The Shoulders of Giants: Trollheart's History of Classical Music

Music Music: Chat / Discussions
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Classical music tends to get a bad rap, especially among the younger generations often, but the truth is that without it our music today would either not exist at all, or would be very much different. Classical music laid the building blocks for everything from dance music to rock and everything in between, and there’s probably no musician anywhere who does not owe something to the likes of Beethoven, Holst, Chopin, Berlioz and a host of other composers who blazed a trail from the fifteenth century and popularised not only music as a genre, but as a public spectacle, holding the first real concerts and getting people talking about music among themselves. Classical music often survived on the patronage of kings and lords, which could be a double-edged sword: you would certainly have access to anything you needed but at the same time you might very well be under tremendous pressure to, for instance, come up with a special piece to celebrate the birthday, coronation or other event important to the monarch, or to mark a great victory, anniversary etc. And it was never advisable to disappoint the king or queen!

But classical music gave us some timeless, amazing melodies that have stayed as fresh and accessible to we in the twenty-first century as they were when they were written. Of course, with the rise of so many different and varying genres in music, classical often gets overlooked, and that’s one of the reasons why I’m writing this. My own appreciation and knowledge of classical music is quite limited, and in this thread I hope to share with you what I know of it, and learn more as I go along. Don’t expect album reviews – that would be pointless – but I will be going as deeply as I can into the life and works of the great composers – and some of the less great, or at least, less well known – as well perhaps as those who play their music today. I hope to gain a better appreciation of this often forgotten art form this way, and in the process perhaps educate a few of you on the way, or rekindle an interest in classical music.

After all, no matter what genre you follow, there’s no escaping the very concrete fact that, as the title of this thread asserts, every rock or pop star you’ve ever heard has built his on her career by essentially standing on the shoulders of these giants. All of which will be explored here.

I’m under no illusions here that this will interest everyone; after all, I’m going to be talking about dead guys here, most of the time. It’s not like you can run out and purchase the latest Beethoven or Facebook about how great Delius is. Well, you can but, you know… You won’t find these guys in the charts, or likely on Last.FM or Pitchfork. But if you can put your doubts and your prejudices aside and just listen, you will find music that is moving, beautiful, powerful and stirring. There’s no question that a lot of classical can be boring: there are no words usually, so no lyrics to grab you (unless we’re talking about opera, and that’s invariably in a language other than English) and the pieces are often quite long, but I will be trying to direct you towards the better stuff in classical, and there’s a hell of a lot of that.

The thread is called the History of Classical Music so obviously there’ll be a timeline, but I will not be sticking rigidly to this, but will divert from it regularly to take in artists and pieces I like, talk about composers and even those soloist and players regarded in the field today, and basically talk as much as I can in as varied a way as I can manage about the whole genre. There’s also a good chance I may look at particular monarchs or nobles who became patrons of music, as, as mentioned above, it was often only on this very patronage - or at the very least, support - that artists could survive. What were these men and women like? Did they truly love and, more importantly, understand music, or did they give their stamp of approval to, and often provide the funds for, the composers more as a way of building up their own esteem?

It will probably be incredibly boring for a lot of you, and I understand that, but for those who want to either get into classical music or share their love of it, this thread may provide a small service and a place to talk about a genre often relegated to the domain of the elderly and the never-hip. Classical music is, has been and unfortunately probably always will be looked down upon by the young, who find it tedious, pointless and, well, dead. Some of these accusations could be supported, if you listen to too much of the wrong classical - chamber music can be very taxing on the attention if it goes on too long, and I’m no fan of opera - but as with all musical genres, there are good and bad, and this blanket dismissal of classical is as blinkered and ignorant as saying all punk is terrible because it’s loud and has no melody or that reggae all sounds the same or that there’s no beauty in black metal, and so on. One thing my musical explorations over the last ten-odd years has taught me is that nothing is black and white, and that you can’t judge a book by its cover, especially if you haven’t even bothered to look inside it.

As always, I invite comment and discussion, and while there are, I am quite sure, those of you here who are far better versed in classical music than I am, and while those people are very welcome to disseminate their knowledge here, I would also love to see those who either don’t understand or have been put off by classical wander in here to see what it’s all about. If you like, and to probably use a flawed analogy, we’ve all become at least aware of classical music through a process of osmosis. What I mean by this is that no matter what age you are, and even if you hate classical music, there is a one hundred percent chance that you have heard at least one piece of classical. Whether it’s been through the telly, the movies, on an ad, mashed up or sampled by some pop or rock artist, the process of osmosis means, in this case, that you have absorbed possibly more classical music than you even realise.

So everyone knows just a little bit of classical, and if you want to take the next step, join me on my journey.

