Big Ideas Simply Explained - The Classical Music Book

MUSICCLASTSHEICAL BOOK



MUSICCLASTSHEICAL BOOK

DK LONDON ASSISTANT ART EDITORS STUDIO 8 Anukriti Arora, Monam Nishat PROJECT EDITOR First American Edition, 2018 Sam Kennedy JACKET DESIGNER Published in the United States by Suhita Dharamjit DK Publishing, 345 Hudson Street, SENIOR ART EDITOR Gillian Andrews JACKETS EDITORIAL COORDINATOR New York, New York 10014 SENIOR EDITOR Priyanka Sharma Copyright © 2018 Dorling Kindersley Limited DK, a Division of Penguin Random House LLC Victoria Heyworth-Dunne SENIOR DTP DESIGNERS US EDITOR Shanker Prasad, Neeraj Bhatia, Harish Aggarwal 18 19 20 21 22 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 001–305942–Aug/2018 Jennette ElNaggar DTP DESIGNER All rights reserved. US EXECUTIVE EDITOR Vikram Singh Without limiting the rights under the Lori Cates Hand PICTURE RESEARCHER copyright reserved above, no part of this ILLUSTRATIONS Sakshi Saluja publication may be reproduced, stored in James Graham or introduced into a retrieval system, or JACKET EDITOR MANAGING JACKETS EDITOR transmitted, in any form, or by any means Saloni Singh (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, Claire Gell recording, or otherwise), without the prior SENIOR JACKET DESIGNER PICTURE RESEARCH MANAGER written permission of the copyright owner. Taiyaba Khatoon Mark Cavanagh Published in Great Britain by Dorling JACKET DESIGN PRE-PRODUCTION MANAGER Kindersley Limited DEVELOPMENT MANAGER Balwant Singh A catalog record for this book Sophia MTT PRODUCTION MANAGER is available from the Library of Congress. PRODUCER, PRE-PRODUCTION Pankaj Sharma ISBN: 978-1-4654-7342-4 Jennifer Murray MANAGING EDITOR DK books are available at special discounts PRODUCER Kingshuk Ghoshal when purchased in bulk for sales promotions, Mandy Inness premiums, fund-raising, or educational use. SENIOR MANAGING ART EDITOR For details, contact: DK Publishing Special MANAGING EDITOR Arunesh Talapatra Gareth Jones Markets, 345 Hudson Street, TOUCAN BOOKS New York, New York 10014 SENIOR MANAGING ART EDITOR Lee Griffiths EDITORIAL DIRECTOR [email protected] Ellen Dupont Printed and bound in China ASSOCIATE PUBLISHING DIRECTOR Liz Wheeler SENIOR DESIGNER A WORLD OF IDEAS: Thomas Keenes SEE ALL THERE IS TO KNOW ART DIRECTOR SENIOR EDITOR Karen Self Dorothy Stannard www.dk.com EDITORS DESIGN DIRECTOR Philip Ormerod John Andrews, Rachel Warren Chadd, Abigail Mitchell, Larry Porges PUBLISHING DIRECTOR ASSISTANT EDITOR Jonathan Metcalf Michael Clark INDEXER DK DELHI Marie Lorimer PROOFREADER SENIOR EDITOR Marion Dent Rupa Rao ADDITIONAL TEXT PROJECT ART EDITOR Dr. Anthony Alms, Katy Hamilton, Vikas Sachdeva Andrew Kerr-Jarrett, Gavin Plumley, ART EDITOR Marcus Weeks, Philip Wilkinson Sourabh Challariya original styling by

CONTRIBUTORS DR. STEVE COLLISSON, CONSULTANT KEITH MCGOWAN British cellist, lecturer, and examiner Dr. Steve Collisson has taught Early music expert Keith McGowan has worked with most of the at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, the University of Birmingham, major early music ensembles in the UK and was Master of Music and the Open University. He has adjudicated at many music festivals and on several productions at Shakespeare’s Globe in London. competitions, including the BBC Young Musician competition. KUMI OGANO LEVON CHILINGIRIAN Adjunct Associate Professor in Music at Connecticut College, Kumi Founder of the Chilingirian Quartet with the pianist Clifford Benson, Ogano is an authoritative performer of the work of Japanese composers renowned violinist Levon Chilingirian performs worldwide and Toru Takemitsu and Akira Miyoshi. teaches at London’s Royal Academy of Music and Guildhall School of Music & Drama. SOPHIE RASHBROOK MATTHEW O’DONOVAN Sophie Rashbrook writes and presents on classical music for Sinfonia Cymru and the Royal College of Music. Head of Academic Music at Eton College, in the UK, Matthew O’Donovan writes extensively about music. He is also a founding DR. CHRISTINA L. REITZ member of the vocal ensemble Stile Antico and a published arranger. Dr. Christina L. Reitz is an Associate Professor of Music at Western GEORGE HALL Carolina University (North Carolina), where she teaches courses in music history and American music. A former editor for Decca and the BBC Proms, George Hall is now a full-time music critic. He writes for a wide range of UK music publications, TIM RUTHERFORD-JOHNSON including The Stage, Opera, and BBC Music Magazine. A teacher at Goldsmiths College, University of London, Tim Rutherford- MALCOLM HAYES Johnson blogs about contemporary music and is the author of Music after the Fall: Modern Composition and Culture since 1989. Composer, writer, and broadcaster Malcolm Hayes has written biographies of Anton Webern and Franz Liszt and edited The Selected HUGO SHIRLEY Letters of William Walton. His Violin Concerto premiered at the BBC Proms in 2016. Hugo Shirley is a music journalist and critic based in Berlin. He is a regular contributor to Gramophone and Opera magazines. MICHAEL LANKESTER KATIE DERHAM, FOREWORD Educated at the Royal College of Music, Michael Lankester enjoys an international conducting career. He has been Music Director of Host of the BBC Radio 3 programs Sound of Dance and In Tune, Katie the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, Connecticut, and Conductor-in- Derham is one of the station’s best-known voices. She has Residence of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. been the face of the BBC Proms since 2010 and hosts the weekly magazine show Proms Extra during the season. Katie also fronts KARL LUTCHMAYER television documentaries, including The Girl from Ipanema: Brazil, Bossa Nova, and the Beach for the BBC, and hosted the programs An international concert pianist, Karl Lutchmayer holds a professorship All Together Now: The Great Orchestra Challenge and Fine Tuned. at Trinity Laban Conservatoire in London and is guest lecturer at In 2015 Katie was a finalist on Strictly Come Dancing, and she various music colleges, including the Juilliard and Manhattan Schools. won the Christmas Special in 2017.

6 CONTENTS 12 INTRODUCTION 36 Music is a science that 55 This feast … did even makes you laugh, sing, ravish and stupefie all EARLY MUSIC and dance those strangers that Messe de Notre Dame, never heard the like 1000–1400 Guillaume de Machaut Sonata pian’ e forte, Giovanni Gabrieli 22 Psalmody is the weapon RENAISSANCE of the monk 56 My lute, awake! Plainchant, Anonymous 1400–1600 Lachrimae, John Dowland 24 Ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la 42 Not a single piece of BAROQUE Micrologus, music composed before Guido D’Arezzo the last 40 years … 1600–1750 is worth hearing 26 We should sing psalms Missa L’homme armé, 62 One of the most on a ten-string psaltery Guillaume Dufay magnificent and Ordo Virtutum, expensefull diversions Hildegard of Bingen 43 Tongue, proclaim Euridice, Jacopo Peri the mystery of the 28 To sing is to pray twice glorious body 64 Music must move Magnus liber organi, Missa Pange lingua, the whole man Léonin Josquin Desprez Vespers, Claudio Monteverdi 32 Tandaradei, sweetly sang 44 Hear the voyce the nightingale and prayer 70 Lully merits with Le Jeu de Robin et de Marion, Spem in alium, good reason the Adam de la Halle Thomas Tallis title of prince of French musicians 46 The eternal father Le bourgeois gentilhomme, of Italian music Jean-Baptiste Lully Canticum Canticorum, Giovanni da Palestrina 72 He had a peculiar genius to express 52 That is the nature of the energy of hymns—they make us English words want to repeat them Dido and Aeneas, Great Service, Henry Purcell William Byrd 78 The object of churches 54 All the airs and madrigals is not the bawling … whisper softness of choristers O Care, Thou Wilt Despatch Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, Me, Thomas Weelkes Dieterich Buxtehude

7 80 The new Orpheus 128 The most tremendous of our times genius raised Mozart Concerti grossi, Op. 6, above all masters Arcangelo Corelli Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550, 82 The uniting of the Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart French and Italian styles must create the 108 Bach is like an astronomer, 132 The object of the perfection of music who … finds the most piano is to substitute Pièces de clavecin, wonderful stars one performer for François Couperin The Art of Fugue, a whole orchestra Johann Sebastian Bach Piano Sonata in F-sharp 84 What the English like minor, Op. 25, No. 5, is something they can CLASSICAL Muzio Clementi beat time to Water Music, 1750–1820 134 We walk, by the George Frideric Handel power of music, 116 Its forte is like in joy through death’s 90 Do not expect any thunder, its crescendo dark night profound intention, a cataract The Magic Flute, but rather an ingenious Symphony in E-flat major, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart jesting with art Op. 11, No. 3, Sonata in D minor, Johann Stamitz 138 I live only in my notes K. 9 “Pastorale,” Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Domenico Scarlatti major, “Eroica,” Op. 55, Ludwig van Beethoven 92 Spring has come, and with it gaiety ROMANTIC The Four Seasons, Antonio Vivaldi 1810–1920 98 The end and final 118 The most moving act 146 The violinist is aim of all music in all of opera that peculiarly should be none Orfeo ed Euridice, human phenomenon … other than the Christoph Willibald Gluck half tiger, half poet glory of God 24 Caprices for Solo Violin, St. Matthew Passion, 120 We must play from Op. 1, Niccolò Paganini Johann Sebastian Bach the soul, not like trained birds 148 Give me a laundry 106 Telemann is above Flute Concerto in A major, list, and I will set it all praise WQ 168, Carl Philipp to music Musique de table, Emanuel Bach The Barber of Seville, Georg Philipp Telemann Gioachino Rossini 122 I was forced to 107 His whole heart and become original 149 Music is truly soul were in his String Quartet in C major, love itself harpsichord Op. 54, No. 2, Hoboken III:57, Der Freischütz, Hippolyte et Aricie, Joseph Haydn Carl Maria von Weber Jean-Philippe Rameau

