The History of Music - 3

The Middle Ages 1300s

As I said in the last segments there were two defining moments in history during the 1300s and they were The Great Schism and The Black Plague. These vents caused a lot of trouble for the Catholic church prior to the Renaissance as the people began to lose faith in church leadership. And then on top of this the 1300s are defined by the Black Plague. Europe loses some one-third of its population and unbelievable devastation that is difficult to understand.

These defining cultural events had an impact on musical development. You will see the cutting-edge avant-guard music at this time centered around rich cities usually protected by the church. The countryside however was not able to participate in the technologies and musical concepts of the city and most were most likely unaware of Gregorian Chant.

Some of the new musical concepts introduced by Phillipe DeVitry and Franco Cologne were divisions of note and values as well time signatures. In written music the circle and the dot stood for perfection and all the note values would be divided into three.

The higher levels would be divided into three and the lower levels of the music would be divided into twos or sometimes visa-verse. You would see evidence of 9/8, 6/8, or 2/4 divided into triplets. The now common meter 2/4 was also developed.

Another invention was with the use of color. When notation was first developed in chant the first line, or the chant line, or the C-Line, might be the color of red and when they added the F-Line the color might be yellow in place of actually writing the F or C note since actual notes were not invented yet. The color also informed the performer if they were singing perfect or imperfect meter.

Isoryhytmic Motets were developed in the Ars Nova and became the dominant form of composition and eventually influenced the masses of musical composers. You may recall what a Motet is. The origin was mainly a trope that eventually became its own piece and by this time Motets have very little relation left over from the original chant other than using a few belts from some chant and building a new piece on it.

Isorhythm basically refers to a device that you would use in the tenor voice. You may recall the tenor had been the original chant. And basically what you would do is that you would have a repeating rhythmic pattern and a repeating pitch pattern. The rhythm was known as the Talea. If you are familiar with Indian Music, as in North India, they refer to the rhythm as the tal so it's actually a connected word. So the rhythm was the Talea and the pitch was the Colour. Basically you would establish some sort of repeating pattern, which was the Talea, and then you would have a series of pitches you would use that was probably part of the original chant. Now these may or may not coincide as you might have a situation when the rhythm may not change with the colour.

Next up an analysis of Garrit Gallus - In Nova Fert - N[uema], Motet by Phillpe de Vitry (1291-1361)

Later,

John

The History of Music - 2

Hoday,

You may be wondering why I am posting all of these blogs on the same day...well, I've been writing but not posting. There you go so here it is.

The following points are just a summary to lead us up to the 1300s.

Medieval period - 313 A.D. through 1150 A.D.

World Events:
Contstantine 313 A.D. Edict of Milan, Destruction of Rome 455, Code of Justinian 1 529, Rule of St. Benedict 530, Reign of Pope Gregory 1 590-605, Charlemagne becomes Holy Roman Emperor 800, Norman conquest of Britain 1066, First Crusade 1096-1099, First Universities founded in Paris, Bologna, and Oxford 1150

Music and Musicians: 700 Liturgy of Office, 900 First classicifcation of Pslam Tones, 1000 Troping, Sequences, Parallel organum, Notker Balbulus, 1200 Mass liturgy completed, Solmization, Staff Notation, Free organum, Goliard songs, Conductus, Guido of Arezzo, 1098-1179 Hildegard von Bingen, 1100-1200 Troubador Songs, Melismatic organum, 1150-1300 Trouvére songs, Minnelieder

Figures in the Arts and Humanities: 500 St. Ambrose, 354-430 St. Augustine, 600 Martianus Capella, 480-524 Boethius, 480-527 St. Benedict, 540-604 Pope Gregory, 1075-1142 Abelard

Middle Ages 1163-1364

World Events: 1163-1250 Cathedral of Notre Dame built in Paris, 1189-1199 Reign of Richard the Lionhearted, 1215 Magna Carta

Music and Musicians: 1163-1190 Notre Dame School, Leonin, 1200 Perotin, Motet, 1291-1361 Phillipe de Vitry, 1300-1377 Guillaume de Machant

Figures in the Arts and Humanities: 1225-1274 Thomas Aquinas, 1265-1321 Dante Alighiee, 1267-1337 Giotto di Bondone

Let's begin at this point we're going to begin the next series with The Great Schism and The Black Plague.

