Stylistic Periods

1
Stylistic Periods

• Introduction

2
Background Information

• Middle Ages (450-1450)
• Renaissance (1450-1600)
• Baroque (1600-1750)
• Classical (1750-1820)
• Romantic (1820-1900)
• Twentieth Century (to 1950)

3
Style

• Characteristic way of treating the various
  musical elements
• We can speak of the musical style of
• A composer
• Group of composers
• Country
• Period in history
• Similar features of style can be found in
  different arts of the same period.

4
General Features of Each Period

• Function in society-Name them
• Entertainment-concert hall, middle class home
• Used to accompany singing, dancing, religious
  rites drama.
• What it is created for
• Shaped by political, economic social, and
  intellectual developments

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Medieval Period

• 450-1450

6
Historical Background

• Disintegration of the Roman Empire
• 476-Last Roman Emperor lost his throne these
  centuries of disorder became known as the Dark
  Ages
• After 1000 Europe became more stable-Feudal
  System
• Sharp division between the three main social
  classes Clergy, Nobility and Peasantry
• Important musicians were priests, hence the
  liturgical singing.

7
Religion

• The Medieval King-Monarchs ruled by the idea of
  divine right (king ruled both Crown Church).
• The Catholic Church was the center of the
  Medieval world.
• Pope (as vicar of God on earth) should have
  ultimate authority over the state. Represented
  God on earth.
• Sometimes the king or ruler was the highest
  religious leader and sometimes considered divine.
  
• Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine) the Emperor had
  supreme power over the church.
• Before the advent of Christianity, there was no
  separation between church and state.
• Conflict between church and state is a Western
  phenomenon

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Other Events

• 13th century-Inquisition. Established to hunt out
  those who disagreed with the teachings of the
  catholic churchthey were excommunicated, which
  sometimes meant not just cut off from the
  churchbut put to death.
• Catastrophic Event-Black Death (1347-1350). Lost
  1/3 of the population, mostly peasants. Brought
  to Asia by Italian sailors.

9
People of the Time

• Vlad Tepes (1431-1476) Who is this man?
• Born in Romania
• Became Prince of one of three provinces and lived
  in a palace.
• His father was inducted into the Order of the
  Dragon (religious society to protect the
  interests of Catholicism, and to crusade against
  the Turks)
• Taken hostage for political reasons in 1442.

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Vlad Tepes Dracula

• Released from prison and learned that his father
  and brother had been killed by the boyars of
  Tirgoviste.
• At 17 he killed his fathers assassin and secured
  his second reign over Wallachia and during the 6
  years he committed many cruelties, thus
  establishing his reputation.
• Act of revenge he arrested all the boyar
  families and impaled the older ones on stakes,
  forced the rest to trek for 50 miles, if they
  survived they were ordered to build him a
  fortress on the ruins of an older outpostnow
  known as Castle Dracula.
• He became known for his brutal punishments,
  favorite was impalement on stakeshence the
  surname Tepes (The Impaler).

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Two Types of Music

• Sacred
• Religious in nature
• Meant to be performed in the church
• Based on Latin text
• Secular
• Music outside the church
• Topics included love, dance songs, spinning
  songs, etc
• Surviving songs written down by clerics

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Sacred Music

• Gregorian Chant
• Official music of the Roman Catholic
• Church for over 1,000 years.
• Represents the voice of the church
• Named after Pope Gregory I who reorganized the
  Catholic liturgy (reign 590-604)
• First passed down by oral tradition
• Characteristics
• Single melodic line
• Monophonic in texture (sung without
  accompaniment)
• Alternates between soloist and choir
• Sacred Latin texts
• Melody moves stepwise
• Based on modes or church scales
• Free from regular accent
• Flexible rhythms without meter and little sense
  of beat.