8 174 I love Italian opera—it’s would not bother so reckless saying it in music La traviata, Giuseppe Verdi Das Lied von der Erde, Gustav Mahler 176 Who holds the devil, let him hold him well NATIONALISM Faust Symphony, Franz Liszt 1830–1920 178 And the dancers 206 My fatherland means more whirl around gaily in the to me than anything else waltz’s giddy mazes The Bartered Bride, The Blue Danube, Bedrˇich Smetana Johann Strauss II 150 No one feels another’s 179 I live in music like 207 Mussorgsky typifies grief, no one understands a fish in water the genius of Russia another’s joy Piano Concerto No. 2 in Pictures at an Exhibition, Die schöne Müllerin, G minor, Camille Saint-Saëns Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky Franz Schubert 180 Opera must make 208 I am sure my music has 156 Music is like a dream. people weep, feel a taste of cod fish in it One that I cannot hear horrified, die Peer Gynt, Edvard Grieg String Quartet No. 14 in The Ring Cycle, C-sharp minor, Op. 131, Richard Wagner 210 I wanted to do Ludwig van Beethoven something different 188 He … comes as if sent Requiem, Gabriel Fauré 162 Instrumentation is at straight from God the head of the march Symphony No. 1, 212 The music of the Symphonie fantastique, Johannes Brahms people is like a rare Hector Berlioz and lovely flower 190 The notes dance up there Symphony No. 9, 164 Simplicity is the on the stage Antonín Dvoˇrák final achievement The Nutcracker, Préludes, Frédéric Chopin Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky 216 Music is a language of the intangible 166 My symphonies would 192 A symphony must Woodland Sketches, have reached Opus 100 if be like the world. It must Edward MacDowell I had written them down contain everything Symphony No. 1 (The Also sprach Zarathustra, 218 The art of music above “Spring” Symphony), Richard Strauss all the other arts is Robert Schumann expression of the soul 194 Emotional art is a kind The Dream of Gerontius, 170 The last note was drowned of illness Edward Elgar … in a unanimous volley Tosca, Giacomo Puccini of plaudits 220 I am a slave to my Elijah, Felix Mendelssohn 198 If a composer could themes, and submit say what he had to their demands to say in words, he Finlandia, Jean Sibelius

9 222 Spanish music with 258 Life is a lot like jazz … 274 Real music is always a universal accent it’s better when revolutionary Iberia, Isaac Albéniz you improvise Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Rhapsody in Blue, Op. 47, Dmitri Shostakovich 223 A wonderful maze of George Gershwin rhythmical dexterities 280 My music is natural, like El sombrero de tres picos, 262 A mad extravaganza at a waterfall Manuel de Falla the edge of the abyss Bachianas brasileiras, Les Biches, Francis Poulenc Heitor Villa-Lobos MODERN 263 I come with the 282 Never was I listened to 1900–1950 youthful spirit of with such rapt attention my country, with and comprehension 228 I go to see the shadow youthful music Quartet for the End of Time, you have become Sinfonietta, Leoš Janácˇek Olivier Messiaen Préude à l’après-midi d’un faune, Claude Debussy 264 Musically, there is not 284 I must create order a single center of gravity out of chaos 232 I want women to turn in this piece A Child of Our Time, their minds to big and Symphonie, Op. 21, Michael Tippett difficult jobs Anton von Webern The Wreckers, Ethel Smyth 286 The music is so knit … 266 The only love affair that it takes you in very 240 An audience shouldn’t I ever had was strong hands and leads listen with complacency with music you into its own world Pierrot lunaire, Op. 21, Piano Concerto for the Left Appalachian Spring, Arnold Schoenberg Hand, Maurice Ravel Aaron Copland 246 I haven’t understood 268 Science alone can 288 Composing is like driving a bar of music in my life, infuse music with down a foggy road but I have felt it youthful vigor Peter Grimes, Le Sacre du printemps, Ionisation, Edgard Varèse Benjamin Britten Igor Stravinsky 270 A nation creates music. 252 And ever winging up The composer only and up, our valley is his arranges it golden cup String Quartet No. 6, The Lark Ascending, Béla Viktor János Bartók Ralph Vaughan Williams 272 I detest imitation. I detest 254 Stand up and take your hackneyed devices dissonance like a man Romeo and Juliet, Symphony No. 4, Sergei Prokofiev Charles Edward Ives 273 Balinese music retained 256 I have never written a rhythmic vitality both a note I didn’t mean primitive and joyous Parade, Erik Satie Tabuh-Tabuhan, Colin McPhee

10 CONTEMPORARY 316 In music … things 324 Volcanic, expansive, don’t get better or dazzling—and obsessive 298 Sound is the vocabulary worse: they evolve and Études, Gyorgy Ligeti of nature transform themselves Symphonie pour un Sinfonia, Luciano Berio 325 My music is written homme seul, Pierre for ears Schaeffer/Pierre Henry 318 If you tell me a lie, let L’Amour de loin, it be a black lie Kaija Saariaho 302 I can’t understand why Eight Songs for a Mad King, people are frightened of Peter Maxwell Davies 326 Blue … like the new ideas; I’m frightened sky. Where all of the old ones 320 The process of possibilities soar 4´33˝, John Cage substituting beats blue cathedral, for rests Jennifer Higdon Six Pianos, Steve Reich 328 The music uses simple 306 He has changed our 321 We were so far ahead … building blocks and view of musical time because everyone else grows organically and form stayed so far behind from there … Gruppen, Einstein on the Beach, In Seven Days, Karlheinz Stockhausen Philip Glass Thomas Adès 308 The role of the musician 322 This must be the first 329 This is the core of who … is perpetual exploration purpose of art … to we are and what we Pithoprakta, Iannis Xenakis change us need to be Apocalypsis, Alleluia, Eric Whitacre 309 Close communion R. Murray Schafer with the people is the 330 DIRECTORY natural soil nourishing 323 I could start out from the 340 GLOSSARY all my work chaos and create order Spartacus, in it 344 INDEX Aram Khachaturian Fourth Symphony, Witold Lutosławski 351 QUOTE ATTRIBUTIONS 310 I was struck by the emotional charge of 352 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS the work Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, Krzysztof Penderecki 312 Once you become an ism, what you’re doing is dead In C, Terry Riley 314 I desire to carve … a single painful tone as intense as silence itself November Steps, Toru Takemitsu

11 FOREWORD Music has a certain magic. It can transport us to a You might know that Beethoven was deaf later in life, different world, drive us to dance, or remind us of lost but learning which of his works he composed yet never loved ones. A single chord can reduce us to tears. Far actually heard adds a poignancy and an increased from being an exclusive, elite preserve, the kind of sense of wonder to the listening experience. Realizing music that provided people in the Western world with that Mozart was effectively an 18th-century pop star pleasure and inspiration for most of the past 1,000 might convince you to give the Marriage of Figaro years—and now commonly known as classical another try. Power, patronage, and censorship have music—is still delighting listeners today. It toys with each played a part in the genesis of some of the best- our emotions in our favorite movies; its symphonic loved pieces of music. As you will discover, the real-life swells add drama to the action of computer games; drama and scandals often kept pace with the musical and it hides in the structure and melodies of everyday dramatics on the stage and in the score. pop songs. Its magic is of a very special sort—one that has grown and evolved over the centuries, shaped These, then, are the worlds that the book you are by politics, geography, religion—and the particular holding invites you to explore. It will be an invaluable genius of a multitude of great composers. companion as it takes you on a journey through the different periods of musical history, deepening your Sometimes it’s enough just to listen and let the understanding and appreciation of some of classical music wash over and through you without asking music’s greatest works. It will delight those of you who why, when, or how, this piece originated. However, already love classical music but may have never—until the classical music canon can seem intimidatingly now—come to grips with the component elements of vast, encompassing many different styles and genres. musical vocabulary and theory. And best of all, it will, For example, the early music of the medieval church— I hope, encourage endless hours of new listening. plainsong and chant—is a sonic world away from the waterfalls of sound created by the 19th-century Classical music, like all music, has passion at its heart. symphony orchestras employed by romantic composers, It’s why the great works of the past have endured for such as Tchaikovsky and Brahms, or the atonal centuries, why contemporary composers still strive to experimentation of Schoenberg in the early 20th match and challenge that beauty, and why millions of century. At times exploring new sound worlds can us love to play, listen, and be transported by it today. be unfamiliar, or even a little uncomfortable, as the There is so much wonderful, passionate music out composer may have intended. there—let this book open your eyes and your ears to it. With The Classical Music Book, you will discover the Katie Derham context of the great musical works of the last 1,000 Classical music commentator years. Understanding who the composers were and why they were writing can be a revelation and can add a new layer of enjoyment and insight to your listening. A familiar piece such as Vivaldi’s Four Seasons takes on a whole new resonance when you learn that Vivaldi demonstrated the true potential of the concerto form for the first time and that his reputation spread from Italy to Germany, where he inspired a young organist named Johann Sebastian Bach.

INTRODU

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14 INTRODUCTION A vital part of human culture, disregard for Classical conventions, The first of these was the Church. at least since Neolithic just as Igor Stravinsky’s Le Sacre Western classical music originated times, music has been du printemps (Rite of Spring) in a Europe dominated by the a feature of every civilization, astounded those who attended Church. In addition to wielding as cave paintings, frescoes, and its Paris premiere a century later. considerable political power, the archaeology show. What is loosely clergy provided the only source referred to as “classical music” is Such leaps have defined the of learning in society. For the the music of Western civilization main periods of classical music— educated, music was part of an as it evolved from medieval times Early Music, Renaissance, Baroque, act of worship, not entertainment. to the present day. In its broadest Classical, Romantic, Nationalist, It was sung by monks without sense, it covers a wide spectrum Modern, and Contemporary— instrumental accompaniment. of music and not just the orchestral though these are broad distinctions, or piano music that some people with different styles within each The “New Art” imagine. This book explores how one, and the dividing lines are For hundreds of years, the Church classical music developed as an not clear-cut. resisted any change to the simple essential part of European culture chanting of sacred texts, the rise and then spread across the world, The role of the Church and fall of which was represented delighting, surprising, and sometimes Like other art forms, music has on manuscripts by “neumes” perplexing audiences as it evolved been shaped by external influences (inflective marks). Eventually, through the centuries. as well as by brilliant individuals. however, new ideas found their way in. With the invention of Bold leaps Music is the social act a system of notation by Guido The development of a musical of communication d’Arezzo, a monk in 11th-century tradition, from medieval church Italy, choristers began to sing music and courtly trobadors to among people, a gesture simple harmonies to the tunes. the avant-garde music of the of friendship, the They later embellished them with 21st century, was often incremental, strongest there is. other melodies, creating polyphony, but it has also been punctuated a new sound that, in the 14th by exciting innovations. The Malcolm Arnold century, was hailed as the Ars first operas, staged at the end of nova, the “New Art.” Composers the 16th century, for example, soon introduced other innovations, revolutionized sacred as well as such as an organ accompaniment. secular music, while Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony shocked early The Church began to lose its 19th-century audiences with its control over music, and culture groundbreaking structure and in general, a process helped along by the birth of a new cultural