Later,

John

The History of Music - 1

This multi-part series will attempt to generally discuss music history, overall music theory, composers, performers, and instruments reigning from 1012 B.C Through 2009 A.D.

Essentially music history is broken up into categories and subcatagories known as periods.

Antiquity

the 1st period is called Antiquity and generally spans 1012 B.C. through 313 A.D.

World Events: Reign of King David, First Recorded Olympic competitions 776 B.C

Music and Musicians: First notated music 800 B.C., Greater Perfect System 4th Century B.C.

Figures in the Arts and Humanities: Homer 700 B.C., Pythagoras 500 B.C., Aeschylus 456 B.C., Sophocles 400 B.C., Plato 340 B.C., Artistotle 322 B.C., Jesus.

For the most part little is known about the entirety of music prior to the 1300's. Therefore this series will begin around that time period. In the meantime however I will bore you with the information available prior to music's real beginning.

In essence we know about the Doctrine of Ethos and how music can affect human character. Plato thought of music as education and Aristotle thought of music as art. There was some music theory we knew called tetrochords and tonoi. Tetrachords was a span of two octaves with a series of intervals based around the fourth. Tonoi was an order of pitches that eventually led to the greater perfect system which was the development of two octaves of tones - essentially invented by Pythagoras.

Before 313 B.C., music was basically passed down by story telling and education but little written music was around basically because notation wasn't invented yet. The Edict of Milan (313 B.C.) when Constantine and Licinicus granted freedom from Christianity dictated the beginning of cataloging music in written forms however not in the form of the notation we read today.

It was not until 480 B.C. when Boethius wrote a doctrine known as De Institutione Musica that we have written forms of how music was perceived, taught, played, and cataloged.

And it was not until Pope Gregory 590-604 A.D. developed the first school that musicians could read and sing together by using a codified system of notes.

Charlemagne 742-814 A.D. along with Thomas of Celeano cataloged Pope Gregory's Schola Cantorum's writings and established the first body of church music and classified it as the following: (Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Trinity, Advent, Divine Office, Rule of Benedict, Matins, Lauds, Vespers, Compline, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Antiphony, Mass, Eucharist, Ordinary, Proper, Requiem, Dies Irae, Recitation Tones, Psalm Tones, Melismas, Church Modes, Authentic, Plagal, Modes, and Nuemes. Yes, he was a busy fellow.

Guido of Arezzo: 1000 A.D. by means of Guidonian hand standardized the 4 line staff, sight singing, and the additional solfege; ut, re, mi, fa, sol, and the ever popular la.

As music grew through between 1000 and 1300 a plethora of scholars, religious figures, and composers developed more modernized theories but from this point I would like to discuss the two most defining moments in history during the 1300's - The Great Schism and The Black Plague - next time on The History of Music

Later,

John

Stravinsky - AGON Part-4, (A Little History)

Hoday!

Stravinsky's thirst for using colorful orchestration had always been his forte. Since the first of his successes, Le Sacre du printempts (The Rite of Spring 1913) to the more tame, L'oiseau de fue (The firebird, 1910) and Petrushka (1911) his commissions included a wide and non-conforming array of instrumentation not previously used in the late mannerisms of the classical and romantic periods of music.

In fact in all three periods of Stravinsky's musical life, Russian Period (1908-1919), Neo-Classical Period (1920-1954), and his Serial Period (1954-1968) included abstract influence from his first teachings by Rimsky-Korsakov and through his works with ballet impresario Serge Diaghilev as well the famous dancer Nijinski, and up to performances with Balancine. Agon was only an addition of brilliance achieved after successfully composing since age 20.

Movement 5 - First Pas-de-Trios Saraband Step for one male dancer - (1:11 seconds) and Movement 6 - Gailliarde for two female dancers (1:12 seconds)
The triple meter of the Saraband dance offered Stravinsky an opportunity to express his ability to mix in a gallant yet playful texture of instrumentation. For example a violin solo plays against a xylophone while the brass playfully wanders around an F major chord that meanders into the sixth movement whereby the Mandolin, Harp, and a Piano makes an appearance.

