Machaut Music Form

“Medieval motets tended to be isorhythmic; that is, they employed repeated rhythmic patterns in all voices—not only the cantus firmus—which did not necessarily coincide with repeating melodic patterns.”2 This new isorhythmic principle, brought on mostly by the composer Machaut, was used not only in the tenor voice but also rather with much more freedom in the upper voice parts. The application of discant over a cantus firmus marked the beginnings of this new revolutionary style, the motet, in Western music. The key motet composers in the medieval period were few in number; Phillip de Vitry and Machaut were one of the earliest composers to institute the isorhythmic technique, which set the style for other medieval composers like Willelmus de Winchecumbe. Guillaume de Machaut was a more famous named late-medieval composer to institute the discant which caught on in other music styles and only helped to evolve the motet into its later stylings. These composers helped carry the motet to the new Flemish motet style.

The text in this song is absolutely perfect, since it was taken from a poem. The melody is beautiful and the harmony that goes along with it is amazing as well. The melody is the soprano solo part, sometimes the second sopranos, often it’s the upper sopranos, and whenever the choir sings together. The melody includes many high notes. The soloist that would be the perfect choice for this role would be a soprano. The harmony matches up perfectly with the higher notes in this song. The parts of this song who have the harmony are the altos. The altos in this song were flat very often in this song, and to fix that, they

Section one is introduced with a pedal solo which is used to maintain the rhythm of a ¾ pattern that is consistently present throughout the entire piece and initiates the ostinato theme. A significant part of section one can be distinguished in measure 33 where the melody of both hands shifts to the swell organ manual. Also, the melody switches again to the choir organ manual in measure 49.

Rose, liz, printemps, verdure by Machaut kicks off with four voices and cantus leading the main melody, while being supported by a slower-moving tenor, creating a two-voice framework. When looking at this piece on paper, this rondeau is in ABaAabAB form, with the capital letters representing both the music and the song is sung together and the lowercase letters representing that the music is the same with different lyrics. The entire lyrics mainly talks about nature and its sweet fragrance and sweetness as well as “all the gifts of nature” and “[one’s] virtue [exceling]” (NAWM 139), which implies that this piece was either about a lover or about Virgin Mary. Interestingly, this music has a very eerie

In addition to asymmetrical rhythms the use of polytonality is vibrant throughout the piece especially in the introduction which begins with different clarinets playing polytonal. Stravinsky structured The Rite very differently, melody was not the only dominant feature of the piece, other features such as the fore mentioned polytonality and asymmetrical rhythms were also at the dominant features of the piece. By breaking from many common practices of his own and of the time, Stravinsky created a piece slated in modernism's history.

Instruments I heard during this music piece were violins, violas, and clarinets. The first theme within the music is exposition; the music begins quiet for a short amount of time. However, during the middle, the transition becomes louder. The second subject begins quiet and gets louder towards the end. The second theme, the development is loud within the middle of the music however, the music begins and ends quietly. There is dynamics that contrast within this part of the music. The dynamics in the recapitulation is similar to the exposition, where the first subject is quiet from the middle to where the transition is louder. Then the second subject begins quiet and gets louder towards the end. The first and second theme contrast in nature by there rhythmic composition. The first theme has shorter values, whereas, the second theme has longer.

f. The song starts forte with an immediate crescendo/ decrescendo, followed by an accent mark on beat 1 mm 5. Mm 9 begins another crescendo/ decrescendo again followed by another accent. The following page brings us all the way down to a Piano, followed by a crescendo/ decrescendo and then immediately after, another crescendo/ decrescendo. Bringing us to mm 25, we are nearing the end of the piece with a forte followed by 2 decrescendos in succession to each other. There is then a fermata which allows for dramatic effect. The post fermata measure then shows a fermata and the word broaden which slows down the piece and leads you to a second fermata holding out a note forteissimo and then going back into time and ending the

inspiration for the composition of the piece, as it was written in French to make use of the language’s sound and enhance its decadence.

The original hymn copyrighted by Katharine bates has as many as four verses (The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History), but this recording only performs two. The recording begins with the introduction of a bass drum, using a sound of a drum

Valley Concert Chorale’s Sing-It-Yourself Messiah event has been a Tri-Valley holiday tradition for the past 12 years. Singers of all ages are invited to add their vocals to Part I of Handel’s great choral masterpiece, also known as the Christmas portion of Messiah. The performance of this classic will conclude with a powerful rendition of the “Hallelujah Chorus”.

Bauman provides a thoughtful analysis of the completion of Mozart’s Requiem by Richard Maunder. He bases his argument on the fact that

I would say the lead vocalist is an untrained tenor, but his voice is nice for the song.

The 1st movement is in sonata form. The slow introduction to this symphony is unusual in that it begins in the subdominant key - E minor, solemnly introduced by the bassoons. It modulates into B minor and the tempo increases for the principal subject. This theme is elaborated and developed, and a march-like motif forms a bridge passage leading to a climax. The strings then introduce an amorous, song-like second subject in D major. The development section enters with a bang. This section brings no startling thematic growth or transformation, but is

The second movement, Andante con moto, however has two main different interpretations that it could be analyzed as song form or sonata form. The third movement, Con moto moderato, was composed in form of minuet and trio. Finally, for the finale, which consists of the Roman saltarello and the Neapolitan tarantella dance rhythm, contains characteristics of both sonata and rondo form.

The listener would perceive the slow-moving idea (mm. 23 – 29) which follows as the second theme, if it were not for its fleeting mysteriousness. It provides a contrast to the majestic themes which opened the movement. The harmonic ambiguities, created by the chromaticism, are very progressive for the Romantic era.