INTRODUCTION 15 movement, the Renaissance. As continued to act as patrons to symphony, the solo concerto, the taboo surrounding secular composers and performers, but and the string quartet. Music music disappeared, composers there was also an increasing public also became popular in the home expressed themselves more freely, demand for opera and music in as the swelling middle class and their music spread through general, prompting investment in acquired leisure time and musical Europe, especially after the opera houses, concert halls, and instruments, including the piano, invention of a method for printing public theaters. became more affordable. and therefore distributing music. No longer controlled by the Church, As the Baroque period The Romantic period musicians sought employment progressed, composers such as Despite its enduring influence, the in the aristocratic courts of Italy, J.S. Bach and George Frideric Classical period gave way to a new France, Britain, and the Netherlands, Handel created works of increasing cultural movement almost as soon where they made a comfortable complexity, taking advantage of as it had begun. As Romanticism, living providing entertainment. the orchestras provided by their with its emphasis on the individual, aristocratic patrons. The music swept through Europe, expression The Church still wielded some of the “High Baroque” era was took precedence over clarity. power, however, and after the particularly expressive, often Composers stretched the Classical Reformation, a more austere musical ornamented with trills and other forms to their limits in the quest style was imposed on the Protestant embellishments, and sometimes for new sounds. They looked to churches in northern Europe, and dazzlingly virtuosic. extramusical sources of inspiration, even the Catholic authorities looked such as art, literature, landscapes, to curb the complexity of polyphony. For a while, the concertgoing and human experience. ❯❯ Composers thus developed a simpler public flocked to hear the latest yet more expressive harmonic orchestral showpieces, operas, What passion cannot style. Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 and choral works, but then the music raise and quell. broke new ground for sacred music Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, by incorporating elements of this dawned, and fashions changed. John Dryden exciting new style. There was suddenly a demand for more elegant music emphasizing Musical explosion balance and clarity, leading to Around the same time, in Florence, the Classical period from which a group of intellectuals called the “classical music” gets its name. Camerata de’ Bardi came up with a new form of entertainment, In a short time, Classical combining music and drama to composers, such as Mozart, Haydn, create opera. This was a success and Beethoven, established the in the aristocratic courts, which musical forms that are the staple of modern concert repertoires, including the four-movement

16 INTRODUCTION Romanticism was essentially rock music, whose rhythmic pitch of an individual note, how a Germanic movement, yet its beats had instant appeal, causing high or low the sound is, especially emphasis on the individual audiences to turn away from the in relation to others, is represented provoked a wave of nationalist unfamiliar sounds of new classical by a letter (A, B, C, and so forth), composers who wanted to music, and even classical music sometimes modified by “accidentals” distance themselves from Austro- in general. Nonetheless, popular (sharp or flat) that raise or lower the German dominance of the musical music also influenced and inspired note by a half step. For much of the ancien régime and champion classical composers, producing history of classical music, melodies the music of individual nations. a cross-fertilization of ideas that (patterns of notes) were composed Russian and Czech composers brought new life to classical forms, using the notes of the major and began to integrate elements of folk as did the harnessing of modern minor scales, or keys, which help music and themes into their work, technology. Composers such as to determine the mood of a piece a trend later explored by composers Karlheinz Stockhausen exploited of music. The key also governs in other parts of Europe. the potential of the electronic the harmony, when two or more studio and the huge advances notes are played at the same time. By the end of the 19th century, in recording equipment. Certain combinations of notes— the excesses of German Romanticism chords—are consonant, or also precipitated a breakdown of Today, some composers, more harmonious, and others more the very foundations of Western conscious of public tastes, are dissonant, harsher; major chords music—a structure based on the writing in a more accessible style tend to sound brighter, while minor harmonies of the major and minor than was the case 50 years ago, but chords are more mournful. keys. What followed was a century composers continue to experiment, of composers seeking not just a producing music incorporating Rhythm and harmony find fresh style but a completely new video, theater, and global influences. their way into the inward musical language. Two of the many strands that emerged were The elements of music places of the soul. particularly influential: 12-note In order to understand the ideas Plato “serialism,” pioneered by Arnold and innovations described in this Schoenberg and refined by Pierre book, it is useful to be familiar Boulez, and “aleatoricism”—in with the “building blocks” of which chance played a role in the Western classical music, many composition or performance of music. of which were devised by medieval monks, drawing on concepts New influences formulated by the Ancient Greeks. These musical experiments coincided with the evolution of jazz Notes are the fundamental and later the explosion of pop and material of all music, either sung or played on an instrument. The

INTRODUCTION 17 A feature of the Baroque, Classical, For listeners, the most noticeable woodwind, brass, and percussion and Romantic periods was the difference between a Renaissance instruments, and—since the system of major-minor tonality in song and a full-blown 19th-century 1950s—electronic technology. which a key note, called the tonic, symphony is the sound of the voice is the gravitational center around and/or instruments. Throughout This book which a composition revolves— history, new musical instruments How composers put these musical moving away from the tonic to have been invented and existing elements together to develop create tension and toward the ones refined, giving composers different genres of classical music, tonic to resolve it. and musicians new sounds with and the factors that influenced which to work. them, is explained in this book. Musical forms It presents significant milestones Different styles of music emphasize Each of these instrument has in the history of Western classical particular aspects of its structure. its own distinctive timbre, or music: not only the great composers Some focus on melody, perhaps tone, and different combinations and their works but also some with a harmonic accompaniment, of instruments and voices have lesser-known figures whose music as was common during the Early evolved over time. These range exemplifies a style or period. They Baroque period; others employ from a cappella (the unaccompanied are arranged in chronological order, counterpoint, the interweaving voice), through solo instruments, placing them in a wider historical of two or more melodies in a like the piano, and small chamber context to show how they reflect complex form of polyphony that is groups, such as the string quartet, society and culture. one of the defining characteristics to the full concert orchestra of more of Western classical music. than 70 players of stringed, Each article focuses on a piece of music that illustrates a particular Also important is the musical The time is past when development in music, discussing form, or shape, of a piece of music: music was written for a its salient features and its it may comprise recognizably significance in relation to other different sections, perhaps in handful of aesthetes. works by the same composer, or contrasting keys. For example, Sergei Prokofiev in the same style. An “In Context” in a simple “ABA” form, a musical sidebar and a “See also” section idea is presented, followed by a refer to other pieces of music that second idea, and then the opening are relevant to the one under idea is repeated. Musical forms discussion. As not every major range from simple songs, such composer, let alone all the great as the Lieder, made popular pieces of music, could be featured, by Franz Schubert and Robert a Directory section at the end of Schumann, to the complexity the book details other significant of a multimovement symphony. composers and their work. ■

EARLY MUSIC 1000–1400



20 INTRODUCTION Pope Gregory I Frankish ruler The anonymous treatise Hildegard of gathers plainchant Charlemagne instructs his Musica enchiriadis is Bingen’s musical play musicians to employ the published, the first Ordo Virtutum depicts traditions from nuances of Roman singers, publication to name across the Church leading to the development musical pitches with a war between the in an attempt to the letters A to G. Virtues and the Devil of neumatic notation. over the human soul. unify them. C.600 C.800 C.875 C.1151 C.1026 C.750 C.850 Gregorian chant, a The development of Guido d’Arezzo synthesis of Roman and the sequence, text pens his treatise associated with a Micrologus and Gallican chants, is particular chant melody dedicates it to Tedald, commissioned by French of the Latin Mass, Bishop of Arezzo, in redefines liturgical music. Carolingian rulers. Tuscany, Italy. W hat is now known it was exclusively vocal music, the melody. At this point, some as Western Classical without accompaniment, and time in the ninth century, the pace music evolved from consisted of a single line of music, of change began to accelerate: a the music of the medieval Church known as monody, which could be standardized form of church in Europe, which in turn had its sung by one voice or a choir singing service, the Mass, was established, roots in Jewish religious music and in unison. The tunes they sang are and specific plainchants were the music of classical Rome and called “plainchant,” and each assigned to its various sections. Greece. Our knowledge of this early region had its own collection of Notation also became more music is limited, however, as it was chants. At the beginning of the sophisticated, with a horizontal an oral tradition, memorized by seventh century, however, Pope line to clarify the pitch of the notes, musicians and passed down from Gregory attempted to collect, showing how high or low they are. generation to generation. The little categorize, standardize, and that is known for certain comes teach these regional variations Most significant musically was from contemporary accounts, which of plainchant as part of his efforts the introduction of “organum,” almost exclusively describe sacred to unify liturgical practice. a simple form of harmony. Where music, as the Church effectively plainchant had consisted of a single had a monopoly on literacy. In order to guarantee that line of music, organum had two, and performance of these plainchants later three or even four, lines. One The role of the Church was standardized across the whole voice would sing the plainchant, The story of classical music begins of Christendom, a form of music and the other a parallel line of with sacred Latin texts sung by notation was developed. This used music a few notes higher or lower. monks as part of acts of worship. symbols, known as “neumes,” The performance was simple— written above the text to give a As the music became more graphic indication of the shape of complex over the years, the means of writing it down also evolved,

EARLY MUSIC 1000–1400 21 Adam de la Halle’s The Tournai Mass, French composer Le Jeu de Robin et composed by several Guillaume de de Marion, regarded anonymous authors, is the as the first secular first known polyphonic Machaut’s French play, is polyphonic mass premiered in Naples. setting of a Mass Messe de Notre transcribed to a manuscript. Dame is composed. C.1280–1283 C.1320 C.1360–1365 C.1170 C.1300 C.1350 In Paris, Léonin Music theorist The Toulouse bridges the gap Johannes de Mass assembles between plainchant Garlandia’s De polyphonic Mass and polyphony in his mensurabili musica movements adapted Magnus liber organi. explains modal from existing motets rhythmic systems. for three voices. and in the 11th century a system of the plainchant, was succeeded By the mid-14th century, polyphonic of differently shaped dots written by a more complex style, polyphony, music with interweaving vocal on a staff of four or more horizontal in which each voice has its own lines had become known as Ars lines was established this way— melody. This new technique was nova, the “New Art,” and composers the forerunner of our modern pioneered by Léonin and Pérotin who had mastered the technique system of music notation. in Paris and rapidly caught on were commissioned to write across Europe. Masses for the cathedrals. Music spreads Notation not only helped standardize At the same time, secular The new style was not performance but also enabled music was flourishing, too, in the exclusively developed for the musicians to write new music, form of traveling minstrels who Christian Mass. Composers also which they did from the 12th entertained in the aristocratic wrote shorter settings of words in century onward, marking the courts and on the street. Known the same polyphonic style called beginning of classical music as as trobadors, trouvères, or similar “motets.” Some were settings of it is known today. Music was no regional variations, they were sacred texts, but a number of longer anonymous and passed poets as well as composers and “serious” composers were also on orally, and this led to the performers and, unlike church writing polyphonic motets on emergence of composers and musicians, sang their songs with secular poems. As the medieval compositions. This new breed an instrumental accompaniment. period drew to a close, and the of composer was keen to try out It is likely that these entertainers Renaissance got under way, innovatory techniques. The simple also played purely instrumental the Church’s monopoly on music harmony of organum, with voices music for dancing, but as such was on the wane. Sacred and singing in parallel with the melody secular music was still an oral secular music were about to tradition, none has survived. flourish side by side. ■

