The Evolution of the Motet Essay

19. Who is Guillaume de Machaut? 14th century poet and musician who composed the first complete polyphonic setting of the entire Ordinary of the Mass.

It was during the Middle Ages (300-1000 AD), that various distinctive forms of art began to emerge in western Europe. A variety of significant mosaics, buildings and other forms of art came from this time that continue to be analyzed in the present. In the book Early Medieval Art, Lawrence Nees successfully provides an intricate interpretation of these various art forms that developed in this time in history while allowing the reader to conceptualize the emerging cultures of the first millennium in Europe. Nees is able to do this by outlining key aspects of the studied works of art that symbolize how life was at this point in history. At the beginning of his book, it is apparent that Nees seeks to provide a less traditional view on art at this time when he states, “I offer a different story of early medieval art in place of the more traditional tale of the decline of Rome and triumph of Christianity”. Nees’ thesis is subsequently inexplicitly stated to analyze the role of tradition in early medieval western art and its transformation as time progressed. By following a non-conventional thesis when writing this book, Nees is able to contribute a new perspective into the overall topic of medieval art.

2.     This piece differs from the traditional Gregorian chant of the Middle ages because of the jumps and leaps presented in the piece, which show that the piece was written after the period. Another reason it differs from chant is because this is plainchant rather than Gregorian. It is also sung in English, rather than the traditional Latin text.

The main objective in the performance of Renaissance music is that everything done by the singer is subservient to the text. Musicians of the Renaissance were fixated on the concept of music serving the text. Composers set poems to text attempting to imitate natural speech and inflection pattern in the rhythms of the music, and wished to write the music in such a way that the words could be understood. Singers should strive toward clear diction, making sure their vowel shapes and ornamentation do not obscure the text.

2. Ordo Virtutum has a modal formulaic structure that works by an alternating solo and choral response, which is considered to be distinct to Hildegard’s compositions.

When comparing the daily lives of two people separated by over a century, it’s seemingly unlikely that there would be common ground between. However, after reading the article regarding James Lawrence Dusenbery’s 19th century journal, I found that I share more in common with the fellow university student than I had initially anticipated. During his senior year at the University of North Carolina, Dusenbery kept a journal describing important life events as well as other thoughts and reflections. This journal, which now resides in the Wilson Library at UNC’s Chapel Hill campus, also offers insight to musicologists regarding the music culture of the time. Although Dusenbery wasn’t a musician he often transcribed poems that he found particularly meaning full

Thus, it would anachronistic to suppose that by acknowledging that publishers of the Middle Ages printed music, they did it in the same way it is done today. Printing did, all things considered, increase the volume of publications, but it was still at a slow rate. This did not, however, hinder the new applications of printed music, but rather gave sheet music new life. Musical pieces could now be produced at higher volumes and spread throughout churches around the world. Printed music, moreover, was cheaper due to the higher quantity available, which enabled amateur and professional musicians alike to, as Grout and Palisca note, “form vocal, instrumental, and mixed ensembles to perform the available repertory.”3 Furthermore, higher quantities and easier reproduction of printed music ensured it

This thesis aims to explore the life of Johann Sebastien Bach (1685-1750), and his contribution to European classical music. Bach was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period. To this day, he is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest composers and musicians of all time. Bach is known for his talent in playing the organ, and the extreme complexity of his works using counterpoint, motifs and harmony. His catalogue boasts over a thousand pieces, from cantatas, motets, lute pieces, four part chorales, to chamber music, orchestral works and canons.

At the beginning of seventeenth century, many Africans were captured and brought to America, they were forced to separate from their family, moving to a new continent with no kin around. What’s worse, they were even sold into slave with cheap price, and suffered in both physical and mental ways through the brutality action and harsh orders of the slave owner . At that time, music became one way for them to

Johannes Brasart, a Walloon like Dufay, whose name appears among the pontifical singers in 1431, composed motets, including a four-part "Fortis cum quevis actio" and a critically acclaimed "Ave Maria".

“The Rite of Spring” was written during the Modern Era of music. The characteristics of music during this period used nonsymmetrical patterns in the meter based on five, seven, eleven, or thirteen beats per measure. The meter could shift constantly changing the flow of the music. Composers started using sharply contrasting rhythms simultaneous , this is called polyrhythm. Early modern composers wrote melodies in relation to the instruments instead of the voice. Harmonies became more complex during this time. Composers used stacked chords adding as much as seven notes to one chord. These chords were highly dissonant and were known as polyharmony cords. These chords redefined the tonality and needed new ways of organization in music. These chords also could make distinctions with the dissonance and consonance in music.

The chanson was a variety of secular song, of highly varied character, and which included some of the most overwhelmingly popular music of the 16th century: indeed many chansons were sung all over Europe. The chanson in the early 16th century was characterised by a dactylic opening (long, short-short) and contrapuntal style which was later adopted by the Italian canzona, the predecessor of the sonata. Typically chansons were for three or four voices, without instrumental accompaniment, but the most popular examples were inevitably made into instrumental versions as well. Famous composers of these "Parisian" chansons included Claudin de Sermisy and Clément Janequin. Janequin's La guerre, written to celebrate the French victory at Marignano in 1515, imitates the sounds of cannon, the cries of the wounded, and the trumpets signaling advance and retreat. A later development of the chanson was the style of musique mesurée, as exemplified in the work of Claude Le Jeune: in this type of chanson, based on developments by the group of poets known as the Pléiade under Jean-Antoine de Baïf, the musical rhythm exactly matched the stress accents of the verse, in an attempt to capture some of the rhetorical effect of music in Ancient Greece (a coincident, and apparently unrelated movement in Italy at the same time was known as the Florentine Camerata). Towards the end of the 16th century

During the 14th century, a new style of polyphony developed in France. This new style, called ars nova, was characterized by a new system of rhythmic notation allowing the use of duple and triple division of note values, as well as complex syncopations. Around 1370, several composers in Avignon and southern France moved away from the style of the ars nova motet to develop a highly refined and intricate style distinguished by extremely complex rhythmic notation. The new trend soon spread into northern Italy, northern Spain, and as far as Cyprus. In his Tractatus cantus mensurabilis, Philippus de Caserta, one of the composers of the ars nova period, described that later style as an artem magis subtiliter, or a “more subtle art.”

1. Briefly describe the status of music in relation to the other arts in the nineteenth century.

Music from all over the world presents a range of musical theories. Some of these are documented in writing whilst others are transmitted orally. Discuss and give examples with reference to both Western and non-Western music.