Interesting enough is the use of medieval technique as the music and dancing tells an almost chanson style without text. Most of the 6th movement seems to have a clear and accurate declamation of poetry as well the clarity of some Ars Nova and Ars Subtilor from the late 1400's.

Movement 7 - Coda - (1:20 seconds)

Like most music of the past and the present composers would play the beginning of the piece a second time. Stravinsky however at this stage of his life would throw in a previously played section of the piece backwards and inverted while using a popular technique commonly known by serial composers as Klangfarbenmelodie, or tone color melody.

Stravinsky used serial technique in many of his compositions but none were more popular that in his pieces written for the ballet. The abstract aspects of dance in combination with the contrapuntal technique of serial music theory seemed aurally acceptable during the early and mid 1900s. One can find other works by composers Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern for examples of serial composition of the early and mid 1900's.

Movement 8 - Interlude - (44 seconds)

Using a tonal center around the key of C major Stravinsky uses hexagonic material from the Prelude. You will find the notes, C,D,F,G,B throughout the piece as they work through variated note values, and doubling emphasis while the movement ebbs and flows with high Timpanis or Tom-toms in Mi(b), Sol(b), and Si(b). There is a brief moment of tionality with an E-minor over D chord in measure 263 followed by, of course, a tri-tone Bb - typical Stravinsky - you gotta love it!

The remaining movements 9-17

At this point the piece works its way through many of the previous mentioned theoretical abstract practices of serial composition using simple instrumentation in complex harmony. Movement 9, Second Pas-de-Trios, Bransle Simple for two male dancers begins with an interesting trumpet duet in a fugue-like manner while the ensemble plays the same note structure in half-note value.

Movement 10, Bransle Gay for one female dancer is a slower paced 3/8 meter using a castagnette to set the poly-rhythmic structure against irregular subdivisions 7/16 & 5/16. The harmonic structure is again atonal using a hexagonic note cell and diminished harmonies in jazz-like improvisations.

Movement 11, Bransle Double for two male dancers, one female dancer makes use of larger intervals of the minor 9th in combination with minor 3rds and tri-tone. It is very dynamic while Stravinsky only called for a piano and a forte dynamic marking. Rhythmic manipulation accentuates various instrumentation exemplified in the trumpet/trombone in jux with the rhythm as the flutes enter with clarinet. The juxtoposition characterizes two opposing sides in the music.

Movement 12, Interlude uses no dancers and is a short repeat of the earlier interlude.

Movement 13, Pas-de-Duex for one boy and one girl begins with a subtle string and is almost Bartokian in nature as the intervals range from major seven, minor nine, minor second, and minor third. It may also be considered Jancekian in nature between high and low ranges - if only!

Movement 14, Coda for both dancers see a return of the mandolin against furious string intervals. It uses a twelve-tone structure while the quick 3/4 and 4/4 signature heads into the multi-metered 15th Movement, Four Duos for male and female dancer. The marcato and pizzicato of the strings over a trombone solo leads up to the repeat of the opening theme of the 16th Movement, Four Trios for male and female dancers and quickly climaxes to all dancers in the final 17th Movement, Coda for all dancers as the piece ends like it begins.

In my opinion Agon reflects Stravinsky's entire life's study of music composition. Although it can be argued, this piece reflects every aspect of music dating from the medieval troubadour songs, to the multiple generations of renaissance theory, some classical, some romantic, and definitely post Webern attributes - in my opinion of course.

For additional references and resources please see, read, listen and watch:
Burkhart, Charles. "Anthology for Musical Analysis." New York: Thompson Schirmer, Sixth Edition, 2004.
Routh, Francis. "Stravinsky, The American Master Musician Series." London: J.M. Dent & Sons LTD, 1975.
The London Symphony Orchestra, Agon Audio CD. BMG Entertainment 1997.
Balancine, DVD. Kutler for the American Masters Video Series - ISBN: 7697-2448-5.

Thanks for reading!!! Next up, a short synopsis of music history from antiquity to Michael Jackson - that ought to wake em up!

Later,
John