22 POTSHFAETLHWMEEOMADPOYONINSK PLAINCHANT (6th–9th CENTURY), ANONYMOUS IN CONTEXT T he early Christian Church into the Divine Office or Liturgy began as a Jewish sect, of the Hours—the basis of Roman FOCUS so the evolving liturgy, or Catholic worship. Plainsong forms of service, of the new faith shared many traits with Jewish The singing of rites BEFORE worship, including the repeated As Christianity spread from c.1400 bce A clay tablet from speaking, or chanting, of scripture the Holy Land, so did its rites the ancient city of Ugarit in and prayer. Specifically, Christian and ceremonies, celebrated in northern Syria records the aspects focused on particular the languages of the communities hymn of a religious cult, with types of observance, such as the where it took root, such as Aramaic fragmentary musical notation. reenactment of the Last Supper in Palestine and Greek in Rome. (later to become the Mass) and As a result, different chant styles c.200 bce–100 ce Found psalm-singing, scripture readings, evolved, including the Mozarabic in on a tombstone in a town and prayer to mark the new Iberia, the Gallican in Roman Gaul, near Ephesus, in Turkey, Church’s holy days and feasts. and Ambrosian, after St. Ambrose, the “song of Seikilos” is the Over time, these rites evolved a 4th-century bishop of Milan. earliest complete, notated musical composition. Of these earliest liturgies, only the Roman and Ambrosian chants AFTER have survived in a recognizable 1562–1563 The Catholic form. They became known as Church’s Council of Trent bans “plainsong” (a direct translation the singing of the medieval of the Latin cantus planus) for the embellishments of plainchant simplicity of their unaccompanied known as “sequences.” melodies, which were sung in a free, speechlike rhythm, reflecting 1896 The monks of the the unmetrical prose of prayers, Benedictine Abbaye de psalms, and the scriptures. This Solesmes publish their Liber music, though unstructured, largely usualis, an attempt to restore Gregorian chant, distorted by A wooden sculpture of St. Ambrose centuries of use, to a more (c.1500) shows him in his study. The pristine and standardized text. Roman bishop championed the hymn, or “sacred song,” as a key part of church worship.

EARLY MUSIC 1000–1400 23 See also: Micrologus 24–25 ■ Magnus liber organi 28–31 ■ Messe de Notre The Mass Dame 36–37 ■ Canticum Canticorum 46–51 ■ Great Service 52–53 It took until at least the 11th followed the ancient Greek modal This Gregorian chant, Hodie century for the Mass to reach system of seven-note octaves made Cantandus (“today we must sing”), by a final form. Its music became up of five tones and two semitones, St. Tuotilo, a 10th-century Irish monk, known as the Gradual, a book and consisted of two types of has neumes on the upper lines and divided into the Ordinary (the chant: the responsorial and the Latin script underneath. elements that remain the same antiphonal. The former involved every week) and the Proper more elaborate, solo chants, with a Gregory consolidated the music of (the parts that are particular response from the choir. Antiphonal the Roman rite and is said to have to the time and day in the chants, where singing alternated instigated a papal schola cantorum Church calendar). between choir and congregation, (“choir school”) to do justice to the consisted of simpler melodies. evolving repertoire. The Ordinary of the Mass has five parts. The first, Kyrie These forms were shared by Expanded repertoire eleison (“Lord, have mercy”), Roman and Ambrosian plainsong, Under the rule of Charlemagne is an ancient text in Greek (the but Ambrosian chant was smoother (742–814), the first Holy Roman language of Roman services in its note progression and more Emperor, Roman chants were until about the 4th century); dramatic than Roman chant. It also synthesized with elements of the the second, Gloria in excelsis made greater use of melisma, in Gallican style, which was also Deo (“Glory to God in the which a string of notes was sung in common use. This expanded highest”), was introduced on one syllable—a style still used collection formed the basis of in the 7th century; the third, in Middle Eastern and Asian song. Gregorian chant, which remains at the Credo (“I believe”) was the heart of Catholic Church music. adopted in 1014 (though is By the middle of the first Plainsong was also the foundation believed to date from the millennium, thousands of chants for medieval and Renaissance 4th century); and the fourth, existed across the different rites. music and its notation, based on the Sanctus (“Holy”), rooted The sheer variety of unique styles the staves and neumes, or notes, in Jewish liturgy, had become and traditions was addressed by of written chants. ■ part of the Roman rite before Gregory I (Pope 590–604 ce), who the reforms of Pope Gregory I. wished to unify liturgical practice. The fifth section, Agnus Dei (“The Lamb of God”), was added to the Roman Mass in the 7th century, originating from a Syrian rite. The ritual of the Mass was based on the Last Supper, shared by Christ and His disciples, seen here in this detail from a 6th-century manuscript.

24 USTO,LR, EL,AMI, FA, MICROLOGUS (c.1026), GUIDO D’AREZZO IN CONTEXT M odern Western musical The Guidonian Hand was a system notation has its origins invented to teach monks the easiest FOCUS in Europe’s monasteries way to reference the 20 notes of Early music notation at the end of the first millennium. medieval liturgical music. The earliest musical symbols, BEFORE called neumes, were written aids pitch was now not only fixed from 500 ce Boethius, a Roman for chants that used simple pen note to note, but the singer knew senator and philosopher, writes strokes to remind the monks if at a glance on which note to start. De institutione musica, which the music moved up or down, or was still in use as a music remained on the same tone. Guido’s treatise Micrologus primer in the 16th century. (c.1026) describes the singing Diastematic, or “heightened,” aid for which he is best known, the 935 ce In France, Odo of neumes brought more clarity Guidonian Hand. If a modern singer Cluny’s Enchiridion musices to notated chant by formalizing has to describe a particular note, becomes the first book to the note shapes and imagining they might picture the continuous name musical pitches with a single horizontal line across row of notes using seven letters the letters A to G. the page. This gave a “horizon” from A to G, repeated over the against which the singer could seven octaves of a piano. To specify AFTER work out the pitch. Nonetheless, a particular “C,” the singer might 1260 German music theorist heightened neumes were open Franco of Cologne writes to misinterpretation and greater Ars cantus mensurabilis, precision was needed. which adds refinements to Guido’s notation. Invention of the staff The solution, credited to Guido 1300 In Paris, Johannes d’Arezzo, an Italian monk and de Garlandia writes De music theorist (though he may mensurabili musica, describing have only formalized what was the six rhythmic modes. then current practice) was to draw four lines across the page, allowing the singer to precisely gauge the melody’s movement. Guidonian notation sometimes has one of the lines in yellow ink to show the note C, and one in red to show F, so

EARLY MUSIC 1000–1400 25 See also: Plainchant 22–23 ■ Ordo Virtutum 26–27 ■ Le jeu de Robin et de Marion 32–35 ■ Great Service 52–53 ■ Monteverdi’s Vespers 64–69 ■ St. Matthew Passion 98–105 I have determined to his thumb’s middle joint, his voice notate this antiphoner, ascended to A, and so on up the so that any intelligent scale, spiraling his finger around the joints and tips of his fingers to and diligent person indicate all 20 notes (going into can learn a chant. falsetto as the spiral tightened Guido d’Arezzo and the octaves ascended). say “middle C” (in the middle of Solmization syllables Italian monk and music theorist the keyboard). However, if that Guido backed up these seven Guido d’Arezzo wears a laurel wreath is not the one they had in mind, letter names with six “solmization” in a portrait painted by Antonio Maria they might have to say clumsily, syllables—ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la—a Crespi in the early 16th century, some “C, the octave above middle C.” system of talking about melodies 600 years after Guido’s death. in an abstract way. This was the Guido, requiring only 2.5 precursor to today’s more familiar “C sol-fa-ut” on the Guidonian octaves (20 notes) to cover the sol-fa (doh, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti), but Hand and the lowest G, using the vocal range of the chants, used Guido’s syllables differ in that his Greek letter name, was “gamma the same seven note names we use solmization did not use the note ut,” hence the expression still in today (A to G) for his singing aid. ti, so it has only six notes—a use today “running the gamut.” The novice monk would point to hexachord. As the range went the tip of his left-hand thumb and beyond the six notes, the hexachord The monk could now easily sing a low G. Sliding his finger to had to be repeated in overlapping specify any of the 20 notes in patterns over the extent of the conversation, in writing, or by 20 notes of Guido’s Hand. Each simply pointing to his hand. ■ note then ended up with both a base letter name and a secondary coordinate, derived from the note’s unique position on the hand, to designate the octave. Modern “middle C” translates to The modes developed soon after) were minor scale). (The mode on “B,” categorized. Modes helped sometimes called “Locrian” DE F GAB C D monks remember the many mode, was not used in the liturgical works. Western music of the Middle Western music inherited a Ages as it was too dissonant.) theoretical foundation based on Modes can be played by early church musical practices using only the white notes on Music was organized in Greece, Syria, and Byzantium. a piano. If you were to play six according to this modal theory Sometime in the 10th century, complete seven-note scales, until, by the time of 18th- the principle of musical “modes” starting on each of the following century Baroque composers, (groupings or “scales” of notes) notes, that would give an idea such as Bach and Handel, the developed, by which the various of how each basic corresponding “major” and “minor” principle melodies of plainchant (the basis church mode would sound: C of tonal harmony essentially for “Gregorian” chants that (Ionian mode, corresponding reduced the number of scales with the major scale); D (Dorian); to just two. From then on, E (Phrygian); F (Lydian); G music was considered to be (Mixolydian); A (Aeolian, in a particular “key” and corresponding with the natural not in any given “mode.”

26 PWTSEENAL-SSMHTOSRUIOLNNDGASPISNAGLTERY ORDO VIRTUTUM (c.1151), HILDEGARD OF BINGEN IN CONTEXT O ne of the most original Hildegard receives a divine voices in sacred music of vision in an image from a 13th-century FOCUS the early Middle Ages was manuscript. She is accompanied by Early female composers that of the female cleric Hildegard Volmar of Disibodenberg (left) and of Bingen in Germany. Her musical her confidante Richardis von Stade. BEFORE output is also one of the largest of c.920 The surviving two any single identifiable medieval Hildegard grew up under the stanzas of Jórunn Skáldmaer’s composer. Her collection entitled tutelage of a young visionary Sendibítr (“A biting message”) Symphonia armonie celestium called Jutta of Sponheim. With represent the longest skaldic revelationum (“The symphony of support from Jutta and a monk verse (a type of Norwegian the harmony of celestial revelation”), named Volmar at the abbey of poem possibly sung in for example, includes more than Disibodenberg, Hildegard learned performance) by a woman. 70 plainchant compositions. the psalms and practiced the 1150 In Paris, Abbess Héloïse possibly composes the Easter music drama Ortolanus and the Easter sequence Epithalamica, attributed to theologian Peter Abelard. AFTER 1180 Beatriz Comtessa de Dia writes a collection of five troubadour songs. The song A chantar m’er de so qu’eu no volria survives with notation. 1210 Juliana of Liège may have written music for the Feast of Corpus Christi, which is said to have come to her in a vision.