As usual, my research tool of choice is Wikipedia, but I will be sourcing other articles and reading books on the subject, as well as watching any television documentaries I can. This will of course be slow progress, as we’re talking about hundreds, even thousands of years of the development of music here, so I guess it’s even possible it could be a life’s work. It might never get finished, who knows, especially with all the other projects I have on and the others I have planned, to say nothing of the odd spot of real life here and there. As the old saying goes, it’s a marathon not a sprint, so don’t expect too much.

But if you stick with me, it could be very interesting and educational, and who knows, maybe even fun. Stranger things have happened.

If music be the food of love, let’s get stuck in; hope you brought your appetite, because there’s one hell of a banquet waiting!

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Before we get into the history of classical music, it’s perhaps incumbent upon us to explore what exactly the term refers to. What is classical music? Well, The OED defines it as Serious music following long-established principles rather than jazz, folk or popular tradition and, perhaps slightly more accurately, music written in the European tradition during a period lasting approximately from 1750 to 1830, when forms such as the symphony, concerto and sonata were standardised. Both these definitions I feel are overly simplistic, and also the second fails to take into account the wealth of classical music that emerged in the previous centuries. Although it does qualify the statement by using the word “approximately”, this definition would have us believe that classical music sprang up in 1750 and lasted a mere century or less, and this is patently not true. For one thing, classical composers were still writing important compositions well into the twentieth century, so to say it vanished or had run its course by the middle of the nineteenth century is pretty much a fallacy.

We will see, when we go into the timeline, how far the reach of classical extends, both back into the past and indeed to the present (and there’s no reason to believe it won’t continue on into the future, as there are many fine musicians working in the field today) but for now, I’d like to, not quite offer my own definition of classical music, but to attempt to explain where and why and how it came about, and why it has lasted as long as it did, longer, indeed, than any other music form other than traditional folk music.

Concerto for Ignorance and Fear: The World Before Classical Music

Those of you who know your history will know that the recent past (the last thousand years or so) is divided roughly into three sections: there is the time around the coming of the Vikings and the Normans, when conquest was rife and supposed “savage” lands were placated and settled and indeed ruled by “superior” forces (the word here usually referring to superiority in arms, but often of intelligence too: a well-armed attacker can take towns and cities but it takes intelligence, foresight and planning to keep them and build upon them). Then there is the period referred to as The Dark Ages, when learning stalled, wars were rife and poverty stalked the lands, where ignorant and wretchedly poor peasants scratched out a meagre living on lands generally owned by wealthy barons, nobles or kings, and where the belief in magic and witchcraft held sway, with the Catholic Church a driving force both in repressing other religions and waging war on its enemies. Crusades as well as international wars seemed always to be going on during this time, and people were poorly educated, battling the likes of the Black Death and famine, which left little time for the pursuit of entertainment. And then there was the Renaissance, of which more shortly.

Now, like our OED definitions above, this splitting up of the second millennium of Man’s existence on this planet is rather simplistic, and of course there were many different and varied periods within this time, but from a point of view of how music was appreciated, we can look at them that way. Vikings coming from the North brought with them their traditional war songs, hymns to their gods (which were usually also war songs), drinking songs and so forth, all usually sung with perhaps a minimal accompaniment of a drum or just hands clapping. Well, they probably had instruments, but I don’t know that much about the Vikings that I could say, but it is certainly safe to believe that any Viking, man or woman, was probably happier with an axe or sword in his or her hand than, say, a minstrel’s lute.

“Let’s have some music! Olaf the Blood-letter! Did you remember to bring your ipod?”

The only other music prevalent at this time would have been religious. In just the same way as the Norse invaders saw their death chants and war songs as tributes to their gods, so too did the Christians in the lands they pillaged, the Muslims and Arabs and other religions across the known world mostly utilise as praise to their god as the medium through which their music was played. Of course, again, I don’t know much about Arab or Indian or Egyptian or Mesopotamian music, and I don’t need to as it doesn’t really matter here. The point is that, since classical music (or at least, what became known as the more popular and enduring classical music) was almost exclusively a European phenomenon, we can concentrate mostly on the music it supplanted there, and across Europe music was not, before the Renaissance, widely available. You would get certain ditties and poems set to music, played by strolling players or balladeers, but usually as part of an overall performance, as in a play by mummers (travelling actors) or wandering minstrels (aye!) who would sell their song for food and drink, and you would of course get a better class of minstrelsy and music in the courts of kings.

During the Dark Ages, one of the things that a king could do to show his power and his importance was to have musicians play at his table. We’ve all seen the movies and series where, as the guests sit down to a massive banquet (while out in the fields of the king the poor starve, but that’s another story) musicians would play as sort of background music, largely ignored, really, by those eating, who would talk over them (the music would not be too loud, as amplifiers were yet a good four or five hundred years away, to say nothing of electricity!) and later the people would dance, again to the music of the hired musicians. But if you didn’t get invited to the palace then the chances were you probably heard very little if any music. Someone might strike up a tune in the old tavern, someone else might hammer away on a lute or banjo or something (I don’t know when banjos were created, so don’t quote me, but I’m pretty sure the mandolin is a relative and possible descendant of the lute) or a whistle, bang a table in rhythm, and you’d have music. But that would be about it.

