can know nothing of reality by observation or reason, but must follow his intuition to discover the guidance from the supreme ego or universal intelligence. The philosophy basically represents a spiritual pantheism with a universal spirit directing all life and all activity toward a final goal of sublime perfection. Fichte’s emphasis upon intuitive spiritual truth allays it to the “otherworldly” aspect of Christian spirituality prior to the Scientific Revolution.

Fichte had secondary importance as a political philosopher. In response to Napoleon’s invasions, he was one of the earliest to proclaim an ideal of collective nationalism and call for a united and powerful Germany to assume leadership of the civilized world.

Georg Wilhelm Hegel (1770-1831) was the most important of the Romantic idealist philosophers. Like his earlier contemporaries, Hegel retained the idea that a profound intelligence or God guided the realization of the universe. The universe as he described it was in a state of perpetual flux but also in a state of perpetual evolution. Every institution or social or political organism grows to maturity, fulfills its purpose, and then is supplanted by a new one. The most valuable aspects of the original are never wholly destroyed, however, and these elements fuse with the incoming to make a new organism that combines the best elements of each. Hegel’s concept of fusion was taken over by Marx as a central idea to the realization of the perfect Communist state.

Because each fusion resulted in evolution, Hegel did not view the process as mechanistic but as one guided by universal reason or God. Evolution was, then, the unfolding of God’s plan in history. As Marx would maintain later, Hegel saw the ultimate goal of evolution as a perfect realization in which the interests of the citizen and the interests of the state would be perfectly blended. Like Rousseau, Hegel maintained that true individual liberty consists comes only when the individual gives himself over to political society. The citizen has no rights that the state is obligated to respect because the citizen, without the state, would be little more than an animal.

Georg Wilhelm Hegel

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) contributed an unexpected ramification of Romantic idealism. In his concept, universal force directed all growth and movement. Force was for him, however, will, the blind, unconscious craving or drive of individuals and species to survive. Since the drive is present in all animate forms, their societies must always be characterized by basic facts of survival. The strong must always devour the weak. Selfishness, pain, and misery are inseparable aspects of life. The only possible means for man to attain happiness is for him to deny life in the manner of the Oriental ascetic.

Romantic Idealism in Literature and Other Arts
The impact of Romantic idealism upon literature was most pronounced in Germany and Great Britain beginning in the late eighteenth century. Romantic idealism evolved most extensively in Germany, and two writers emerged as important literary figures, Friedrich Schiller (1579-1805) and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832). Both were formed by the period of Sturm und Drang (“Storm and Stress”) in which they grew up. German Sturm und Drang writers denounced established societal conventions and restraints as well as foreign cultural influences. Foreign influences were not only odious because they imposed a behavior and value system, but also because the restraints they imposed were not even native.

Schiller’s works reflected many of these ideals and his themes frequently depicted idealized acts of heroism in the context of the struggle for freedom. William Tell uses the Swiss struggle against Austrian domination as a backdrop.

Goethe was among the most important and influential of all German Romantic writers. His most significant literary achievement, Faust, was published in two parts. The first part was published in 1790, and the second part did not follow until 1831. Goethe used Faust to express the fundamental facets of his philosophy.

Each part focuses on the role that the individual must take to reach fulfillment. The first part advocates the jettison of the individual of the conventions and restraints that bind him. The first part also reflects the positive aspects of the spirit of rebellion that characterized the time period. The second part waxes more philosophical, driving the point that freedom from convention is not enough, but that each person must undertake an unending quest for fulfillment through unlimited experience.

In France, later Romantic urges tended to surface as works that glorified liberty and social reform or as mystic irrationalism. Two principal French writers were Georges Sand (1804-1876, nee Aurore Dupin) and Victor Hugo (1802-1885). Sand, Chopin’s confidante, campaigned for love unencumbered by conventions such as marriage. Hugo elevated the peasant or common man to the status of hero. His themes often involved the redemption of the soul purified by heroism or suffering and were strong indictments of social cruelty. Hugo’s works were often set against idyllic rural backgrounds. By the mid- to late nineteenth century, the mystic component of Romanticism became evident in a strong interest in literature in medieval stories and myths and in architecture in the Gothic revival.

Romantic writers were limited by their disdain of reason and science. Their disdain did not prevent them from identifying the ills and shortcomings of society but did prevent them from offering any permanent solutions or relief. Moreover the unbridled, exaggerated, excessive emotionalism of their works made them targets of sharp criticism and mockery even when their points or causes were laudable.