EARLY MUSIC 1000–1400 27 See also: Le jeu de Robin et de Marion 32–35 ■ Messe de Notre Dame 36–37 ■ Missa l’homme armé 42 ■ The Wreckers 232–239 ■ blue cathedral 326 chant repertory of the church Heaven was opened and a Hildegard of Bingen year, studied the playing of the fiery light of exceeding psaltery (a stringed instrument), brilliance came and Born in 1098 as the youngest and learned to write Latin. Like child in a large family of Jutta, Hildegard professed to be permeated my whole brain … lesser nobility, Hildegard divinely inspired, claiming to have and immediately I knew the spent her early childhood in “never learned neumes, or any meaning of the exposition Bermersheim, south of Mainz, other part of music.” While the in Germany. She suffered truth of this assertion is unknown, of the Scriptures. from ill health, and even it may have been an attempt to Hildegard of Bingen before the age of five began disassociate herself and Jutta from to see visions, drawing the an education that ordinarily would becomes more expressive and family’s attention to her not have been available to women. animated, the sweeping vocal spiritual acuity by predicting For women in the 12th century, to lines of Humilitas (Humility), Fede the color of an unborn calf. profess knowledge of the trivium (Faith), and Spes (Hope) inspiring At about the age of eight, (the rhetorical arts) or quadrivium the sister Virtues to respond she was placed in the care of (the sciences and music theory) with ardor. However, the original Jutta of Sponheim, a visionary or to provide interpretation of the notation is little more than the who lived as a recluse in a Bible might be considered a direct barest of bones: recordings with hermitage near the abbey threat to male authority. fiddles, flute, and harmonized at Disibodenberg. accompaniments represent Magnum opus the modern interpretation of The women’s hermitage The earliest extant morality this sketch. was later opened to monastic play, and one of the first musical aspirants, and at the age of dramas to be recorded, Hildegard’s Writings and divinity 14 Hildegard devoted her life most well-known work, Ordo Hildegard’s letters reveal her to God as a Benedictine nun. Virtutum (“The play of the Virtues”), status as “seer and mystic,” which On the death of Jutta in 1136, contains more than 80 melodies allowed her not just the freedom and at the age of 38, Hildegard that form a musical drama most to offer stern advice (even to the was elected to lead the likely intended to be performed by pope) but opportunities for musical religious community. She the nuns of Hildegard’s order. The expression. She often emphasized performed this role until her play calls for a cast of more than the transcendent origin of her death in 1179 but also found 20 singing roles and concerns works. Music connected her to time to write three volumes the struggle for a soul (Anima) a lost Eden, before Adam and Eve of visionary theology, scientific between 17 “Virtues” (Humility precipitated the Fall of humankind works, and religious verse. is the Queen of the Virtues) and by eating the forbidden fruit. She their adversary, Diabolus (the envisaged her texts being at the Other key work Devil). Diabolus, perhaps originally service of the music, so that “those spoken by Hildegard’s friend who hear might be taught about c.1150s Symphonia armonie and scribe Volmar, lacks all inward things.” ■ celestium revelationum harmony and articulates in spoken interjections. The accompanying melodies in the manuscript indicate when the Virtues sing as a chorus and gives more florid music to the solo voices. As the Virtues step forward to introduce themselves, the music

28 ITTSOWTSIOCINEPGRAY IN CONTEXT MAGNUS LIBER ORGANI (c.1170), LÉONIN FOCUS The rise of vocal harmony BEFORE c.1000 More than 160 organa, probably written by Wulfstan, the Cantor of Winchester Cathedral, are collected in the Winchester Troper. c.1140 The Codex Calixtinus mentions a certain Magister Albertus Parisiensis as composer of the first notated work for three voices. AFTER c.1200 Pérotin improves and expands on Léonin’s work in the Magnus liber organi. T he development of polyphony (richly layered music for multiple voices) in the mid-12th century is closely linked to Notre Dame in Paris, the lavish new cathedral built by Maurice de Sully when be became Bishop of Paris in 1160. Around this time, a French composer called Léonin was creating fresh embellishments for two voices, in order to enhance the traditional plainchant. Under the patronage of the cathedral, Léonin and a number of other innovative composers formed what later became known as the Notre Dame School. Composing organa There are no records of Léonin until nearly a century after he was active, when an Englishman studying in Paris (known to musicology as “Anonymous IV”) wrote about Master Léoninus.

EARLY MUSIC 1000–1400 29 See also: Plainchant 22–23 ■ Micrologus 24–25 ■ Messe de Notre Dame 36–37 ■ Canticum Canticorum 46–51 ■ Monteverdi’s Vespers 64–69 ■ Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott 78–79 He described Léonin as the The nave of Notre Dame de Paris shifting the single note to an optimus organista (best composer was completed shortly after the death adjacent pitch, to make a more of organa, or vocal harmonizations) of Maurice de Sully in 1196. Léonin and pleasant relationship with the and the author of the Magnus liber Pérotin created their music in or close chant before moving back to the organi (Great Book of Organum), an to the new cathedral. finalis. Traditions involving a fixed anthology of music used by the note accompaniment are still heard cathedral to solemnify the liturgy. century, but the stages in the today, in Sufi Muslim Qawwali development of harmony-singing music from India and Pakistan, Anonymous IV writes that are unclear. The papal Schola and in bagpipe music. Léonin’s Great Book was used until cantorum (choir) of the 7th century the time of Pérotin (c.1160–1205), maintained a total of seven singers, A sinful sound who was known as the best including three scholae (scholars) The move toward polyphony was composer of discants—an organum as well as an archiparaphonista not universally welcomed. Some with countermelodies on top of the (the fourth-ranking singer) and within the church objected to the plainsong. Pérotin shortened and three paraphonistae, a Greek term new methods—notably the English improved Léonin’s organa, wrote meaning “one who sings alongside cardinal Robert of Courçon, who better clausulae (musical episodes the chant.” Some musicologists criticized the writers of organum inserted in the chant), and also believe this may suggest the on the grounds that this new music composed organa for three and four presence of singers who specialized was effeminate. In his Summa, he voices. According to Anonymous in a harmonizing role. wrote that “If a wanton prelate IV, Pérotin’s music was still in use gives benefices to such wanton ❯❯ at Notre Dame in his time (c.1280). The simplest harmonizing technique was for a singer to hold Cistercian monks at Zwettl Abbey, the finalis (principal note) of the Austria, practice choral singing in this mode of the piece as a sustained miniature accompanying notation for note underneath the chant. This the Graduale Cisterciense (c.1268). A would be sung to an open vowel graduale is a liturgical chant or hymn. sound, perhaps occasionally Early harmony Before the time of Léonin, vocal harmonies were far simpler. Theorists took a certain interest in the practice of singing in parts from the latter half of the 9th

30 THE RISE OF VOCAL HARMONY Pérotin’s Alleluia nativitas was written for three voices. As seen here, the number of lines in a staff was not fixed at this time; they merely gave a rough idea of the “height” of the notes. singers in order that this kind of minstrelish and wanton music may be heard in his church, I believe that he becomes contaminated with the disease of simony.” Attitudes such as Courçon’s, which associated the intertwined male voices of polyphony with sodomy, sought to discredit the new musical style by associating it with sin. Two handbooks also suggests a hybrid method, describe this technique as The first works that attempted whereby the vox organalis a version of “heterophony” to explain vocal harmony were (“accompanying voice”) either (embellishing a single line). Musica enchiriadis (“The Music holds a pitch or moves in parallel Handbook”), c.900, and its harmony with the vox principalis Scattered examples companion text Scholia enchiriadis. (“main voice”) before returning A short piece of organum for two The simplest harmonizing method to a unison with the chant at the voices moving independently came illustrated by the writer of the ends of phrases. to light in 2014 on the back leaf of a handbooks was singing in octaves. manuscript in the British Library This technique was known as Although simple organum that can be dated to c.900. It “magadizing” in ancient Greece involves more than one voice, this appears to demonstrate that some and occurs naturally when men and singing in octaves is not normally singers in northwest Germany were boys sing in unison. The method of described by modern writers as quite adept at this hybrid style of utilizing a basic harmony, parallel “polyphony,” because the two parts organum by the end of the 9th to the original chant, was called are not independent. Creating century. Although it is a single “simple organum” by the writer of harmony by simply following the isolated example, the piece (Sancte the enchiriadis. Scholia enchiriadis melody at a different octave (or Bonifati martyr, “St. Boniface the other harmonic interval) makes the Martyr”) is agreed to be the Masters of organum … set harmonizing part a slave to the oldest existing notated piece of minstrelish and effeminate chant’s shape and movement. The polyphonic music for performance. effect is to enrich the sound of the things before young and chant, but the technique of finding The Winchester Troper (c.1000), ignorant persons. this added harmony has little a manuscript copied into two books finesse. Musicologists prefer to at Winchester Cathedral from Robert of Courçon English cardinal (c.1160–1219)

EARLY MUSIC 1000–1400 31 Development of indication of pitch, either of the [Pérotin] notated his books vocal harmony original chant melody or in the very faithfully according to harmonizing vox organalis, making the use and custom of his Plainchant: accurate transcription of these A single unaccompanied pieces difficult. master, and even better. vocal line in free rhythm, Anonymous IV A century after the Winchester like speech. Troper, The School of St. Martial of to one of six metrical patterns Limoges explored polyphony in 90 (trochaic, iambic, and so forth, akin Organum: pieces in four French manuscripts to Classical poetic meter). These Addition of a second (c.1120–1180), and the Codex are indicated by two note shapes, voice at a different Calixtinus (c.1140) from Santiago longa and brevis (long and short), de Compostela, in northwest Spain. the duration of the note depending octave paralleling The notation of this “Aquitanian on context. Léonin’s development of the first voice. polyphony” was less ambiguous in organum in the discant style owed pitch than the Troper and suggests much to this innovation. Counterpoint: that most of the repertoire was The interweaving of sung to a rhythm. The pieces are Pérotin, Léonin’s successor in simultaneous playing or mostly for two singers in a more the Parisian style of discant, went singing. Also known as melismatic style, in which the one better, composing organum upper voice sometimes has many triplum, and even organum contrapuntal. notes, sung over a less active lower quadruplum, for three and four voice. The Codex Calixtinus voices respectively. Proclaiming Harmony: contains what may be the first their magnificence, the Bishop of Three or more musical notes composition notated for three Paris decreed in 1198 that Pérotin’s sung simultaneously to voices, the Congaudeant Catholici. four-voice works Viderunt omnes and Sederunt principes should be create a chord. The Notre Dame School performed on Christmas Day, As the Cathedral of Notre Dame St. Stephen’s Day (December 26), French sources a few decades rose up on the Île de la Cité in Paris, and again on New Year’s Day. ■ after Sancte Bonifati martyr, gives the discant style emerged, which a snapshot of monastic musical allowed the upper voice of organa life in England prior to the Norman more freedom. The roles of the two Conquest. Although the second singers diverged into that of the volume contains 174 organa florid soloist and an accompanying (making it the first substantial voice holding long notes. This corpus of composed polyphony), distinction was reflected in the the notation assumes that the new titles of tenor (“one who holds”) singer already has some knowledge and duplum (“second voice”). of the repertoire. The unstaffed neumes do not give a precise At this time, Léonin introduced a greater degree of rhythmic organization to his compositions, regulating the flow of the meter in an early form of “modal rhythm.” In its mature iteration, modal rhythm sets the line in motion according Pérotin, called Perotin Magister (“Pérotin the Master”) by Anonymous IV, is believed to have lived from c.1160–1230. He is pictured here with church bells at Notre Dame de Paris.

