Music in the Middle Ages

21.  Composers began to write polyphonic songs that were not always based on chant, what were they based on instead?

Blanche Gangwere, Music History During the Renaissance Period, 1520–1550. Westport, Connecticut, Praeger Publishers. 2004, Pg. 52

There are many contrasts in the art and music of the Renaissance and the Middle Ages. The Middle Ages was a time of great suffering, including famine and widespread disease, such as the Black Death. The Renaissance was revival of art, learning, and literature. The people’s attitude and fervor for religion had tremendous effects on the art and music produced. The Middle Ages also referred to as “The Age of Faith” was God centered and gave power to the church who dictated how the art should appear, and music should sound. The Renaissance was more concerned with individuals and their talents, the church was not the centralized power, the art exhibited influences from ancient Greece and the Roman Empire.

Music is present in every culture’s past, present, and future. It has been around since 500 B.C. and was especially important in the Elizabethan Era. There were reinventions of music as it was widespread and popular. Without this essential time in history, modern music may have been completely different from what we have today. This era brought new uses for music, styles of compositions, new instruments, and the uprising of popular composers.

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Another comparison that can be made to the modern era and Renaissance Europe is the field of music. Music has always been a part of the history and served as a form of entertainment for a long time. In early Renaissance Europe, wealthy merchants were able to educate their family in the arts and music. Women from rich families were also involved in music. Music in early renaissance was created in a way to sooth the listener's ears. Music with vocals was predominant and composers documented music for certain instruments. Events that led to changes from 1400 to 1600 (Arkenberg, 2002) led to the major shift in the styles making music, ways of distributing music, neo musical genres and the creation of instrument used in making music. The early Renaissance

Then there were other people who did not like change in the church. They thought the only instrument should be a piano and the only songs that should be sung were the hymns. And then there was a third group. This group liked a mix, they did not see a problem with some new music and adding a few instruments, but they also liked the traditional hymns, they did not feel like they had to get rid of one to have the other. Their concern was more with trying to please all people; obviously not everyone was going to like everything that occurred, but to compromise was there thought and tactic.

From the beginning of times, music has played an important role in everyone’s life. At first, it started with drum-based and percussion instruments made out of what was available as rocks and sticks. Our ancestors proved that human beings have an innate need of music. Nowadays, no one teaches a baby to follow the beat of a song, he just naturally lets his body get involved with the rhythm. Since the prehistoric era to Christian times, several forms of music have developed leaving a trail to new genres of music. For Christianity, hymns and plainchants were the first forms of music considered as a worship to God. As time passed by, Christian music has evolved giving way to new and fresh sounds.

Music has evolved too many different forms that we recognize today. We trace this development throughout time. Beginning in the middle ages, we have seen advancement from the Gregorian chant all the way to the Jazz of the 20th century. The current events, politics, religion, technology and composers can shape musical eras during time. Here I will look at the middle ages, renaissance, baroque, classical, romantic and twentieth century periods. I hope that a better understanding can be reached to why, when, where and who are the reasons for musical evolution.

The Medieval period began in 500 A.D. and ended in 1450 A.D. During this time in particular, the Catholic Church had significant influence on how music was used and created. Sacred music, for example, was most prevalent because of this. Due to the religious nature of this period, music in the church had to adhere to very specific regulations, some of which included prayers such as plainchants or Gregorian chants. A single melody without harmony, or one musical part sung together in unison, is called a Monophonic melody, which was sung primarily by monks. Some time later, around 900 A.D., the using of two melodic lines was permitted by the church, this music was called organum. A low, continuous note called a drone, was sung at the same time as the main melody. The two melodies were often moving in contrasting motion to each other. By the Late-Medieval period, 1100 A.D., the music of the church had shifted from monophonic to more polyphonic, often two or more varying parts.

From 1400 to 1600 A.D., the Renaissance was a period of a rediscovery of Greek ideals for musicians to explore possibilities of their art. It was during this time that ideas were able to better circulate, because individualism began to increase, and the printing of music helped to preserve and distribute musical ideas (History). Also, as opposed to the medieval period, the Renaissance began to expand upon the type of sound that was created by adding the voices of women in choirs, as well as expanding instrumental music. The texture of music also began to change, with homophonic and polyphonic compositions. Sacred vocal polyphony was used rather than monophony in the form of masses and motets, while secular pieces also included madrigals and songs. Instrumental pieces usually were short during this time, and were for dancing (History).

​ Life in the Middle Ages revolved around the Church, which was the Roman Catholic. So, we can imagine early music was pretty much from church. Every morning at 9 o’clock was Mass, a significant ceremony done to commemorate the Last Supper. At this church service, the music was the Gregorian Chant. The Gregorian chant is performed in the Latin language, unison voice and accompanied by no instruments which was believed that the text of the song which carried the divine message from God was more important. The music was just to help you get to a spiritual place (Wright, 4-1a).

During the middle Ages, the Catholic Church was the sole contributor to musical development. The music of the early church was monophonic, and had nonmetric melodies set in one of the church modes, or scales. The rise or development of polyphony came about during the Renaissance period; the Council of Trent wanted polyphonic church music to be created and Palestrina composed the Pope

The masses in the religious services had to be sung a cappella in this specific order or it was considered a disgrace and ruined the sacred pieces. The high priests of the Catholic churches were very strict on how the sacred music was sung and preserved.

Beginning at around 476 AD, the medieval era is mostly related to the church as most music from this era is sacred. The style of this era, the Gregorian chant is monophonic only comprising of the plainchant (or the single- line melodies of early church music) in texture only comprising of the plainchant (or the single- line melodies of early church music). It is not until the arrival of the French composers Léonin and Pèrotin in 1100 and 1200 respectively that polyphony would be incorporated into musical worship with the “decoration” of Gregorian chant with one or more simultaneous musical lines, thus transitioning from Gregorian chant to Organum. During this era, most of the music and roles for musicians belonged to the church except for the troubadours of southern France and the trouvères of northern France. The music was responsorial between the mass and the father during church and was