As the Dark Ages receded, and a new era of knowledge, enlightenment and hope dawned, the Renaissance was born. Beginning in Florence in Italy after the fall of Constantinople (now known as Istanbul) and the end of the Byzantine Empire, the Renaissance (the word literally means “rebirth”) was fuelled by many different factors, none of which I intend exploring here, but one of the major ones was the emigration of scholars from Greece and the rise of the powerful patrons of Florence, the Medicis. A rediscovery of an appreciation for the finer things in life – art, literature, poetry, political thought, architecture – and the need to shake off the drab shackles of the last few centuries’ ignorance and superstition, as well as rising city states and new powers, coupled with a reaction to the Catholic Inquisitions and their subsequent seizure of what were seen as banned or blasphemous literature led to Florence leading the way as a centre of learning, enlightenment and freedom.

Many of the big names in the Renaissance are of course well known to us – Leonardo Da Vinci, Raphael, Botticelli, Michaelangelo and Caravaggio to name but a few – but where they worked in the more visual arts – painting, sculpture, architecture etc – we are of course more concerned with those who turned the idea of music into something other than just entertainment for monarchs or something to be sung in the street, the first true musicians. The ones we all know – Beethoven, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Elgar, Strauss, Mozart as well as the operatic composers such as Puccini, Verdi, Bizet and Wagner – all come into the picture comparatively later in the story, as it were, so many of the names I’ll be talking about in the initial sections of the time line will be unknown to most of you (and probably to me too) but these people whose names may be largely lost in the mists of time deserve their part in the story. After all, without their genius and inspiration, perhaps the bigger names we all know might not have come to be known at all.

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Timeline of Classical Music

As I mentioned in the introduction, despite what many of us believe, classical music did not begin in the 17th century. In fact, its genesis can be found way, way back in time, halfway through the first millennium. Naturally, the music back then bore little if any similarity to the kind of sounds we would hear come out of Italy and Germany and France and Spain hundreds of years later, but it all links together, so this is how the timeline will run.

Early Music Period (500-1600)

Which is composed of

Ars antiqua (1170-1310)

Ars nova (1310-1377)

Ars subtilior (1360-1420)

Renaissance era (1400-1600)

Common-Practice Period (1600-1910)

Composed of

Baroque era (1600-1750)

Galant music era (1720-1770)

Classical era (1750-1820)

Romantic era (1800-1910)

Late 19th century to 20th and 21st centuries (1890- )

Composed of

Modernist era (1890-1975)

This is itself split into three distinct eras, with some overlap

Impressionism (1890-1925)

Expressionism (1900-1930)

Neoclassicism (1920-1950)

And then finally we have

Post-Modern era and Contemporary (1950 - )

With three more subdivisions, viz,

Experimental (1950 - )

Minimalism (1960-1990)

Post-minimalism (1980 - )

So that’s all nice and clear then. No? Not to worry; as I said, I won’t be sticking rigidly to this timeline at all, and it’s really more of a guide than anything else. Some of you may have spotted the line that reads “classical era” and thought well why not concentrate on just that? For the same reason, really, that if charting the history of heavy metal we wouldn’t start with Slayer or even Black Sabbath, or that the history of progressive rock goes back further than Genesis and Yes: this music had to come from somewhere, and if we ignore all the, if you will, grandparents and great-grandparents of the brilliant children who made classical music so accessible to all and so famous and enduring, we’d be doing both a disservice. I mean, the whole history of what many have called the greatest music in the world in a mere seventy years? Please.

I reiterate my belief that many of you may find what follows boring. I may find it boring. But I also repeat that it’s necessary, in order to appreciate classical music, to understand where it came from, how it came about. You wouldn’t read the ending of a mystery story without reading how all the clues were found, and fit into the puzzle, would you? You wouldn’t walk into a movie at the end? So too with classical, as with just about all music: to go forward you have to go back, to marvel at the man you must watch the infant crawl around, trying to find its feet. And other examples of this which I can’t be bothered to think of. Basically, this is stuff you need to know, to read about, if you’re serious about investigating the phenomenon of classical music.

So let’s do that now, and go right back to the very beginning. Not to ancient music - that is, music made before say 500 AD, as this bears little resemblance to what we know as classical music, or even, in some cases, music at all, but to that first faltering step which would lead to genius such as Tchaikovsky, Mozart and Beethoven.

Yes, it’s that jolly time spoken of by all in happy tones and fond memory, when the rule of a king was absolute and the people were there to pay taxes and fight in the army, with no other real function, and certainly no rights. A time of incredible disparity between the poor and the rich, the powerful and the powerless, the noble and the commoner. No, not like Trump’s America: who said that? Seriously!

Welcome, one and all, to the Middle Ages.