32 IN CONTEXT STTAHWNEEDNEAITRGLHAYDTSIENAI,GNAGLE FOCUS Secular medieval music LE JEU DE ROBIN ET DE MARION (1280–1283), ADAM DE LA HALLE BEFORE c.1160 Festum stultorum (Feast of Fools) appears in Paris and Beauvais as an opportunity around Christmas for clerics to indulge in a parody of the liturgy. c.1230 Ludus Danielis (The Play of Daniel) is written in Beauvais as a liturgical drama in Latin. AFTER Late 14th century The annual cycle of Mystery Plays (performances of biblical scenes set to music) begins in York and Wakefield, England. D iverse musical traditions are known to have flourished in European towns and villages in the Middle Ages, as they did in the courts of noble families, yet almost none of this popular music survives in notation. While the Church used scribes to regulate and record its own repertoire for posterity, much secular music was passed on orally. However, the lack of written sources among common people is not just the consequence of poor literacy. For many dance musicians and the singers of epics, a written text would not have reflected the skilful, improvisatory nature of their profession, honed by generations of hereditary entertainers. Furthermore, by recording their works in a manuscript, they risked handing their cherished repertoire to rivals.

EARLY MUSIC 1000–1400 33 See also: Missa l’homme armé 42 ■ Water Music 84–89 ■ Musique de Adam de la Halle table 106 ■ The Magic Flute 134–137 ■ Die schöne Müllerin 150–155 French musician Adam de la Le Jeu de Robin et de Marion was (where oïl meant “yes”). Each of Halle was born in the cloth- performed in St. Petersburg, Russia, these languages had its own working city of Arras in 1222, in 1907. Its set design was recorded in bardic tradition: the south had the and grew up learning about watercolor by Mstislav Dobuzhinsky. music of the trobador and female music as part of his theological trobairitz, while the north used education at the abbey of The sources of European secular the word “trouvère,” both of which Vaucelles, founded only a music tended to be found where may have come from the Early century before. De la Halle’s popular styles aroused the interest French word trobar, meaning father expected him to enter of the Church or nobility. The “to find or invent” (a song). An the Church, but he chose a crusading knights of southern alternative root may be the Arabic different path. After a short- France found the highly developed word tarab, meaning “source of joy.” lived marriage, he enrolled at styles of instrumental and vocal One of the earliest troubadours, the University of Paris, where, music they encountered on William IX, Duke of Aquitaine, among other things, he learned Crusades in the Holy Land was said to have sung “in verse the polyphonic techniques particularly appealing, this being with pleasant tunes” about his that he would later apply to a period of great cultural exchange experience of leading the so-called popular musical genres. as well as of conflict and hostility. “Crusade of the Faint-Hearted” into Anatolia (now Turkey) in 1101. De la Halle initially used Languages and influences His songs are clearly influenced his verse to speak out against Medieval secular music features by Arabic poetic conventions, in the corrupt administration of distinct poetic identities linked to particular the popular song-forms Arras but later entered into regional languages. Two medieval of muwashah and zajal. noble service. It was in the French languages emerged from service of Charles of Anjou, Latin: langue d’oc or Occitan in A play with music who became king of Naples, Southern France and Northern The 13th-century musician Adam that he wrote Le jeu de Robin Spain (where oc meant “yes”); and de la Halle has been described as a et de Marion. Halle died a few langue d’oïl, north of the Loire trouvère. De la Halle probably wrote years later, sometime between 1285 and 1288. Other key works Date unknown Mout me fu grief/Robin m’aime/Portare (Great was my sadness/Robin loves me/Portare) Date unknown A jointes mains vous proi (Take my hand, I pray) Le jeu de Robin et de Marion (“The Play of Robin and Marion”) for his fellow Frenchmen as part of a Christmas celebration in Naples in 1284. The French noblemen had taken refuge there after the island of Sicily had overthrown the rule of Charles I of Anjou (Adam’s patron) in a bloody Easter coup. The Jeu tells the story of a country maid who is wooed by a lustful knight yet remains true to her lover ❯❯

34 SECULAR MEDIEVAL MUSIC Robin. The titular characters identify the piece as pantomime etiquette between a knight and perform the bulk of the music, in (drama of spoken text with songs). an idealized lady, based on the monophonic songs that de la Halle Halle’s comedy knew no limits—he principles of allegiance and fealty created by setting his own lyrics poked fun at the church and its that defined a noble life. De la to tunes in a popular style. corrupt clerics, at the people of Halle’s Robin and Marion played to Arras, where he lived and worked, this idea, as a depiction of a knight Some have called it the “first and even his own family and life. trying to woo his love, but was comic opera,” although modern also influenced by the French audiences might more readily Chivalric tales pastoral storytelling tradition. The songs of both trobadors and Henry of Meissen performs at court trouvères—have their roots in the Trobador verse has survived in the Codex Manesse (1300). The medieval culture of fin’amor (courtly well: there are more than 2,000 musician was called Frauenlob (“praise love)—the chivalric code of extant poems composed by more of women”) for his chivalric songs. than 450 known poets. However, transmission of the musical accompaniment for these songs is patchy, with barely 10 percent of the poems having their associated melodies relayed in notation. Trouvère activity in northern France began with the 13th-century poet Chrétien de Troyes, about 70 years after the first trobador in the south. The number of surviving trouvère songs is similar to that of the southern corpus, but more than 60 percent of trouvère songs have music—albeit without precise information concerning rhythm. Southern Europe While trobadors and trouvères were a distinct group of courtly poets writing in specific poetic genres, When I see the lark Set flight for joy toward the sun … It’s a marvel that my heart Does not melt with longing at the sight. Bernart de Ventadorn

EARLY MUSIC 1000–1400 35 lesser entertainers were manifold, is the main surviving source of Medieval instruments and their activities were varied. In goliard song. The title ménestrel southern Europe, a musician might (minstrel) meanwhile refers to Many of the instruments go by the title of joglar or joglaresa, one who is a “little minister,” in associated with European while their northern counterparts service perhaps at court, or to medieval music have their were called jongleurs. The skillsets a city. Armed with finely honed roots in North Africa, Central of these musicians encompassed musical skills and a claim to a Asia, and the Balkans. These feats of dexterity, fluency in any patron’s protection, a minstrel included the lute (a string instrument required for dancing, might hope to escape some of instrument with a back singing songs of love and heroes, the opprobrium that was often shaped like the shell of a or simply playing the fool. Yet, levelled at a jongleur. By the tortoise), the rebec (a spoon- in spite of the joy they brought, 14th century, however, the term shaped bowed instrument), itinerant entertainers were not ménestrel was increasingly used and the shawm, the precursor only on the lowest rung of the social in France as a term to describe all of the oboe. The European order but were also outside of the urban musicians—many of whom tabor (drum) is akin to the protection of the law. One example played in taverns or on the streets. Indian tabla while nakers of joglar song is the work of Martin were related to the Asian Codax (c.1250), written in the style Songs in German naqqara (kettledrums). The of cantiga de amigo, a genre that The genre of courtly love extended English word “fanfare” told stories from a woman’s point all the way from Latin Europe to the probably derived from Arabic of view. Codax, for example, evoked German-speaking peoples, where anfar, meaning trumpets. the emotions of a woman left on the the Minnesinger sang songs about shore in Vigo (a fishing town in chivalric romances. Like his French Early poets often Galicia, Spain), waiting for her counterpart, the Minnesinger was accompanied themselves on beloved to come home from sea. normally welcome in noble houses the vielle, a bowed string as a social equal, and examples of instrument supported on the Tavern players early Minnelieder (“love songs”) collarbone. A vielle could have Another type of medieval musician suggest that trouvère songs were anywhere from three to six at this time, the goliards, had a lot in known in Germany. By 1200, the strings passing over a flat common with traveling musicians, style asserted a stronger identity bridge, or string support. This but were, in fact, unemployed characterized by the work of Walther favored a harmonic style of clerics known for playing bawdy von Vogelweide—but, compared to playing with many strings songs in taverns that satirized the works from Spanish and French sounding at once—unlike the society at all levels. The Carmina traditions, few Minnelieder survive arched bridge of the modern Burana Manuscript (c.1200–1300) with contemporary melodies. ■ violin, which allows individual strings to be sounded, thus favoring melody. Europe’s secular music-makers Musicians fitted Troubadours Poets and Jongleurs Low-born Goliards Traveling Minstrels Musicians into distinct composers who performed itinerant storytellers, songsters who were former who initially performed categories that songs for the nobility that jugglers, and acrobats, clerics. They often sang for the nobility and later were defined by were inspired by the who also danced bawdy and satirical verses on street corners and in social status culture of courtly love. and sang. in Latin “a cappella.” public taverns. and their typical audience.

