Contents:

The Gothic Period (c. 1160-c. 1320; style term from architecture & art)

• Know musically as the Ars Antiqua ("Old Art")
  • So labeled in the book Ars Nova ("New Art") c. 1320
  • Period of the highest development of the arts of organum and conductus and the early motet
  • Period of the highest development of the secular song traditions of the Trobadors and Trouvères
    
• Early Gothic (c. 1160-c. 1250)
  • Cooincides with construction of Notre Dame on the Île de la Cité in Paris
  • Coincides with the highest development of organum and conductus in the Parisian school centered at Notre Dame
    
• High Gothic (c. 1250-c.1320)
  • Period of development of the early motet
  • Period of development of mensural notation

    

  The Parisian School (early Gothic period)

• Two composers identified by name by an anonymous Parisian student (known as "Anonymous IV") writing a century later (c. 1275)
  • Magister Léonin (Master Léonin), active c. 1160-1190
  • Magister Pérotin, active c. 1190-c. 1225
    
• Léonin (c. 1135-1201
  • Described as optimus organista ("best maker of organum")
  • Credited with creating the Magnus liber organi ("Great Book of Organum") with 2-part organa for use at Notre Dame
    • No copy survives, but 3 manuscripts in Florence and Wolfenbüttel appear to contain most of the repertoire
    • Polyphonic organum was intended for performance by solo singers, contrasting with the full choir singing the monophonic chant
    • Only the polyphonic sections were given in the manuscript
      
• Pérotin
  • Best known for 3-part and 4-part organum (organum triplum and organum quadruplum)
  • Church records show that 3- and 4-part organum, sung by soloists, were authorized for specific feasts
  • Also composed substitute clausulae
    • A "clausula" was a distinct section of a chant in which 2-part polyphony in discant style replace the monophonic chant
    • Substitute clausulae of different lengths allowed the length of the service to be varied according to circumstance
    • Clausulae were thus a kind of Trope
      
• Conductus
  • A conductus text was a metrical Latin poem, sacred, pious, or serious and secular (the term was used by the medieval theorists)
  • Both monophonic and polyphonic conductus are found in the same manuscripts that contain Léonin's work
  • Process of composition described in 1260
    • The tenor was a newly-composed melody
    • A duplum in discant style was added
    • Additional parts could be added, one at a time
    • The same conductus may exist in one, two, and three-part versions
  • Conductus was the first polyphonic music not based on existing chant
  • The settings were strophic
  • The voices moved within the same range, often crossing parts, and pronouning the syllables of the text together (called "conductus style" when it appears in other types of music)
    

    

• The need for a notation of rhythm
  • Guido's notation indicated exact pitches, but not rhythms
    • Either all notes were the same length, or …
    • Chant was sung in the rhythm of the poetry
  • A notation indicating rhythmic values was needed to coordinate the parts in 2-, 3-, and 4-part organum and conductus
  • The need was met in the late 12th century (probably), possibly by the Parisian school, by the system of rhythmic modes
    • Just as the existing body of chant had been classified into 8 melodic modes, the way music was being sung in the 12th century was classified into 6 rhythmic modes
      
• The 6 Rhythmic Modes
  • Based on the poetic "feet" of the texts
  • Existing note shapes (from chant notation) were used, but they were given specific rhythmic values according to their groupings
  • The rhythmic modes were based on 2 note values, brevis ("short") and longa ("long"), (with long twices as long as short)
    • A third note value, equal to a combined brevis and longa, was also needed (called a perfectio ("perfection" or "perfect long") because it represented the perfect number 3)
    • Short vertical strokes served as breath marks (or rests)
  • Ligatures were specific kinds of neumes binding 2 or more notes into a single figure
    • The form of the first ligature in a phrase determined the rhythmic mode to be used
    • Each voice part usually stayed in one rhythmic mode throughout a piece
    • But each voice part could be in a different rhythmic mode (probably the reason the system was devised in the first place)
  • The Modes
    • Mode 1: long, short ...
    • Mode 2: short, long ...
    • Mode 3: perfection, short, long ...
    • Mode 4: short, long, perfection ...
    • Mode 5: perfection, perfection, perfection ... (for tenors)
    • Mode 6: short, short, short ... (for fast moving parts)
      

