1. MUH 3211 - Music History I “Music in the 14th Century”
11/21/2018
Chapter 3
“Music in the 14th Century”
DAY 11 (29 Sep 17)

2. The “Ars Nova”
Increasing rhythmic complexity after use of smallest values (minum and semiminum) - use of duple meters and divisions
Philippe de Vitry ( ) - Ars nova (c. 1320)
Johannes de Muris (c ) - Ars novae musicae (c. 1320)
New style criticized by Pope John XXII, et al.
Ars Nova = post-1300
Ars Antiqua = pre-1300, esp. Notre Dame

3. Le Roman de Fauvel (c. 1316) Gervais de Bus, author
Allegory on corruption - both secular and religious
Fauvel (horse/ass) - acronym for vices
Ascends to throne - lives in royal house -attended by humans
Fortuna (fate) allows marriage to Vainglory
Gives birth to more Fauvels (Anti-Christs!)

4. Philippe de Vitry (1291-1361) French courtier/musician Multi-talented
MUH Music History I
Philippe de Vitry ( )
11/21/2018
French courtier/musician
Multi-talented
Ars nova treatise (1320)
Le Roman de Fauvel
Use of Isorhythm (see next slide)
Many Motets (but…)
…uncertain authorship
DAY 11 (29 Sep 17)

5. Isorhythm 14th-c organizing principal for rhythm
Imposed on chant/non-rhythmicized melodies
Talea (“segment”/“cut”) = rhythm pattern
Color = pitches
Ex. Garrit gallus / In nova fert / [Neuma] (Anthology I/18)
Talea & color in tenor

6. Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300-1377)
Most famous 14th-c musician
Poet-chronicler at French court
Sacred and secular music
Formes fixes (secular)
1st 4vv polyphonic Mass
6 MSS of own music
Machaut meets “nature” and three of her children

7. Messe de Nostre Dame Composed by Machaut, c. 1360
First complete polyphonic setting of Mass ordinary by a single composer
4vv (!) – rare through the 14th C
Contratenor – below the tenor (chant)
Use of Isorhythm to organize
Machaut, Messe de Notre Dame, "Kyrie" (Anthology I/19)
Orlando Consort talks about Machaut

8. Machaut’s Secular Music
Love songs in troubadour/trouvere tradition
Use of formes fixes – standard textual patterns - Ballade - Virelai - Rondeau
Exs. Anthology I/20 & 22
"Je puis trop bien ma dame comparer"
"Ma fin est mon commencement"

9. Ars subtilior “the more subtle art” Late 14th century (c. 1375-1400+)
France, esp., south (Avignon Popes)
Secular songs (nothing sacred)
deliberately complex rhythms, etc.
Notational tricks (visual and other)
Use of colored inks
Canons (based on verbal puzzles, etc.)

10. Jacob Senleches “La harpe de mélodie”
“Chantilly Codex”
Chicago, Newberry Library MS 54.1

11. Baude Cordier “Belle, Bonne, Sage”
“Chantilly Codex”