36 MSTHIUNASGTI,CMAINASDKAEDSSACNYIOCEUENCLEAUGH, MGUEISLSLEAUDME ENODTERMEADCAHMAEU(Tc.1360–1365), IN CONTEXT T he 14th century was one compositions based on one melody of the most turbulent and text, with other voices bringing FOCUS periods of medieval history. in different words and melodies). Polyphony and the The “Little Ice Age,” which began Each of Vitry’s motets, only 12 notation revolution around 1300, resulted in crop of which survive, displayed failures and famines, including different aspects of a technique BEFORE the Great Famine of 1312–1317, known today as isorhythm (from c.1320 The Tournai Mass is and the Black Death killed up to the Greek for “same rhythm”), the first known Mass that uses 60 percent of Europe’s population. which aimed to give structure polyphony—“many sounds.” to extended compositions. Such extreme social, economic, c.1350 The Toulouse Mass and environmental upheaval shook assembles polyphonic religious certainties. Scholars, Mass movements arranged such as the French scientist-cleric from existing motets (short, Nicole Oresme (c.1320–1382), began unaccompanied choral pieces). to envision a more complex universe than the faith-based AFTER view of the natural world. Music, 1415–1421 The Old Hall already embracing polyphony, Manuscript contains several was also influenced by this way polyphonic settings of the of thinking and exploded into Kyrie to suit the English new metrical complexity when fashion for elaboration of Oresme’s fellow Frenchman, the that section of the Mass. mathematician-composer Philippe de Vitry (1291–1361), devised a 1440s Missa Caput is an early precise method to notate rhythm. Mass by an English composer using a cantus firmus (“fixed A new order of rhythm Musicians illuminate a 1316 song”) around which other The new style became known manuscript of Le Roman de Fauvel, melodies are based. It includes as Ars nova after de Vitry’s treatise a French poem by Gervais du Bus, a bass voice below that of Ars nova notandi (“The New Art which is interspersed with some the tenor—one of the first of Notation”), published in 1322. of the first Ars nova music. compositions with a bass part. Vitry composed vocal pieces to demonstrate the novel notation in the form of motets (polyphonic

EARLY MUSIC 1000–1400 37 See also: Magnus liber organi 28–31 ■ Missa l’homme armée 42 ■ Missa Pange lingua 43 ■ Canticum Canticorum 46–51 ■ Monteverdi’s Vespers 64–69 Certain disciples of the (“even more subtle art”). Ars nova Guillaume de Machaut new art are preoccupied had become established and went on to form the basis for the Born in the Champagne with their measured development of rhythmic notation region of France around 1300, dividing up of beats … We in Western music. Machaut spent much of his life in and around the nearby forbid these methods. Changing the Mass city of Reims. After taking Pope John XXII De Vitry’s ideas found perhaps holy orders, in 1323 he joined their greatest flowering in the the household of John of Vitry took a series of notes in the music of Guillaume de Machaut, Luxembourg, King of Bohemia, tenor voice (called the color) and a 14th-century composer and traveling with him around applied a rhythmic pattern (called poet. Machaut used the same Eastern Europe and Italy as a talea) to it. The talea (rhythm) isorhythmic techniques in his own his chaplain and secretary. was usually shorter than the color motets and in the Kyrie, Sanctus, Through King John, Machaut (melody) so it might require several Agnus Dei, and Ite, missa est acquired lucrative benefices cycles of the talea to equal one movements of his Messe de Notre as canon of the cathedrals at repetition of the color. Dame, the first known setting of Verdun in 1330, Arras in 1332, polyphonic music for a complete and in Reims in 1337. The Church was not enamored Mass cycle by a single composer. of Ars nova, and Pope John XXII As well as using isorhythm to After King John’s death condemned it in a decree of 1323. unify elements of the Mass, at the Battle of Crécy in 1346, The clergy were alarmed by the Machaut also employed a plainsong Machaut found further style’s role in the secularization cantus firmus (“fixed song”) as a patronage from Bonne of of the once purely sacred motet, linking melody for each movement, Luxembourg, the second which was now appropriated as a from which other melodies develop, daughter of King John the way to comment on events of the and added a contratenor to raise Blind, and Charles II, King day. The satirical poem Le roman the number of voices from three of Navarre in Spain. The de Fauvel (c.1316), for example, (the traditional number) to a richer composer’s final years were contains 130 musical works, and more expansive four. spent in Reims, overseeing including five motets by de Vitry. the compilation of his works. Machaut secured his artistic He died in 1377 and was Despite the religious opposition, heritage by carefully managing his buried in Reims cathedral. the precision of the new notation own output, collecting his works opened the door to experiments in manuscripts that he compiled Other key works in rhythm and meter. These can during his lifetime. Besides be heard in the intricate and his importance as a composer, c.1330s Douce dame jolie shifting rhythms of the songs of Machaut was one of the greatest (virelai) the Italians Matteo da Perugia French poets of the medieval c.1340s Rose, liz, printemps, and Philippus de Caserta and the period, producing extensive poetic verdure (rondeau) French composer Baude Cordier narratives in the form of lais (lines c.1340s Voir dit (all working around 1400), in a style of verse with eight syllables) and that is now known as Ars subtilior dits (verse without music). He also developed shorter poetic genres with repeated phrases, or refrains, such as the ballade, rondeau, and virelai, which became popular vehicles of expression for poets and composers of subsequent generations. ■

RENAIS 1400–1600

SANCE

40 INTRODUCTION Franco-Flemish Thomas Tallis’s composer Josquin 40-part motet Missa Rex seculorum is Desprez sets music to written as a cantus firmus the Ordinary of the Spem in alium, is Mass in his Missa composed, featuring Mass in the influential English style, attributed Pange lingua. eight choirs of five either to John Dunstaple voices each. or Leonel Power. C.1430 C.1515 C.1570 1568 1572 C.1460 Guillaume Dufay Italian composer and Spanish composer composes the Mass diplomat Alessandro Tomás Luis de Victoria writes his L’Homme armé, Striggio premieres first collection of employing the third his motet Ecce motets while working interval in the scale to beatam lucem in create a sweet sound. in Rome. Munich, Germany. T he cultural movement plainchant melody. Echoing medieval times was being known as the Renaissance the Renaissance trend toward challenged, and in 1517 Martin emerged in Italy as early increasing secularization, he Luther triggered the Reformation. as the 14th century. However, a started to use secular melodies Much of northern Europe converted distinctively Renaissance style of instead of plainchant as a basis for to the Protestant Church, which music did not manifest itself until his Masses, which were in a richly had a very different attitude to some years later. It first flourished expressive polyphonic style. He and music for their services, preferring in the Netherlands, at the court other composers at the Burgundian simple hymns and melodies for of Philip the Good of Burgundy court, including Gilles Binchois, the congregation to sing rather (1396–1467). The composers there, Johannes Ockeghem, and one of than polyphonic Masses sung only although Franco-Flemish by birth, the finest composers of the early by the choir. Such music became were cosmopolitan by nature. The Renaissance, Josquin Desprez, did the foundation of a distinctly leading light of the Franco-Flemish not restrict themselves to sacred Germanic musical tradition. school, Guillaume Dufay, inspired music and also wrote secular by the Ars Nova polyphony that motets and chansons. The Reformation had, however, he had heard while in Italy, found provoked a reaction in the Catholic a way to break with the medieval New challenge world—the Counter-Reformation— style and began to redefine The Franco-Flemish school of in which the Church defended Renaissance music. polyphony dominated the music some of its practices while of the early Renaissance, but in examining and reforming others. One of Dufay’s innovations the 16th century, things changed One of the things that came under was his use of the cantus firmus, dramatically. The power that the scrutiny was the music for church the technique of composing Catholic Church had wielded in services. Many in the Catholic a polyphonic piece around a Church were uncomfortable

RENAISSANCE 1400–1600 41 William Byrd composes Venetian composer Thomas Weelkes Great Service for use on Giovanni Bassano pens O care, thou wilt publishes his four-part despatch me as part state occasions at collection Ricercate, passaggi Her Majesty’s Chapel et cadentie, to be played in of his most famous the style of an étude. work—his collection Royal at Hampton Court Palace. of madrigals. C.1580–1590 1585 1600 1597 1604 1584 Giovanni Pierluigi da Italian organist John Dowland’s Palestrina writes the Giovanni Lachrimae uses Canticum Canticorum, a dissonance to collection of motets based Gabrieli uses on excerpts from the loud and soft conjure an biblical Song of Songs. dynamics in Sonata atmosphere of pian’ e forte. melancholy. with the complex polyphony that In England, it was adopted by either in consorts of instruments, had become fashionable, as so composers such as Thomas such as viols or recorders, or for many voices singing different Tallis and William Byrd. solo keyboard instruments, such lines of melody made the words as the harpsichord. Thanks to unintelligible. Composers were Instrumental music the development of a mechanical told to moderate their style, It was not just church music that technique for printing, sheet music precipitating the adoption of a was changing. By the end of the was readily available, and the new relatively simple polyphony that 14th century, traveling minstrels style spread through Europe. avoided the sometimes dissonant had all but disappeared thanks Madrigals, for small groups of harmonies that occur in polyphonic to the ravages of the Black Death. singers, became a popular form music and emphasized the clarity They gravitated instead to the of home entertainment, especially of the words. This clearer and aristocratic courts, where they in Italy and England. sweeter-sounding style characterized provided entertainment, singing what came to be regarded as the chansons and playing instrumental However, composers and the musical “High Renaissance.” music for dancing and for civic public were experimenting with ceremonies, such as the installation another form by the end of the Among the first composers to of a new Doge in Venice. 16th century, and a dramatic new adopt the style was Giovanni style was heralded by the works Pierluigi da Palestrina, who wrote In a more secularized society, of Giovanni Gabrieli in Venice. The numerous motets and Masses for instrumental music became last great works to be composed churches in Rome. Composers from popular not only in the courts in the Renaissance style were across Europe gravitated to Italy but also among an increasingly Tomás Luis de Victoria’s Officium to absorb the new sound, before educated middle class, creating defunctorum and John Dowland’s taking it back to their native lands. a demand for music to play at home, Lachrimae, fitting ends to an era. ■

42 INMTSHOUWETSILAOCARSSCTITNOHGM4HL0PEEOAYPSREIEAIENDRCGSEBE…OFFORE MISSA L’HOMME ARMÉ (c.1460), GUILLAUME DUFAY IN CONTEXT F rom Franco-Flemish layering of voices. Following the composer Guillaume Dufay lead of English musicians, who had FOCUS onward, the harmonic already embraced the use of third New harmonies language of music begins to sound intervals, Dufay allows the music more familiar to modern listeners. to dwell on the interval’s sweet, BEFORE Earlier composers had followed the less hollow sound. This extended 1430 Englishman Leonel harmonic ideals worked out by the the harmonic vocabulary and Power composes Alma ancient Greek philosopher and created room for more voices. ■ redemptoris mater, possibly mathematician Pythagoras, based the first Mass to use an on the “perfect” consonance of identified cantus firmus—a octaves and fourth and fifth “set song”—as the basis for intervals. Dufay’s innovation was its melodic framework. to use chords featuring the third interval in the scale as a harmony 1430 Rex seculorum is written note (mi in the sol-fa singing scale, as a cantus firmus Mass in the following do and re). Historically, English style, either by John the harmony of third intervals had Dunstable or Leonel Power. been seen as somewhat dissonant, to be used sparingly. AFTER 1570 Italian Giovanni Secular sounds in church Master of melody Guillaume Dufay Palestrina publishes a five- Dufay’s masses made much use of stands beside a portable organ in an voice setting of the Mass on the cantus firmus technique, which illumination from the 15th-century the L’homme armé melody. built a piece around an already poetic work, Le champion des dames. existing melody, such as a well- 1999 Welsh composer Karl known sacred composition or a Jenkins incorporates the plainchant. In L’homme armé, L’homme armé folk song into Dufay chose a popular French folk the first and final movements song with a distinctive melody that of his Mass The Armed Man. lent itself well to a polyphonic See also: Micrologus 24–25 ■ Magnus liber organi 28–31 ■ Missa Pange lingua 43 ■ Canticum Canticorum 46–51 ■ St. Matthew Passion 98–105