Where did you go to if you wanted to boogie on down to the latest cantatas, madrigals and motets during the twelfth and thirteenth century? In other words, where was pretty much the only place, outside of a palace or castle, where you could actually hear music? Right here.

Yup. That’s because just about all music written at this period was mostly vocal, and almost exclusively what they called liturgical (part of a mass) or sacred/spiritual, but either way you were going to be hearing about God, from people who worshipped and, in some ways, worked for him: monks, priests, nuns, all that lot. The general belief was that music was seen to come from God, a gift from the Almighty, and as the only ones who could write (never mind read) were the monks and clerics, it was they who wrote the first musical notations, creating the first examples of properly written-down music as opposed to music that was passed down via the oral tradition.

So while there were of course composers in this era, mostly they were composing the same sort of thing - hymns to God, praise this, praise that, chants and generally sucking up to the Big Guy, so their actual music is not of terribly much interest, unless that’s your thing. However, what they did, which composers that came after them, gaining much more fame than their musical forefathers, built on and relied on and based their most loved and respected compositions on, was lay down the foundations, the very building blocks of musical notation, a huge advance in both playing and composing music, as it allowed the singer/musician to see for the first time what he or she was supposed to be singing or playing, rather than having to learn it by ear.

Perhaps the most important step was the development and implementation of polyphony. No, that’s not a Chinese parrot making a phone call - polyphony, from the Greek for poly (many) and phone (sound or noise) is literally what it sounds like, many voices. Merriam-Webster defines it as “a style of musical composition employing two or more simultaneous but relatively independent melodic lines”. What I think can be inferred from that is that harmonisation was possible, in a way it had not been prior to this.

Perhaps oddly, the Church, a massive power in the Medieval era and well into and beyond the Renaissance, seems to have been instrumental (sorry) in developing a system of written musical notation, primarily because of the need for people to learn liturgical music, or music for masses (as opposed to music for the masses) and as liturgical music was all chants, therefore vocal only, it was the expression of the voice which received the first attempts at musical notation. This was not easy. Rhythm, too, had to be displayed in a form understandable by a singer, so as to tell him or her how fast or slow to sing. This would later, of course, be used by musicians in order to determine the tempo of music, with several instructions such as “largo”, “pianissimo”, “forte” and so on explaining how loud, or softly, as well as how fast or slow the music should be played.

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In Theory: They Wrote the Songs

While it might seem - and almost certainly is - stuffy and boring to study music theory, a pilot can’t fly without learning the maths and a doctor can’t practice without knowing the biology. In the same way, while a musician, certainly these days, doesn’t need to know music theory in order to play, the early ones did, and the very early ones wrote the rules which everyone would follow in the centuries to come. While there aren’t that many, if any, composers I can talk about in this era, there are enough musical theorists to stuff into a phone box and… what do you mean, what’s a phone box? Oh dear, kids today, I don’t know…

Guido of Arezzo (991/992 - about 1033)

Apparently he’s got a ton of other names, but let’s just go with this one. Guido was an Italian Benedictine monk from Tuscany, who became concerned at the failure of his brothers to remember Gregorian Chant (we’ll be looking at that soon enough, but I’m sure you know what it is - hell, wasn’t it even in the charts at one point?) and came up with a system of notation called The Guidonian Hand. This seemed to involve, um, writing the notes on your hand. Ingenious. I tried to do the same thing for my leaving cert exam but sweated too much and the ink ran. Thanks, Guido! Great idea!

All, it seems, was not roses for our Guido. The monks in his abbey, the monastery at Pomposa, possibly believing his musical notation system sent by the devil (or annoyed because they used their hands for other, um, less godly activities and therefore the ink kept getting smudged) chased him off and he ended up in Arezzo, where he developed the do-re-mi scale still used today, certainly allowing him to claim the title of the father of musical notation, if not the actual inventor of music. Thereafter he became famous throughout Italy, and was even invited by the pope of the time, John XIX, to Rome, an honour he gratefully accepted in 1028. On his return though he was in poor health and though little else is known of him from then, it seems he shuffled off this mortal coil around 1033 and no doubt went to conduct and write notation for the music of the angels. Maybe.

Johannes de Garlandia (1270 - 1320 approx)

Another music theorist who contributed to the science of musical notation, de Garlandia was a Frenchman connected with the influential Notre Dame School of Polyphony, a group of musicians working around the area of Notre Dame Cathedral between 1160 and 1250. He is said to have been a magister, which would have given him the authority to teach at the University of Paris. He published an important treatise on music, De mensurabili musica, which is seen as one of, if not the most important works in music, as it was the first to propose the theory of rhythm notation.

Franco of Cologne (unknown)

I guess the trouble when you’re dealing with people who lived and died over eight hundred years ago is that the details of their lives are, at best, sketchy, at worst non-existent. There is no record of when Franco was born, or when he died, though it’s generally accepted that he was alive in the mid-13th century. Nobody even knows for sure if he was German, despite the epithet, as he was also known as Franco of Paris, but it seems to be conceded that it’s more likely he was than he wasn’t.

