Music_Midterm[1].txt

• Unaccompanied monophonic singing without meter
• set sacred Latin texts in Catholic churches during Middle ages
• Named after Pope Gregory

• Many notes sung to only one syllable
• Opposed to syllabic (one or two notes per syllable)

• Central, most important service of Catholic Church
• Chants whose text changed to suit the feast day
• Chants with unvarying texts sung every day

• Before Machaut, composers writing polyphony had set only one or two sections of Proper of the Mass
• Machaut set all the chants of the Ordinary
• Could be heard on more than one feast day

• Early polyphonic setting of the Ordinary of the Mass
• Composed for Notre Dame Cathedral by Perotinus & Leoninus

• Gregorian chant composer, one of the first named composers
• Music appeals to sensual experience (blood, breath)
• Range huge by chant standards, big leaps of fourths & fifths

• Choirmaster at Notre Dame of Paris
• Created w/ Leoninus new style of chant: polyphony
• Added wholly independent voice(s) above existing chant
• Took centuries-old chant for mass (Viderunt Omnes), added 3 new voices above it
• Jaunty triple-meter rhythm

• The structurally fundamental line in medieval polyphony, moving very slowly, sustaining (holding) one note.
• Provided harmonic foundation

• Genius of Medieval music. Pre-eminent poet-compser of 14th-century.
• Associated with Ars Nova- Middle Ages obsessed w/ rhythm, experimented w/ radical rhythmic composition
• Developed motet and was the first to set the Ordinary of the Mass in triple meter (first to use triple meter)
• Eliminated drone, put tenor in the middle, two on top, creating soprano/alto/tenor/bass (Perotinus had put all three above tenor)
• Unlike P., spread out voices over 2.5 octaves, becoming first to use almost full range of chorus

sacred Latin music for multiple voice parts

• Renaissance ideal emphasizing human potential and belief that people could be morally educated
• Belief that people are more than mere conduit for heaven, but have capacity to create & shape world.

• Franco-Flemish Renaissance composer
• Excelled in motets
• His Ave Maria (Hail Mary) uses standard four voice parts (S/A/T/B). As motet unfolds, voices enter in succession with same music motive (=imitation). Each voice equally important, yielding symmetry/balance.
• Imitation: procedure whereby one more voices duplicate in turn the notes of a melody

• Reform movement promoting more conservative/austere approach to art, in response to Protestant Reformation
• Started w/ Council of Trent
• Against imitative polyphony: arguing it obscures meaning
• Palestrina accomodated its needs

• Master of Sistine Chapel during Council of Trent
• "Saviour of church music"
• Missa Papae Marcelli: set text of Mass w/ exceptional clarity, mostly by homophony: very short, small points of imitation, no fluidity

• 1600-1750
• Highly ornamental melody w/ solid chordal foundation
• Decoration seems to overrun fundamental harmonic structure. Asymmetry; "misshapen pearl"
• Highly dramatic: singleness of emotion
• Doctrine of Affections: diff. Musical moods influence emotions
• Vocal virtuoso solo singing (monody) supported by basso continuo: bass-driven chordal support

• Italian secular music for (usually) 3-6 voices, text tends to be vernacular love poetry
• 2) Attempt to express musicallythe meaning of a text: so common in madrigals, called "madrigalisms"

• Musical genre originating in late-16th cent Italy wedding music, drama, costumes & scenery
• Emphasizes solo singing to express emotion

Expressive solo singing w/ small instrumental accompaniment, originating in early 17th-cent Italy

• 1) musical speech conveting actions of the plot
• 2) moment of stasis in which characters reflect on plot. Passionate, tuneful, expresses emotion, extending vowels thru melisma
• 3) mix of 2

Florid, melismatic singing w/ elaborate melody of 18th-19th cent, especially Bel Canto period. Came to mean display of physical prowess (sustaining high note, etc)

• Late Baroque era convention
• A. Section
• B. Contrasts in mood, tone, modality
• A. (Not written out) sings it again with : ornaments:

• 1567-1643
• Argued against Artusi, who wanted Renaissance approach.
• Said words are mistress of harmony. Used dissonance: broke Plato's alignment
• Moved music to Baroque, emphasizing/ elevating the text
• Innovator of monody/ recitative, eg in Orfeo

• Late Baroque imitative polyphony for 2 or more voices involving exposition of subject, episodes of free counterpoint, further appearance of subject and ending w/ strong affirmaton on tonic key
• Subject countersubject freecp
• Answer countersubject
• Then everything becomes free counterpoint
• Then entry (complete statement of subject)
• Then episodes (eg, fragmentation or unrelated to subject)
• Structured way of listening: narrative form
• Musical potential worked out, musical education

• 1685-1750
• Rigorous contrapuntal music
• Great length & contrapuntal complexity
• Large scale works full of dramatic power, broad gestures, technical mastery - sense of "rightness"
• Helped create church cantata: multimovement sacred works
• Built Wachat auf on chorale: spiritual hymn of Lutheran church, easy to sing

• "something sung" -began as monody, by Bach's time multimovement choir ensemble used in church services
• Includes arias, ariosos, recitatives
• Became musical core in Lutheran church service

Serious opera, most popular: Italian, tragic, mythical themes told in highly conventionalized format

• Key style of opera in classical era: much lighter, slapstick, inside jokes, opera of the common people. Championed middle-class
• More tuneful
• Eroded distinctions btw recitative, etc. More fluid.
• Coincided w/ emergence of musical public: post 1750, before which composed mainly for aristocrats, nobility
• Musical representation of character
• Used spoken dialogue & simple songs in place of da capo arias & recitatives

• 18th-century movement emphasizing reason, secularism, Neoclassicism, human rights, social justice, individual liberties
• Rise of criticism- music as intellectual object: not entertainment but a text to be analyzed. Sheet music cirulated, movement of music from public sphere to infornal spaces
• Clarity, simplicity, grace, quiet, natural: reaction against flamboyance of Baroque
• New genres: symphony, string quartet

• Emerged by 1750 as major Instrumental genre with 4-movements: fast, slow, minuet, fast
• Derived from Italian sinfonia (1 movement in 3 sections)

• 1756-1791
• Marriage

• First movement in a 4-movement Classical symphony: fast
• Consists of exposition, development and recapitulation

• Presents main themes:
• 1st Theme, always in tonic key
• Then transition / bridge from tonic to dominant (or, if in minor key, from tonic to relative major). Prepares arrival of second theme, often rapid figural patterns.
• 2nd Theme contrasts w/ first (slow-fast, etc)
• Ends with closing theme, often just oscillating btw dominant/tonic chords
• Exposition repeats

• Most of the drama occurs: working out of thematic material.
• Themes can be extended, varied, or transformed.
• Dramatic confrontation can occur between several themes
• Contrapuntal possibilities, brief fugato
• Unstable and unsettling. Harmony modulates quickly.
• Retransition at the end restores tonal order (often pedal point on dominant)

• Begins when dominant chord gives way to tonic key of exposition
• Presents same musical events as exposition, though not exactly
• One change: transition rewritten, since must end in tonic, stays on tonic
• Imparts return to familiar, harmonic stability

• Slow, stately, filled with ominous chords, provoking wonder about what will follow
• Not part of exposition (not repeated)

• Section added to end of movement to wrap things up
• Ends with by slowing down harmonic motion to just two chords, dominant and tonic, played over and over. Feeling of conclusion. THE END