RENAISSANCE 1400–1600 43 GTTHOLOENRGMIUOYEUS,STPERBROOYCDOLYFAITMHE MISSA PANGE LINGUA (c.1515), JOSQUIN DESPREZ IN CONTEXT J osquin Desprez, born in Desprez’s contemporary, the France around 1450, was Italian printer Ottaviano Petrucci, FOCUS an early beneficiary of the perfected a method for printing Dissemination of music printing press. Until the invention music in three passes: the staves, of the technology in the mid-15th followed by notes, and then the BEFORE century, music was copied out by words. Petrucci’s first publication, c.1415–1420 The largest hand, by professional copyists. Odhecaton, a selection of nearly collection of 14th-century According to the 16th-century 100 secular pieces, mostly by Italian music, the Squarcialupi Swiss music theorist Heinrich Franco-Flemish composers, Codex illuminated manuscript, Glarean, Desprez “published his including Desprez, Alexander is compiled in Florence. works after much deliberation Agricola, Antoine Busnois, and and with manifold corrections.” Jacob Obrecht, appeared in 1501. 1457 The Codex Psalmorum, This care and attention made To meet the challenge of a first produced in the German his compositions a favorite in the collection of polyphonic music for city of Mainz, is the first emerging music publishing market. the Mass with underlayed text, printed book to contain Petrucci chose to devote his Misse music, although the notation (1502) to works solely by Desprez. is handwritten. Now that Josquin is dead, A late Mass AFTER he is putting out more works Missa Pange lingua was one c.1520 English printer John of Desprez’s final compositions, Rastell produces the first than when he was alive! taking its central melody from music where the staves, Georg Forster a hymn for the Feast of Corpus notes, and text are printed Christi written by the 13th-century in a single impression. German composer (1510–1568) Italian friar and theologian Thomas Aquinas. The work was not ready 1710 The Statute of Anne, in time for Petrucci’s final book enacted in Britain, gives of masses in 1514, but it survived authors copyright over their in manuscript form and was printed work for the first time, finally published in 1532. ■ a right finally extended to music composition in 1777. See also: Messe de Notre Dame 36–37 ■ Missa l’homme armé 42 ■ Canticum Canticorum 46–51 ■ St. Matthew Passion 98–105

44 HPVROEAAYYCREEERATNHDE SPEM IN ALIUM (c.1570), THOMAS TALLIS IN CONTEXT T he composition of the great mission from the Medici court in 40-voice motet Spem in Florence, bringing with him the FOCUS alium by Thomas Tallis parts for his recent compositions Large-scale choral music marked a pinnacle of early English for 40 or more independent voices. Renaissance choral music and These were musical manifestations BEFORE was an inspired response to a of influence and power, and some c.1500 French composer continental challenge. In 1567, the wondered what the result might Antoine Brumel writes a composer Alessandro Striggio had be if an English composer were Mass in 12 parts, Missa Et arrived in England on a diplomatic to attempt such a composition. ecce terrae motus, known They turned to Tallis, who had as the “Earthquake Mass.” been the foremost court composer under four monarchs—Henry VIII, 1568 Alessandro Striggio’s Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I. motet Ecce beatam lucem for Tallis’s Roman Catholic patron, 40 voices with instruments Thomas Howard, Fourth Duke of is performed in Munich. Norfolk, commissioned the work. AFTER A chapel choir sings from sheet A long choral tradition 1682 Heinrich Biber composes music displayed on a lectern in the The English had long excelled his Missa Salisburgensis in 53 frontispiece of Practica musicae by at choral music. In the 15th century, parts arranged in six choirs of the Italian music theorist Franchini John Dunstable established the singers, strings, recorders, di Gaffurio, published in 1512. contenance angloise (“English cornetts, and sackbuts, with manner”), a distinctive, richly two ensembles of trumpets harmonic polyphonic style. and timpani, and at least Flemish music theorist Johannes two organs—probably the Tinctoris described Dunstable largest work in the Colossal as “the fountain and source” of Baroque style, the name musical innovation. given to large-scale, poly- choral works. A generation before Tallis, Robert Fayrfax was the leading English composer and a favorite of Henry VIII. He was the organist and Master of the Choristers at St. Albans Abbey from 1498 to 1502

RENAISSANCE 1400–1600 45 See also: Messe de Notre Dame 36–37 ■ Missa l’homme armé 42 ■ Missa Pange lingua 43 ■ Canticum Canticorum 46–51 ■ Great Service 52–53 ■ St. Matthew Passion 98–105 and composed the complex five- statement of the Nunc dimittis voice Mass O quam glorifica for chant running through the work his doctorate in 1504. adds to its impact. Masters of sacred music The Duke hearing of the An extraordinary response In the early 16th century, John song [Spem in alium] took his Thomas Tallis was a member of the Taverner emerged as a significant chain of gold from of his neck Chapel Royal when Striggio visited composer of English sacred music and unfurled his multipart scores. after his appointment in 1526 as and put it about Tallis his The Italian’s works were in the Master of the Choristers at Thomas neck and gave it him. polychoral style, with voices Wolsey’s newly founded Cardinal Thomas Wateridge grouped into self-contained choirs College, Oxford (the future Christ that came together in a grand Church). There he composed three Letter (1611) sound at crucial points in the score. six-voice Masses, Corona spinea, Gloria tibi Trinitas, and O Michael. Protestant monarchs. He was the Tallis’s response in his motet The tenor part from the “In nomine choirmaster at Magdalen College, Spem in alium was quite different: Domini” section of the Benedictus Oxford, for three years, and then, it dipped back into the soaring of his Gloria tibi Trinitas became from 1552, a Gentleman of the sound of Taverner’s and Sheppard’s widely used by other composers as Chapel Royal under Edward VI music to create an unmistakably the basis of vocal and instrumental and Mary I. He died on the eve English piece. The 40 voices of arrangements. This was the origin of Elizabeth’s succession in 1558. Spem in alium seldom gather in the of the English fantasia genre known Much of Sheppard’s Latin-texted same groupings, but each follow as In nomine, which was popular church music survives. His their own paths. One voice may until the late 17th century. responsory Media vita for six maintain a steady pace on the beat voices is a Lenten work of but will have a counterpart that Taverner moved back home monumental status: the slow achieves something similar in to Lincolnshire after Wolsey’s syncopation, adding a scintillation downfall and produced little more to the steady voice. Like a gradual music. John Sheppard was perhaps murmuration of birds, the voices more adept at tailoring his output gather, separate, and finally to the tastes of Roman Catholic and assemble to exhilarating effect. ■ Thomas Tallis Little is known of Tallis’s early life, was also one of the first to but by 1532 he was the organist set English words to psalms, of Dover Priory, on England’s canticles, and anthems. south coast. After the priory’s Centuries later, his setting of dissolution three years later, he Psalm 2 was used by Vaughan worked at the church of St. Mary- Williams for his Fantasia on a at-Hill in London, Waltham Abbey, Theme of Thomas Tallis (1910). and Canterbury Cathedral, before becoming a member of the choir Tallis died peacefully at (“Gentleman”) of Henry VIII’s home in 1585. It is thought he Chapel Royal, where he later was around 80 years of age. became the organist. Other key works Queen Elizabeth granted Tallis and William Byrd a patent to print 1560–1569 The Lamentations music in 1572, and in 1575 they of Jeremiah jointly published Cantiones sacrae, 1567 Nine psalm settings for a collection of Latin motets. Tallis Archbishop Parker’s Psalter.

FTHAETETHERENRAL OF ITALIAN MUSIC CGAIONVTAICNUNMI DCAAPNATLICEOSRTURMIN(A1584),



48 SIMPLIFICATION OF POLYPHONY IN CONTEXT T he Protestant reformer instrumental brilliance of Roman Martin Luther influenced Catholic music. Its simple appeal FOCUS sacred music not only in spoke directly to many who felt Simplification of polyphony the new Protestant churches, but alienated by the Church’s love also, as a result of the Counter- of wealth and lavish ritual. BEFORE Reformation, in Roman Catholic c.1540 In the motet Inviolata, rites. The Council of Trent, an Popular, accessible music integra et casta es Maria, the ecumenical meeting of senior became a potent vehicle for Italian composer Costanzo members of the Church in the spreading ideas and rallying Festa uses canonic Flemish northern Italian town of Trent support and was also the hallmark style to great effect. Festa was between 1545 and 1563, issued of services in the new reformed much admired and imitated guidelines for sacred music that church. Luther and the French by Palestrina. restrained dissonance, curbed Protestant reformer John Calvin excessive ornamentation, and encouraged the singing of hymns 1545 Franco-Flemish refined liturgical polyphony. The to tunes that everyone knew. composer Nicolas Gombert composer who responded most publishes Musae Jovis, a exquisitely to this new call for Old traditions deliberately archaic piece, as purity was Giovanni da Palestrina. This emphasis on simplicity was in a tribute to Josquin Desprez. sharp contrast to Roman Catholic New demands practice. The less educated would AFTER Luther was an accomplished singer have had the greatest difficulty in 1610 Claudio Monteverdi and loved music, which, together following the Masses in a cathedral returns to polyphony and with the power of the printing or ducal chapel of the time. This the stile antico (“old style”) press to disseminate his ideas, was was a problem that the Roman with Missa in illo tempore. key to the success of his reforms. Catholic churchman, humanist, In 1524, his first published hymn, and scholar Bernardino Cirillo c. 1742 J.S. Bach performs his “Ein newes Lied wir haeben an” recognized. In 1549, he wrote: arrangement of Palestrina’s (“We’re raising a new song”) was a “In our times musicians have put Missa sine nomine (1590). street ballad about the death at the all their work and effort into the stake in Brussels of two adherents composition of fugues (where the to Protestant reform. Set to a voices make staggered entries), so familiar tune, it was far removed that while one voice sings ‘Sanctus’ from the rich polyphony and another has ‘Sabaoth,’ and yet one more sings ‘Gloria tua.’ Howling, Giovanni da Palestrina Probably born in the Italian dedicated his Missa Ecce town of Palestrina in 1525, sacerdos magnus to Julius in Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina 1554. The next year he gained had strong family connections to a place in the papal choir at the nearby Rome. After his mother’s Sistine Chapel and went on to death when he was about 11, he hold several top musical posts. became a chorister at the city’s His music includes madrigals Santa Maria Maggiore church. and more than 105 masses and 50 motets. In his late teens, Palestrina returned to his hometown to Other key works become the organist at the cathedral. When the Bishop of 1562 Missa Papae Marcelli Palestrina, Cardinal Giovanni 1570 Missa brevis Maria del Monte, was elected 1572 Missa Tu es Petrus Pope Julius III in 1550, the 1584 Pulchra es (motet) composer went back to Rome as 1590 Stabat Mater (motet) director of the Capella Giulia: he