French Romanticism had to overcome special circumstances not found elsewhere in Europe. For one, the tradition of classical formalism in the seventeenth century had been central at the court of Louis XIV, where the art, architecture, and music strongly imitated classical forms. All three media were marked by certain traits that included decorative function, strong affectation, artificiality, subordination of content to form, and mechanization.

Classical formalism continued into the nineteenth century with the rise of Napoleon. In his evocation of the power (and legitimacy) of the ancients, Napoleon adopted ancient symbols and the ancient names for various offices including “emperor.” Moreover, he desired that Paris reflect ancient power and glory and, to that end, set about filling Paris with buildings modeled after classical ones. Not unexpectedly, classical painting simply continued under Napoleon. After Napoleon’s final exile, French painters did not return to the style of the Revolution or that of the years of his rule. Instead painters such as Delacroix distorted the classical formal tenets with intense, lurid scenes glorifying the struggle for freedom, social injustice, or dramatic moments from Medieval history or myth.

Other Political, Economic, and Social Forces and Ideas
Other issues augmented the melange of competing class influences. France experimented radically, at great cost in human life, with the kind of government that would best serve. Democratic government, republican government, and even different types of monarchy, such as that under Napoleon, were each established and replaced by bloodshed. Other powers also exerted influence.

Worker revolts were not uncommon, and the working class was often drawn into conflict by the other classes. The Catholic Church, the continued existence of which was questionable for a time in France, represented a traditional power. Rising sentiments of Nationalism redefined or defended territorial borders.

Utopian Socialism
Utopian Socialism, an ideal in wealth-sharing in which the well-being and rights of the worker were guaranteed, sprang from Enlightenment seeds but never came to fruition. Utopian socialists were more interested in social justice than in realizing the models of economic theorists or developing national prosperity. Utopian thinkers envisioned a cooperative society in which each member would contribute at his level of capability his labor or expertise and receive in return an equal share of the rewards.

In socialist utopian society, all men would live in peace and harmony. The social stratification and the outmoded customs and traditions of the older orders, especially those of the market-driven economy, would be eliminated, hence removing the ills of those orders. Since the ownership to the means of production and the profits would be equally shared, the enslavement of the weak by the strong, crime, and greed would no longer have reason to exist.

Among the most successful of social experiments were those conducted by Robert Owen (1771-1858). Owen was the co-proprietor of a large cotton mill in Scotland. Owen believed that the profit system made it impossible for the worker to buy the very goods he produced. Moreover, the profit system produced crises, avoidable under socialism, that were detrimental to the worker. The crises included overproduction and unemployment.

To demonstrate his vision, Owen built houses for his workers, reduced the length of the work day from fourteen to ten hours, introduced more humane working environments, established schools for worker children, and furnished opportunities and facilities for worker recreation. His experiment was highly successful (and profitable) but should be regarded more as a paternalist society than as a true socialist cooperative. Other cooperative experiments followed shortly in geographic areas as remote as Indiana, and failed after very brief tenures.

Communism
Karl Marx (1818-1883) was the genius spark behind a more radical, and profoundly influential, form of socialism, communism. The term ‘communist’ denoted a more extreme concept than that propounded by the utopian socialist, and was a term applied later. Marx viewed "communism" as the as the highest form of socialism, the state to which to aspire. In 1848, Marx co-authored a pamphlet with Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) explaining his concept. The pamphlet was called The Communist Manifesto. The Communist Manifesto, drew little attention at the time of its publication, though many scholars regard it as the ‘birth cry of modern socialism.’

Karl Marx

Engels became Marx’s lifetime friend and financial underwriter. Despite having earned a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Jena in 1841, Marx’s radical views and subsequent political troubles assigned him to a life-long struggle against poverty. From 1848 onward, Marx spent most of his years in London.

Marx outlined his radical theories in Das Kapital (1867). Two additional volumes were published posthumously. Marx’s theories were indebted, at least as starting construct, to the ideas of Hegel and the socialist Louis Blanc (1811-1882). For the economic plight of the worker, Marx drew upon the theories of Ricardo (see above).

