1. Music in the Fourteenth Century

2. Conflict in the church “Babylonian Captivity” of the Pope — 1309–1378
The Great Schism — 1378–1417
RESULT – rise of secularism as the church lost credibility

3. Daily life and the economy
Famines — result of poor farming and periods of cold weather in north
Black Plague — several outbreaks, worst in 1347–1348
RESULT — loss of faith in divine benevolence

4. Political conflict The Hundred Years’ War — England vs. France
Fought on French soil
mercenary soldiers lived off land when not actually fighting
Joan of Arc
RESULT — decline of knights and chivalry

5. Late Gothic art Great cathedrals Outstanding manuscript illumination
Tapestry
Music — ars nova

6. Philippe de Vitry (1291–1361) Life
University of Paris student and, later, teacher
courtier, diplomat from French king (including to Avignon)
bishop, poet, composer
Attributed treatise(s) Ars nova — mensural rhythm
Music — motets are all that survive — some in Roman de Fauvel
scoring — three or four voices
clearer separation of ranges of tenor and upper voices
sometimes with contratenor in the same range as the tenor
isorhythm — developed out of ordo patterns of ars antiqua motets; gives coherence to musical structure
color — pitch series
talea — rhythm series
use of proportional diminution
numbers can be employed for symbolic values

7. Mensuration, new rhythmic notation — signatures indicate relationship of values
L-B relation called modus (1-3 perfect or 1-2 imperfect)
B-SB relation called tempus (perfect or imperfect) — indicated by O or C
Addition of minim (M) and semi-minim (SM)
SB-M relation called prolation (major or minor) — indicated by · or nothing
Coloration to alter mensuration

8. Roman de Fauvel — ca. 1316 Satire on society, clergy, politics
title character’s name from vices — Flattery, Avarice, Villainy, Variability, Envy, Lasciviousness
fauve — dull, orangey color, not bright color of virtue
fau vel — falsehood veiled
étriller Fauvel — curry Fauvel — curry favor
French text, some Latin music
Musical contents
monophonic
liturgical chant, Sequences, conductus
trouvère-style songs
motets (thirty-four) — Latin, French, or mixed texts
variety of styles — earliest through contemporary
1 four-voice, 23 three-voice, 10 two-voice pieces

9. Guillaume de Machaut (ca. 1300–1377) — poet and musician
Court official — served Jean, Duke of Luxembourg and King of Bohemia
Churchman — Canon at cathedral of Rheims
Lover — correspondence (1362–1365) with 19-year-old poet Péronne
Poet
short texts — chanson lyrics, lais
Remède de Fortune (ca. 1342) — long narrative poem with music
Voir dit for Péronne
Composer
Prepared first “works” editions of his own poetry and music

10. Machaut’s music Lais Chansons in formes fixes Motets
Messe de Notre Dame
Hoquetus David
Secular polyphonic pieces — formes fixes
virelais
rondeaux
ballades

11. Guillaume de Machaut, Messe de Notre Dame (1350s)
First surviving complete polyphonic Ordinary (including Ite, missa est) by a single composer
Plainsong Mass (except for Gloria, Credo) with movements in motetlike style
Four-part scoring
Architecture — elaborate isorhythm, sometimes in all parts

12. Machaut Mass Kyrie — isorhythmic structure
Talea (mm.)
Color (pitches) I
T (4 x 7) – 1 = CT (12 x 2) + 3
7 x 4 II
T, CT (7 x 3) + 1
(3 x 8) + 1
IIIa
T, CT (8 x 2) + 1
(2 x 10) + 1
IIIb
T, CT [(7 + 7) x 2] + 1
2 x 17

13. Formes fixes — standard forms of secular songs
Capitals for text refrains, lowercase for changing words of stanzas
Ballade
aab C aab C aab C
Virelai
A bba A bba A bba A
Rondeau (uses two-part refrain and only one stanza)
AB a A ab AB

14. Ars subtilior — late 1300s
Extreme complexity of rhythm — elaborate notation (examples here by Baude Cordier)
Chromatic expansion to (or beyond) limits of modal scales

15. Italy — the trecento Literature — the tre corone (three crowns)
Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) Divine Comedy (ca. 1314)
Francesco Petrarch (1304–1374) love sonnets
Giovanni Boccaccio (1312–1353) Decameron — recounts entertainments with dance each evening
Painting — increasingly realistic
Giotto di Bondone (ca. 1266–1337) Padua frescoes ca — abandoned Byzantine mosaic style of figures
Ambrogio Lorenzetti (Siena, ca. 1290–1348) — nearing one-point perspective

16. Trecento music
Music — high art, no longer functional like church music nor popular like troubadour music
Polyphonic composition begins ca — possibly under French influence in northern Italy, especially Padua
Sources — all later than their music (historical anthologies)
two major Florentine sources
Panciatichi manuscript (ca. 1380–1400)
Squarcialupi Codex (ca. 1420?)

17. Italian polyphonic genres
Madrigal — pastoral or amorous topics
scoring — à 2, rhythmically layered
form — comparable to ballade or Bar
two or three tercets with lines of seven or eleven syllables
ritornello — one or two lines of summary or moral, with new rhyme and mensuration
Ballata — associated with dance
two or three parts — cantilena texture
form — A b b a A (comparable to virelai)
choral ripresa (2 lines)
solo piedi (2 + 2 lines) and volta (2 lines)

18. Italian polyphonic genres (cont.)
Caccia — pastoral or hunt topics (later in Florence, lower classes)
two canonic voices and one lower part
text treatment
texture of “chase” (caccia) or “fleeing” (fuga)
onomatopoeic hockets, etc. for animal sounds
Some instrumental pieces — dances and stylized dances

19. Trecento composers Jacopo da Bologna (fl. 1340–1386)
Gherardello da Firenze (ca to ca. 1362)
Lorenzo da Firenze (fl. ca. 1350–1370)
Francesco Landini (ca. 1325–1397)

20. Questions for discussion
What advantages did mensural rhythmic notation offer over the system that preceded it? What advantages might it have over our standard system?
How did music and musical thinking of the fourteenth century challenge traditional assumptions about music? In general, what ideas did it threaten?