He was part of the Notre Dame School too, and is said to have been quite a powerful figure, papal chaplain and the preceptor of the Knights Hospitalliers of St. John. Another one highly influential in the creation and standardisation of musical notation, he was the first to work out that a note’s length could be written down and determined based on its appearance on the page. His most famous work is Ars cantus mensurabilis, the first practical, as opposed to theoretical, guide to music aimed at actual musicians.

Petrus de Cruce (unknown)

Another Frenchman, another magister, living around the same time as Franco; it has been theorised that he may have been his student. He too helped the understanding of music through written notation, most importantly the times and durations of notes.

Philippe de Vitry (1291 - 1361)

Also from la belle France, he was widely acknowledged as the greatest musician of his time, revered during the later Renaissance. A devoutly religious man (as you would assume most were back then) he served under Charles IV, Philippe VI and Jean II, as well as serving at Avignon at the court of Clement VI (from 1309-1376, the Pope was sequestered at Avignon in France at the behest of the French king, due to a dispute between the Papacy and the French Crown). However he was also a soldier and a diplomat, neither so incongruous for the time, as popes customarily kept their own standing armies and waged war on anyone who did not obey their edicts, or whose lands they desired.

In 1322 de Vitry wrote a treatise on music called Ars nova notandi, the name of which has been given to the entire music era of the period, lasting from about 1310-1377. Is it a coincidence that the period known as the Babylonian Captivity, just written about above, seems to parallel this music period almost exactly? I don’t know. I can speculate that with the head of the Catholic Church residing in their home country the French were better disposed and inspired to work on their music for his and God’s glory, but I’d only be guessing. It may be pure chance that the two coincided.

What is generally undisputed is that de Vitry’s work made possible the complex and intricate music that would dominate the next few hundred years, and he wrote chansons (songs) and motets (complex vocal arrangements), unsurprisingly all devotional or liturgical works. At this point in time, it seems the vast majority of music was being sung, and played, in and for churches and cathedrals. One very clear reason for this would be the hold the Church had over its populace and the general belief that music came from, and was a gift from God, and also that the Church as an institution was rich and powerful, and could influence or even patronise kings and queens, to commission only music that was considered acceptable to the Church and to God. This practice would continue for several hundred years; with the exception of love poetry set to music, such as that played by minstrels and troubadours, there really was only one game in town.

Léonin (fl. 1150 - 1201)

The greatest composer of his time, as usual there’s no actual record of his birth, so accounts about him use this abbreviation, fl., to indicate when he was most active. It stands for flourished in Latin, so he would obviously have been born, we can assume, at least twenty years prior to this fl. date, unless he was a child prodigy like Mozart. He was the first known, or at least significant composer of what was known as polyphonic organum. Polyphonic I have already explained; organum was a plainchant for several voices, plainchant being exactly what it sounds like, entirely vocal music with no accompaniment from any instrument. Once again French (or mostly accepted to have been) and again a member, indeed perhaps the founder of the Notre Dame School, he is credited with writing the Magnus Liber (or Great Book) which was used to help celebrate mass with Gregorian Chant, and set down notation for rhythm and polyphony.

Pérotin

Perontinus Magnus was the one who pioneered the system known as organum triplum and organum quadruplum, which you’ll probably be able to work out, given what I’ve already said, refer to three and four-part polyphony. This was important, as up to now only double polyphony, or organum, had been used, so this was a major step forward for music. This in turn let to the motets spoken of above, and a refinement of his teacher, Léonin’s duplum, or two-part polyphony, which he believed to be too difficult to sing, with up to forty notes to a chant, so he shortened them and added extra voices to “take up the slack”, as it were, and also provide harmony to the piece.

Seen as one of the first great composers of western classical music, Pérotin has continued to have an influence, even on modern composers, particularly minimalist ones such as Steve Reich.

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Going by the Book

In a time when liturgical and other spiritual music was the norm, if not the sum content of music, and as notation began to be understood and learned, musicians - pretty much this means mostly singers - had to read the music, and so books that helped with that were very important, many of them setting standards music still looks to and practices today. Some of them I have mentioned, but here’s a list.

Note: if anyone knows these works and thinks I’m doing a terrible job here describing them, you’re more than likely right. All I’m trying to do here is give a general and very basic sense of what they are or were about. This isn’t meant to be a deep discussion of Medieval age music textbooks. I only include these for the importance they had to the development of classical music - all music, indeed - and you’re of course free to read more about them or, if you so desire, tell me and everyone else about them here. I won’t be insulted, but neither will I apologise if I seem to have simplified them too much. I certainly don’t claim to be any sort of expert on these things.

Musica enchiriadis, written by unknown, approx 9th century. The first attempt to set down and establish rules for polyphony in western music.