In Marx’s economic view, all political, social, and intellectual advances resulted from changes of advances in the underlying economic environment, particularly changes in the means of producing and exchanging goods. Every new economic system is characterized by distinct patterns of production and exchange. The methods evolve to an apogee of efficiency and then develop internal problems that lead to decline. Concurrently, the foundations of new systems that will supplant the older ones evolve. The new system retains the most viable and valuable components of the older one.

Marx’s understanding of economic history was defined in the light of class struggle. In the terms of free economy, the struggle existed between the capitalist and the worker, whom Marx called the proletariat. The capitalist owned the means to production and made his profit from exploiting the labor of the proletariat. The proletariat furnished the labor but was received only a wage for his labor. The wage was invariably adequate for subsistence and the re-population of the class.

Marx called the difference between the value of the product of the proletariat's labor and what the proletariat received for his labor, surplus value. Surplus value took three forms, profits, interest, and rents. Surplus value, which generates capital, is the product of the worker and not the capitalist. Hence the appropriation of the surplus amounts to robbery and the economic system that holds the proletariat, slavery.

Marx foresaw an intermediate socialist revolution in which the proletariat would seize the reins of the capitalist system and replace it with a socialist one. Here the proletariat class, the vast majority, would act on behalf of itself, the vast majority, and so not become an oppressor class. The state would own and operate all means of production, distribution, and exchange. The worker would receive payment commensurate to work performed.

The socialist revolution would in time give way to Marx’s ideal of the perfect society, or communism. The society would be classless. No private ownership would exist. Men would subsist solely by working, each at his ability, and would receive from the general wealth a sum proportionate to his needs. The state would disappear, replaced by the voluntary associations needed to manage production needs and assure the provision of social necessities.

Romanticism in Art

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Romanticism and Art
Three types of content became manifest in painting, beginning in the Roccoco and extending into the middle of the nineteenth century, reflected the intellectual and political upheavals sparked by the Enlightenment, itself the philosphical offshoot of the Scientific Revolution.

In the Roccoco, an isolation of the wealthy, aristocratic class from the lower class is evident in the art created for the consumption of the former. It is characterized by an "otherworldly" quality, a fantasy world portraying not only the physical trappings of the aristocracy, but also reflecting a creeping decadence in the often sensual character. The focus upon the tangible and the covertly erotic stands almost as a denial of events threatening from the real world.

The paintings of Antoine Watteau record a shift in style and in French Society. After the death of Lousi XIV, many members of the aristocracy moved back to Paris from Versailles and environs. The city houses did not permit extensive decorative development to the exteriors. New, smaller accomodations required decorative art to be reduced in its scale and to be intended for indoor display. Emphasis was placed upon intimacy, elegance, and delicacy.

Like most of his paintings, "A Pilgimmage to Cythara," the isle of love, portrays the aristocracy in a park-like setting. The link to the love of the beauty of nature would remain as a component of later Romantic thought. Dramatic depth comes in the moment of sadness that fleets across the otherwise happy scene--it is the moment of departure. Also inherent in the painting is the interweaving of real life, fantasy, and theatre. The elements combine to create both an ephemeral heaven on earth, rather than in the afterlife. The style also conveys a special world of elegance, grace, privilege, and beauty that exists in the collective aristocratic imagination and that does not admit any of the ugliness of life, including the poor.

Antoine Watteau, "A Pilgimmage to Cythara" (1717)

Jean-Honore Fragonard's paintings bespeak a sensuality and playfulness characteristic of aristocratic decorative art. Like Watteau's "Pilgimmage," Fragonard develops his atmospheric effects. Unlike Watteau's work, the atmosphere of "The Bathers" breathes a delicious sensual abandon. Fragonard's work fell from favor as the Revolution approached.

Jean-Honore Fragonard, "The Bathers" (c1765)

Thomas Gainsborough made his living as the premier portrait painter of English society. Not surprising to learn after viewing "Robert Andrew and His Wife," Gainsborough began as a landscape painter. His scene contains a certain charm to modern eyes and differs significantly compared to the previous French examples.

The reasons for the differences among the works lies in the entanglement of politics and religion. The English temperament of the time was profoundly formed by the violent end of their monarchy and the prevalant religious climate of Puritanism. Nonetheless, the scene is one of quiet wealth and security and, like the French paintings, is tied to the beauty and bounty of nature. Although Gainesborough does not depict an orgy of warm or sensual emotion, the immense well-being of the couple, seated in their perfect, beautiful world, cannot be missed.