    

• The origin of the motet
  • When the upper voices of an organum triplum or organum quadruplum were given a new text (a textual trope) different from the text of the chant tenor, this was called a conductus motet (from the French word mot ("word")
  • When the upper voice of an independent substitute clausula was given a new text (textual trope) different from the text of the chant tenor, this texted duplum was called motetus, and the entire piece came to be called motetus ("motet')
  • In both cases the defining feature is not just the addition of new text, but the use of two different texts at the same time
    
• The various forms of the motet
  • The lowest part was still called the tenor, and was most often a quotation of a chant melody (from a substitute clausula) with a Latin text
  • The next part up was called the motetus and had a new text in French or Latin
  • If a third partwere added it was called the triplum and would have a third text in French or Latin
    • Called a double motet because 2 texts were added (but there were 3 voice parts)
    • This is the most common type of 13th-century motet
  • If a fourth part were added it was called the quadruplum and would have a fourth text in French or Latin
    • Called a triple motet because 3 texts were added (but there were 4 voice parts)
  • A motet is named by giving the first word (or words) of each voice part, from the top down, separated by dashes: En non diu--Quant voi--Eius in Oriente
    
• Other stuff about motets
  • The same music is found with different words in different sources
  • A 2-part version may be in one source, a 3- or 4-part version in another
  • The different voices were often composed in different rhythmic modes, with the triplum having a text with many syllables moving in fast notes (6th Mode), the motetus having a text with fewer syllables moving in slower notes (1st or 2nd mode), and the tenor having a text with very few syllables moving in slow notes (5th mode)
  • In a skillfully-written motet, the different texts actually complemented and commented on each other, often showing different viewpoints on the same subject
  • To avoid wasting valuable parchment or velum, motets were written not in score but one part after another, first the triplum (which was the longest), then the motetus (which was shorter), and finally the tenor (often on one or two lines at the bottom of the page) written

    

• The 6 Rhythmic modes worked well for late 12th-century music, but were too inflexible for music becoming increasingly varied
• A new, flexible system of notation was first described by Franco of Cologne in about 1260 in Ars cantus mensurabilis ("The art of measureable music")
  • This system, in its fully-developed form, was used for the next two centuries, and formed the basis for our modern system of notation
    

  Franconian notation

• Franco used the existing note and ligature shapes, but he gave each note a specific rhythmic value for the first time
  • He recognized the existing rhythmic notes and values
    • The longa was written as a square note with a stroke descending on the right, and represented either a perfection or 2/3 of a perfection
    • The breve was written as a square note without stroke, and represented 1/3 of a perfection
  • He added two additional note values for longer and shorter rhythmic values
    • The duplex longa ("double long") was written as a long with the notehead twice as long, and had the value of two longs
    • The semibreve ("half-breve") was written as a diamond-shaped note (a square note turned on its side) without stroke, and had the value of 1/3 of a breve (diamond-shaped notes had been used in chant notation)
  • He regularized the rhythmic values of notes in a ligature through a set of rules
  • He took the vertical strokes used as breath marks and created a series of rests equal to the values of the notes they replaced
    

  Petronian notation

• Petrus de Cruce (Peter of the Cross), later in the 13th century, composed music with faster notes than the Franconian semibreves, using semibreves to represent from 4 to 9 notes in the time of one breve
  • The triplum of these pieces became more of a solo part, and needed the additional notes because there were many more syllables in the text
    
• By about 1300 the result was that the beat had slowed down and the semibreve now had the duration of the Franconian breve (a process that continued to the present day!)
  

  Musica Ficta

• In chant the only note that could be altered was B, which was considered unstable because it could appear as either B-flat or B-natural
  
• In order to avoid unpleasant intervals in the polyphonic music of the late 13th century, some other notes had to be altered by a half step at certain times
  
• The altered notes were called musica ficta (fictitious music) because the notes did not appear in the Gamut of notes given by Guido d'Arezzo
  
• By about 1318 the sharp sign (#) was being used for such alterations