Scolica enchiriadis, written by unknown, approx 9th century. A companion volume to Musica enchiriadis, a commentary on and discussion of same, with particular emphasis on the importance of mathematics in music.

De Musica, written by Johannes Cotto approx 1100. A practical guide for the working musician, it uses as its sources, among others, our friend Guido of Arezzo, whom we met at the beginning of this piece.

De Mensurabili Musica, written by Johannes de Garlandia, approx 1270. An important work that seeks to explain the idea of rhythm in music.

Ars Cantus mensurabilis, written by Franco of Cologne, approx 1250-1280. Written shortly after De Mensurabili Musica, it also concerned rhythm and was the first to suggest that musical notes could have their own durations, rather than rely on context with other notes.

Ars nova notandi, written by Philippe de Vrity, 1322. A treatise on music which ended up lending its name to the entire era.

The Montpellier Codex, written by unknown, 1300. A collection of over 300 polyphonic chants and songs, mostly motets. In addition to religious works the Codex also contains songs of French Courtly love, see further.

The Bamberg Codex, written by unknown, date unknown. Another collection of motets and chants, also containing two treatises on music. The Bamberg Codex is perhaps unique for the time, as it is not written only in Latin, but French also.

Las Huelgas Codex, written by unknown, 1300. A repertory of monophonic and polyphonic chants for the sisters of a Cistercian convent in Spain to sing. Using Franconian notation, it seems to blur some line where the Cistercian Order forbade the singing of polyphony, but the fact that the songs are only two-part motets might explain that. If you care.

Cantigas de Santa Maria, attributed to King Alfonso XII (1221-1284). A collection of over four hundred poems, every tenth one a hymn, set to music in the monophonic style with every single one mentioning the Virgin Mary.

The Ivrea Codex, written by unknown, 1370. A collection of chants, motets, masses and other spiritual songs, believed to have been compiled at Avignon.

Squarcialupi Codex, written by unknown, 1410-1415. A basic “guide to Italian composers and their music”, with folios of each composer and their works, a beautiful illuminated manuscript and the largest primary source of Italian music in their version of ars nova, the Trecento. Composers such as Francesco Landini, Bartolino da Padova, Andrea da Firenze and Donato da Cascia are just a few of the important Italian composers included along with their music.

The Rossi Codex, written by unknown, date unknown. Another large collection of music from the trecento period, with madrigals and ballatas. The larger section of the Codex is now at the Vatican library, and there seems to be some tenuous link between it and the Prince of Verona, who was the patron of Dante, which is cool.

The Chantilly Codex, written by unknown, 1350-1400. A collection of French courtly dances, motets, ballades and rondeaus, some very complex. All of the music in it is polyphonic, and there are some very clever examples of notation, with one, by French composer Baude Cordier, written to a “special lady”, written in the shape of a heart. Aah, bless.

The Old Hall Manuscript, written by unknown, 15th century. The greatest surviving example of English sacred music, mostly written for mass.

7

Genre-ally Speaking…. (sorry)

Of course, there was no such thing as music genres in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, right?

If you think people did nothing else but stand around singing, and that there weren’t different styles of music, even back then,

Gregorian Chant

One of the earliest and simplest forms of music, Gregorian Chant (named after Pope Gregory I, even if historical evidence seems to suggest this to be a fallacy) featured nothing more than simple, monophonic singing by monks, created as it was for and by the Roman Catholic Church. Performed in Latin, or sometimes Greek, basically you’re talking hymns of praise here, aren’t you? The kind of thing you could only hear in churches and monasteries, as detailed at the beginning of this piece. Usually ensemble works for the mass, therefore liturgical (though not always, but always sacred) they were performed by choirs, usually of men and boys, sometimes men and women. Singing hymns, of course, goes right back to the time of Christ, and is mentioned many times, including when Jesus gathers his followers and Caiphas growls at the crowd to be silent, Jesus says if every tongue were silent the rocks and stones would cry out (or is that from Jesus Christ Superstar?) and hymns are sung at the Last Supper, to name but a few examples.

One assumes, too, that the likes of the Romans and the Greeks had their songs, the former more likely marching songs, songs of battle, and the latter probably in praise of their gods and poetry and the like, but that’s all by the by. People have been singing since they first appeared on this earth, probably. In terms of liturgical, organised music though, it seems Gregorian Chant was the first proper system, and though its practice has died out today (not surprising, given a) how few people attend church these days b) how the Church wants to be seen as more relevant, less rooted in the past and c) how few people understand Latin) it’s still occasionally used, and was even, as I briefly mentioned, and will again, revived in the last century by the rather unexpected channel of pop music.

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Being the “music of the Church” or the “divine sound of God”, Gregorian Chant was used as a propaganda tool by, among others, the Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne, who ordered its dissemination across Europe in order to tighten the Church’s hold on power, this order carrying with it the sentence of death for disobedience. The sanctioned chant then spread further, to Scandinavia and into eastern Europe, until by the twelfth and thirteenth century it was the official and only chant in town. As the first “proper” - or one might even say, I suppose, popular - music, Gregorian Chant was also responsible for the beginnings of music notation, much of this being again down to our good friend Guido d’Arezzo; note heads that were flat and square became more rounded and the use of a staff to “hold” the music came into practise.