Thomas Gainsborough, "Robert Andrews and His Wife" (1748-50)

Revolutionary images, or at least images that dramatically championed the rights of man or condemned injustices against him, began to appear in France around the time of the Revolution and continued to be produced into the mid-nineteenth century. They were intended to inflame spirits. Many of the paintings were inspired by actual events.

Eugene Delacroix chose the female figure as the ideal embodiment of freedom, liberty, decency, and human rights in two important paintings. In one of these paintings, "Liberty Leading the People (1830)" (see Supplemental Lectures icon), the female is the symbol of hope and inspriation. In the second, "Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi," she is soon to be a maytr. Delacroix had great sympathy for the Greeks in their war with the Turks, and one of his earliest important works depicts a Greek family waiting in Turkish capitivity to be starved to death or executed outright.

Eugene Delacroix, "Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi" (1826)

Other painters depicted atrocities committed by government or the private sector against humanity, invariably protrayed as the peasantry or as members of a defenseless working class. Francisco Goya's "The Third of May, 1808," recorded the wholesale slaughter of villagers by Napeoleon's troops, dashing Spanish hopes that the French would bring social reform.

Francisco Goya, "The Third of May, 1808" (1814-15)

Theodore Gericault chose to marry the busy Renaissance-Baroque group scene, with its careful, classical, and dramatic rendering of muscular and beautiful human forms, with content of unimaginable horror. The survivors of the shipwreck of the French government ship Medusa, afloat on a makeship raft, were allegedly forced to resort to cannibalism. Gericault heightens the impact of the scene by capturing the instant the seaman make contact with the rescue ship, the Argus.

His studies of anatomy and its dramatic posibilities, in both Renaissance and Baroque art and in the morgue, allowed him to imbue the painting with immeasurable force. There are many levels of meaning here. Each person tells his story but, taken as a whole, a primary theme is the heroism of man against the elements and his triumph over it.

On a darker note, the hunger that drove men to desperate measures will almost instantly be replaced by shame and self-loathing once aboard the Argus. A greater culprit, however, in bringing the sailors to this test is the corporate ship-owner, the monarchy restored after Napoleon.

Theodore Gericault, "The Raft of the Medusa" (1818-19)

The art of French painters such as Delacroix, Gericault, Jean-Auguste Ingres, and many of their contemporaries contain strong calssical elements and so seem to link, at least formally, this art to an earlier age. Postures and body details echo those of ancient Greek Hellenist statuary or the dramatic scenes depicted in Renaissance and Baroque art. Gericault" "raft" uses the well-proven Baroque pyramid structure to organize the figures.

French Romanticism had to overcome special circumstances not found elsewhere in Europe. For one, the tradition of "classical formalism" in the seventeenth century had been central at the court of Louis XIV, where the art, architecture, and music strongly imitated classical forms. All three media were marked by certain traits that included decorative function, strong affectation, artificiality, subordination of content to form, and mechanization.

This classical formalism continued into the nineteenth century with the rise of Napoleon. In his evocation of the power (and legitimacy) of the ancients, Napoleon adopted ancient symbols and the ancient names for various offices including “emperor.” Moreover, he desired that Paris reflect ancient power and glory and, to that end, set about filling Paris with buildings modeled after classical ones. Not unexpectedly, the academy and classical painting simply continued under Napoleon.

After Napoleon’s final exile, French painters did not return to the style of the Revolution or that of the years of his rule. Instead Delacroix and Gericault distorted the classical formal tenets with intense, lurid scenes glorifying the struggle for freedom, social injustice, or dramatic moments from Medieval history or myth.

Jacques-Louis David served as the official painter to Napolean. The neo-classic style in which he painted was considered by 1800 to adhere too rigidly to classical tenets, though this fact would have been a reason for Napoleon to embrace him. Although considered revolutionary at the end of the eighteenth century, the neo-classic style may be regarded as yet another manifestation of the long-standing classic traditions of the French court. David's application of the style was, however, revolutionary, and he used his art work as a means to participate in the Revolution. He survived both Robespierre and imprisonment. After his release, he became an enthusiastic Bonapartist, ultimately painting important works for Napoleon.

