In our last blog we discussed the invention of Isoryhthm used by composers Phillipe DeVitry and Franco Cologne. It is important to keep in mind that the years surrounding these events were strife with The Black Plague where one-third of the world's population was dead or dying which brought forth a split in the church and led to an increase in secular music outside the church. Also, the school of Notre Dame in Paris had already been in business since 1190, and musical styles like the Motet and other forms of music had already been cataloged and other composers such as Guillaume de Machaut and Francesco Landini were already experimenting with multi-voiced harmony.
Philippe de Vitry (1291-1361) was musical advisor to several kings of France as well as Bishop of Meaulx. He was educated in the liberal arts at the University of Paris and became one of the greatest music theorists of his time. He was also credited with the development of the ideas in the treatise called Ars Nova or new music.
One of the earliest pieces of multi-part harmony, called Garrit Gallus-In Nova - N[euma], Motet, began to stray from the divinity of triple meter and helped introduce the world into other measurments of the time signature also known as mensuration or measurement. de Vitry introduced systems of duple and triple meter together which was referred to as prolation. The combination of the meter fostered a new musical style and technique. These two meters combined perfect - 3/4 and imperfection 2/4 throughout the piece and affected how music would be composed throughout the next 200 years and even has some inspiration today.
Here is an example of how the piece looked, just click on it to enlarge; Keep in mind that this piece was written in modern musical language. To hear the piece you will have to download it from iTunes. Just search for Phillipe de Vitry and look for Garrit Gallus
As previously discussed this piece contains elements of color and talea. The talea, meaning to count, demonstrates mathematical relationships in sound and the color represents repetitions of melodic patterns.
In order to compose a piece that made sense de Vitry came up with mathematical systems of proportion and order. The tenor has seventy-two notes with a talea of twelve durations and a color of thirty-six pitches. The talea is stated six times and the color twice. And the tenor of the second half of the motet is identical to the first half.
We have a three voice isorhythmic motet here and with the typical motet we have three different texts. The Nuema, which was some original chant and then two texts that were written over the top of it. So if we have Isorhythm in the tenor, can you tell where it repeats? If you look at the note values and not the pitch you will find that it is in measure eleven. The piece also gives it away with a ll at the bottom of the measure as well the third repeat at measure 21 and fourth at measure 31, fifth at measure 41 and the remaining at every ten measures.
Let's look at the color or the pitch pattern. There is a repeat at measure 31 and lasts for 3 talea and is also considered a perfect talea. You following? Don't worry it's usually a straight forward thing and is only a way of constructing a piece of music so that you have this structure ahead of time so you know what's going on as a performer.
So essentially what we have is two repeats of the color and six repeats of the talea. You may also notice the sharps above the notes also known as Musica Ficta or false music. Look at measure 25 there is a C in the top part with a sharp above it. This was an improvised musical practice that told the performer to sharp this note. This note was sharp usually at the cadence and was not written because the practice was well known even into the renaissance.
The normal motet was written in 3 and 4 part for voice. But most motets were written in three voices. Remember that the pieces at this time the concept of major and minor does not exist and this still would have been a modal piece. Composing in modes went into the the baroque era and even early J.S. Bach pieces hint that he was thinking in modes. He would use key signatures like two flats that would normally equal G minor or B-flat major but he would use the 2-Flat key signature for C minor as a hold over of a certain type of modal implication.
Let's look at the text of this piece. During the times of the Great Schism and the Babylonian captivity there was a lot of poking fun at the Catholic church or different nationalities or political events going on at that time. You have to realize that we look at these words without provocation but in these times those words may have meant something insulting;
"The cock babbled lamenting sorrowfully for the assembly of cocks..." see the text on page two of the image above.
If you notice that the two top lines, the duplum and triplunm have text but the tenor does not. Does this suggest that there was an instrument paying this line? Perhaps it was simply a chant, but we do not have evidence what type of instrument this would be. Modern recordings however usually have an instrument accompanying the two voices on top which suggests that de Vitry would have been one of the first composers to pair an instrument with a multi-voice harmonic piece.
As time progressed however you will find more instruments subtly added to music. And at the end of the 1300s the motet would be expanded into new forms both in secular and religious aspects.
Next up we'll look at a composer who would set new standards that even are today are studied and analyzed; Guilliame DeMachaut.
Later,
John