The shock of 1994 was when an album of Gregorian Chant (entitled, with typical self-effacement and humility, Chant) by the Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos reached number three in the pop charts. Nobody knows why, though I suppose it could be the yearning to return to a simpler time, like staring out at the birds in a tree in your garden after spending hours arguing with your friends about which celebrity is doing what, or working on a book, or watching TV. Of course, it didn’t last, and was the most passing of fads, but it does show that, for a time, this music could still be popular - and in a secular way - almost eight hundred years after its heyday.

Ars Nova

We’ve already come across this, both in the timeline, where this new musical form gives its name to an entire era of music, and in the writings of, among others, Johannes de Muris and Phillippe de Vitry, and ars nova (new art) was essentially a move away from the monophonic compositions of Gregorian chant and other plainchant into a magical world of polyphony and new rhythms, which must at the time have seemed very exciting. It should of course be pointed out (and if I don’t someone will no doubt bring it up) that there was polyphonic music before ars nova, in the period known as ars antigua, covering the period approximately from 1170 to 1320, but the ars nova movement seems to have developed in the fourteenth century and to have moved the whole idea forward in leaps and bounds.

New rhythms, the polyphonic compositional techniques previously only available to sacred music now being applied to secular music, new notation: an exciting time for musicians, I’m sure - music became more expressive, more varied, more interesting. Let’s see who the movers and shakers were.

Phillippe de Vitry we have already covered, so our next composer is

Jehan de Lescurel (unknown, fl. 14th century)

As per usual, not exactly three volumes of information on this guy. In fact, the most interesting fact I can find about him is that it was once believed he was hanged for, ahem, crimes against women. Given that his name was quite common at that time though, it’s generally accepted this was an oopsie and that it was some other Jehan de Lescurel who danced in the air at the end of a rope. That’s good then. Other than that, he was a Frenchman, probably studied at Notre Dame and only seems to have got into the new music of polyphony later on, with most of his work monophonic. Yeah.

Guillaume de Machaut (1300-1377 approx)

One thing I tend to do now when researching these guys is look to the right of the Wiki page. If there’s a decent length of scroll, I know there’s stuff to write about him. A short scroll means a few lines and that’s your lot. This one has a pretty long scroll so that’s good. Also, we have dates for his birth (approximate anyway) and death, which makes it easier to talk about him as an actual person who lived, and not just a charcoal line sketch.

Turns out he’s a big cheese in ars nova; phrases used include “immensely influential”, “most significant composer whose name is known” and “the most important poet and composer of the fourteenth century.” He even seems to have had an influence on Chaucer. It says here. Like Guido, our man Guillaume seems to have been named for the region from which he came, Machaut, which makes me wonder if this was standard practice in Medieval times? Could surely get a bit confusing, no? What it you had twenty Guillaumes, all born in the same area? Would they all be called Guillaume de Machaut? Or would parents advise each other when they had a Guillaume, so that they didn’t name their kid the same? More than likely though, it’s that he had a real name, lost to history, and this is just a handy way of identifying him.

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Surviving through the Black Death, the Bubonic Plague that ravaged Medieval Europe in the fourteenth century and later, de Machaut composed the first complete setting of the Mass, but his secular works always seem to have been on the theme of courtly love - the only other form allowed by the times. This was chaste love, proper love, worshipping from afar and with great respect for the lady. In other words, no “you ma biatch” or any of that sort of thing. Presumably. He also wrote about 400 poems (these not intended for musical performance), many of which used allegory and dreams. He wrote a poetic chronicle of Peter I of Cyprus, which would often be read out during banquets at that country’s court. There is apocryphal evidence that de Machaut may have met Chaucer when both were taken prisoner at Calais, though this is certainly disputed.

Pierre (?) de Molins (fl. Mid-14th century)

So little is known about this lad that even his first name is a guess, and the entry calls him P. de Molins. Could be Percy for all I know, but they seem to think it was Pierre. Would anyone like to hazard a guess, perhaps even this month’s salary on what nationality he was? Seems he composed only two works, but those are important ones and the most popular of the fourteenth century. Does that make him the first rock star of the Middle Ages? Dunno. The pieces are a ballade (De ce que fol pense (that might translate to “it’s you I’m thinking about”, very Boyband for the time! Or not) and the rondeau Amis, tout de vis (“I see you, friends”?) but as usual we have the “no secure biographical information about him exists”, thanks a lot.

Interesting, some scholars tried to ascribe the rondeau above to our old buddy Guillaume de Machaut, but this has been fiercely shot down, and quite right too, I say, as if I had a scooby-doo what I was talking about, but it sounds authoritative, doesn’t it? Does not this beard make me seem more distinguished? No? As you will then, sir!