Jacques-Louis David, "Portrait of Madame Recamier" (1800)

Later painters such as Jean-Auguste Ingres, retained the classical formalism but slipped into mannerist renderings. In Ingres "Odalisque," the pose, subject matter, and formal aspects are clearly classical and reminiscent of David's protrait, yet the dimensions of the figure are not correct. The upper and lower portions of the figure, dividing at the bottom of the rib cage, are not in the same scale!

Jean-Auguste Ingres, "Odalisque" (1814)

Other elements also shape French art after Napoleon. A strong social undercurrent, a hunger for the exotic, is evident in some paintings by Delacroix and in the paintings of his contmeporary, Ingres. The fascination for the new and unusual became established as a trend that would play a significant part in art and art music in the second half of the nineteenth century.

This interest in the exotic was fueled to a significant degree by the artifacts brought back to Europe by early archeological expeditions to Egypt and the Near East. A second point to remember is that French colonial holdings were largely in Africa and portions of the the Near East. Both Delacroix and Ingres painted exotice subjects. Delacroix's interest in the Orient surfaced in his paintings depicting the matyrdoom of Greece. Delacroix was not very complimentary to the environment that sparked the painting. He wrote in a letter that "here fame is a word without meaning: everything turns to a sweet laziness and it cannot be said that this is not the most desirable condition in the world."

Eugene Delacroix, "The Women of Algiers" (1834)

Ingres' painting, "The Turkish Bath," was conceived in a similar vein. Ingres was Delacroix's rival throughout their careerss, and both painters had some fascination for exotic, here Muslim African, scenes and customs. The "Turkish Bath" was finished late in Ingres' life. Work on it spanned nearly thirty-five years, and he considered it his consummate masterpiece. It was originally intended for Prince Napoleon, but his wife considered it too immoral and blocked its purchase.

Jean-Auguste Ingres, "The Turkish Bath" (1863)

A Later Break with the Academy: Realism
Little did Gustave Courbet (1819-77) know that his straightforward, pragmatic, and eminently practical assessment of contemporary art would result in an upheaval that would pave the way for new styles. To Courbet, the Romantic style of painting obscured the realities of his time. Romantic painting reflected the revolutionary spirit as it tranferred to the rights of man. Its emphasis on excessively emotive content, especially human triumph in the face of adversity, its imaginative but contrived exotic scenes, and its academic neo-Baroque and neoclassical ordering were simply out of step. He said, "I cannot paint an angel because I have never seen one."

Courbet chose instead to paint from direct experience. Although described today as "realism," his style and approach could more accurately be described as "naturalism." Courbet's scenes did not lack heroism or pathos, indeed his style still showed clear links to the underlying philosophy of Romanticism, but instead he portrayed, without grandiose inflation, the heroism of everyman. In "The Stonebreakers," it slowly dawns on the viewer that both workers are unsuited to punishing labor of this sort: the boy is too young, the man is too old. The figures are sympathetic, yet they to not appeal to the viewer for symapthy. In one stroke, Courbet captures not the grandiose gesture of the superhuman, but the quiet heroism of the common man.

Gustave Courbet, "The Stone Breakers" (1849)

Francois Millet (1814-75) worked along similar lines without attaining the same honesty. Both painters shared rural backgrounds, and Millet settled in the village of Barbizon near Paris to concentrate upon painting landscapres and rural scenes. Millet's assessment of the worker is more stylized and hence more in line with the Romantic tradition. "The Gleaners" captures the nature of the work and the relationship of man to the earth. The softened atmosphere, idealized renderings of the workers, and their careful composition do not convey the true hardship and places the painting in the Romantic school. Millet portrays the "hero of the soil" without conveying his reality.

Francois Millet, "The Gleaners" (1848)

The work methods of Camille Corot (1796-1875) differed sigmificantly from his contemporaries. Corot worked quickly, producing his canvases on site within a few hours of work. He sought to capture the "truth of the moment," although his instinct for architectural clarity, evident in all his works, bespeaks the stylistic influence of Poussin and other neoclassic representatives. The Romantic spirit is also evident in imaginative and idealized rendering of the landscape, especially in the conveyance of "freshness," harmony of man and nature, and immense well-being. In brief, the landscape of the Romantic painter is turned to a different meaning. As in Courbet and Millet, the supernatural, heroic figures in mortal strife are supplanted by less grandisose but a no less extraordinary subject, the ordinary man glimpsed in the context of a moment of his life.

Camille Corot, "Souvenir of Montefontaine" (1864)