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Setting Style of the Texts

• 1. Syllabic one note to each syllable
• 2. Neumatic groups of two to four notes per
  syllable (each group represented by a single
  neume in the original notation)
• 3. Melismatic single syllable extending over
  longer groups of notes
• 1 - Alleluia Vidimus Stellam (P. 70)

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Hildegard of Bingen

• 1098-1179. Abbess of Rupertsberg, Germany
• Composer, visionary, mysticactive in religious
  and diplomatic affairs.
• Wrote poetry and music treatises on theology,
  science, and medicine
• First woman composer whose works (monophonic
  sacred songs) have survived.
• 2 - O successores (Page 72)
• See handout for more information

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Secular

• 900-Wandering Minstrels (Jongleurs) performed
  music and acrobatics in castles, taverns, and
  town squares
• They had no civil rights, lowest on social level
  with slaves and prostitutes
• 1100-Troubadors-sang about love and dance songs.
• Composed by French nobles and knights (musical
  poets)
• Language Provencal

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Secular Music

• Estampie (Thirteenth Century)
• Medieval dance, earliest surviving form of
  instrumental music
• In triple meter, with a strong, fast beat.
• Manuscript reflects a single melodic line with no
  instruments specified.
• 3 Anon Estampie
• (p. 74)
• See handout for an overview of medieval
  instruments.

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Romanesque Era (1000-1150)

• Emergence of polyphony
• Single most important development in western
  music
• System for notating rhythm started in the 12th
  and 13th centuries.
• Mass Five sung prayers of the Ordinary (or
  public mass)
• Canon extended melody stated in one part and
  then strictly imitated in one or more parts.

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Gothic Era (1150-1450)

• Individual composers on the scene
• Rise of cathedrals
• Learned musicians were monks and priests
• Earliest kind of polyphonic music was called
  organum
• Organum consists of Gregorian chant and one or
  more additional melodic lines.

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School of Notre Dame (1163)

• Leonin his successor, Perotin (choirmasters)
  are among the first notable composers known by
  name.
• They and their followers referred to as the
  School of Notre Dame.
• 1170-1200 developed rhythm innovations.
• Used measured rhythm with definite time values
  and clearly defined meter.
• First time in music history notation indicated
  precise rhythms as well as pitches.

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Guillame Machaut

• 1300-1377
• Foremost French composer/priest and greatest
  musician of his time.
• Traveled to many courts and presented decorated
  copies of his manuscripts to noble patronsthese
  copies made him one of the first composers whose
  works survived.
• 4 Puis quen oubli
• 5 - Notre Dame Mass-best known composition (P.
  78 79)

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Additional Terms

• Drone - long sustained tone or tones accompanying
  a melody. (Hildegard-O Successores
• Cantus Firmus (fixed melody) Composer added
  one, two or three countermelodies of his own
  creativity. Latin text.

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Ars Nova

• Secular music started becoming more important
  than sacred music
• 14th century was an age of disintegration
• (Hundreds Years War, Plague, weakening of the
  Feudal system)
• Composers wrote polyphonic music not based on
  chants. (drinking songs, and songs in which they
  imitated the sounds of barking dogs, birdcalls,
  etc.)
• With the new system of music notation composers
  could specify any rhythmic pattern.
• Beats could be subdivided
• These changes in musical style were so profound
  that the theorists referred to French and Italian
  music as the new art (or Ars Nova, Latin)

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Instruments

• STRINGS Plucked - Psaltery (auto harp)
• Lute (13th century guitar)
• Bowed Rebec
• Vielle (descendent of violin)
• Woodwind Shawm (large medieval oboe) double
  reed
• Percussion Nakers (small kettle drums)
• Tabor
• Cymbals and bells
• Hurdy Gurdy- (cranked rectangular box) stringed
  instrument with handle and keys.

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Keyboard Instruments

• Mainly organs many men needed to pump the giant
  bellows
• By 1300 there were up to 2,500 pipes or more
• Small organs were called positive, organetto or
  portative (they could be moved around.)
• Organ most popular instrument
• See handout for pictures

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Additional Composers

• Landini, Francesco (1325-1397) Italian
  organist, blind.
• Dufay (1400-1474) Church music and songs, motets.
  (Mainly considered a Renaissance composer.)