Jehann Vaillant (fl. 1360-1390)

Tuning was the name of his game, and he wrote a treatise on it, though some people have claimed he was even in advance of the technique of Machaut. He composed a very popular piece called Par maintes foys which has imitation bird calls in it, possibly (though I couldn’t confirm) the first time such a thing had been attempted in music.

Grimace (fl. Mid to late 14th century)

Here we go again! Virtually nothing is known about his life save speculation yadda yadda yadda. Hell, they can’t even say for sure if he was French! Three of his works are contained in the Chantilly Codex, which is mentioned in the section before this, and surely he must have the funniest name, even for a Frenchman, in the Middle Ages. Wonder if there was anyone in that time with the name Smile or Frown? Hah. Enough levity. This is serious stuff. Maybe.

The similarity in his work to that of de Machaut seems to put them in the same sphere, though whether or not they ever met is not mentioned - how many Frenchmen can have been wandering around mid-fourteenth-century France, composing, writing, notating and generally creating musical forms while failing to bump into each other? Weird. Then again, the French are not exactly noted for their friendliness now are they? Probably just ignored each other.

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I have this scene in my head, of two of these composers, both walking heads down, working on their material and colliding in the street. Conversation then goes thus:

Composer 1: “God bless you, pray have a care where you tread, sir! Cannot you see I am working on an important motet?”

Composer 2: “Hah! Peace be upon you, sir! Ah! Monophonic I see! Have you not woken up to the new polyphonic music yet, grandad?”

Composer 1: “You kids and your multi-part harmonies! God’s beauty is in single notes, sir! Single notes!”

Composer 2: “Were you not so old, I feel I would fain thrash you, sir, for such ignorance!”

Composer 1: “Oh indeed? You and what papal army, pray?”

etc.

But to return to serious subjects, In both of Grimace’s four part works, A l’arme A l’arme and Des que buisson, each upper part shares a contrapuntal relationship with the tenor yeah you don’t care about that and neither do I. There’s certainly a lot of technical waffle on those pages; you could go blind just reading it. We have birdsong again cropping up (and let’s be honest here, birds were the original singers oh no wait, they didn’t come along till after the dinosaurs. But was that before or after we hopped up onto the scene to mess everything up? Which came first, the chicken or the human?) in one of Grimlock, sorry Grimace’s works, Des que buisson and as that’s meant to represent Spring arriving, it makes sense.

Another interesting thing about this possible Frenchman was his usage of battle motifs, particularly in A l’arme A l’arme (I assume that’s Army to Army?) where he uses battlecries and fanfares to represent war.

Francoise Andrieu (fl. Late 14th century)

No guarantee the guy’s first name was Francoise, as he’s usually just called F. Andrieu, but seemingly at least confirmed to be a Frenchman this time, there’s only one of his works left extant, but it is important, as it commemorates the passing of the man seen as the father of this whole style of music and indeed the era to which it gave its name, the G-Man, Guillaume de Machaut, and is seen to be the first example of a composer writing a tribute to another dead composer.

And once again the section begins with those annoyingly familiar words “nothing is known for certain about…” Gahhhh! The elegy he composed, Armes amours, was however based on a text by another pupil of de Machaut, Eustache Deschamps, which I just wanted to mention because it sounds like this guy should definitely have had a moustache, and if he didn’t I’ll be real disappointed. What a cool nickname it would have been after all - Eustache “Moustache” Deschamps. Chortle. Seems there were over 1,500 lyrics in the poem (not entirely sure what constitutes a lyric in these terms, but it seems a lot) so if poor old G-Man had not already been dead, then sitting through that might well have finished him off anyway. Oh wait! I see now he was only “likely” French, so no confirmation, despite the opening lines. Well was he or wasn’t he? We’ll never know. Or care.

Incidentally, if anyone is wondering why I’m being so flippant, it’s because a) much of this stuff is tres boring and b) I find in general enthusiasts of classical music can tend to take themselves and it too seriously, the old stick-up-the-arse attitude, and I don’t hold with that. Well, I wouldn’t hold any stick once it’s been up someone’s ahhh where was I? Oh yeah. It can get really stuffy and formal, with far too much over-reverential praise for composers, and while of course they deserve the praise, it’s good I feel to also lighten the mood and poke gentle fun from time to time, and it makes it easier to read through all this, frankly, sterile and mind-numbingly tedious data in order to decide what to actually use, and how to use it.

If you think I’m being irreverent, I am, but not to give offence. I just have a weird sense of humour, and if you don’t like it, if you’re insulted by it or feel I’m not taking this seriously, let me tell you: research like this can fry your eyeballs and deaden your soul, so I take my fun where I can. There is, after all, no harm in it that I can see, and I’m not exactly worried about the families of guys dead nearly a thousand years coming after me, but if it offends you then maybe this is not the thread for you.