The University of Mississippi

Music 301: History of Western Music I

Review 1: Medieval Music


                 Chap. 1-6: ancient and medieval music

                      Basic concepts

Ancient world: gods: Apollo, Dionysus   hero: Orpheus
  Philosophers: Pythagoras, Plato    insts: aulos, lyre
  Boethius, 7 liberal arts 
    
Middle ages:
  -fall of western empire (476) to fall of eastern empire (1453)
  -monophony dominated
  -Western liturgy and chant: 
   mass (ordinary & proper), office (psalmody)
  -consolidation of "Gregorian" chant after 800
  -rise of notation: unheighted neums (ca. 900), heighted neums,
   single, double line, 4-line staff (known by 11c.)
  -pedagogy: Guido, hexachord, gamut, Guidonian hand.
  -secular monophony: troubadours, trouveres, minnesingers
   words emphasize courtly love
  -rise of polyphony, mainly performed by soloists
  -textbook organum, florid (Aquitanian) organum,
   Notre Dame organum: discant, motet, conductus:     
   (all these developed by 1300 as "ars antiqua")
  -Ars Nova (14c): plague, war, papal schism, Machaut, Landini
   -isorythmic motet, color, talea, as secular form
   -rise of polyphonic secular lyric: ballade, rondeau, etc.
   -beginning of polyphonic mass ordinary 
   -post Machaut (1375-1450) Avignon, complex rhythms and harmonies
    Ciconia, Dunstable point way to newer style.
                              
                           Review terms

Plato          psalm tone    Guido          gamut       organum
Pythagoras     responsorial  hymn           hexachord   discant
Apollo         antiphonal    sequence       syllabic    clausula
Dionysus       antiphon      trope          neumatic    conductus
Orpheus        ordinary      Hildegard      melismatic  motet
Boethius       proper        talea          color       liturgical drama
liberal arts   office        goliard        idiophone   aerophone
troubador      trouvere      minstrel       jongleur    cantiga
lauda          minnesinger   isorhythm      hocket      caccia
long           breve         semibreve      perfection  chordophone
Machaut        Landini       Fauvel         membranophone