Prep For Wednesday of Week 2:

1. Be sure to go to WMU E-Learning and do the openbook Online Quiz Assessment #1 (must be completed by 3PM on Wed January 16).

2. You must bring you own copy of the "Music 1700 Resource Guide" coursepak to class now ( at WMU Bookstore).

3. Review the Notes for our previous class session

4. Follow the score of the "Agnus Dei" movement of Machaut's Messe de Notre Dame (1700 Resource Guide, pp. 44-45) while you watch this incredible YouTube video clip of Machaut's "Agnus Dei" performed by the soloists from the Abbey of Solemnes (this is a famous French monastery for Benedictine monks that has been around since the 11th century)

5. Look at this PowerPoint file on Medieval Sacred Music:
It is a pdf file

6. For next Monday at the start of class be able to:

-Name two composers from the Medieval era
-Know the dates for the "Ars Antiqua" and for the "Ars Nova"
-Know what the "trecento" refers to (see below)

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Notes from Wednesday of Week 2

Sacred Music of the mid-late Middle Ages

(See Chapter 3 of the online textbook/E-Learning for details)

The following bold or bold/italic terms/works/composers were studied:

Style eras in the mid/late Middle Ages

- Ars Antiqua (French c1150-1300): "The old art"--Perotin's Haec dies organum, and the Anonymous 13th c motet O mitissima--Virgo-haec dies are examples of this style

- Ars Nova (French c1300-1400): "The new art"--represented by Machaut's complex style (see beloe=w)

- Trecento (Italian c1300-1400)" Means "Three hundred" but refer to the 1300s. Era of complex, expressive new style.

Late-Medieval SACRED:
- Music of the late Middle Ages is very complex in terms of rhythm, melody and "sonority" (simultaneous melodic sounds that are created because of counterpoint, not harmony).

Polyphonic Mass (Music Guide 7, Chapter 3-- also outlined on MUS1700 Resource Guide, p. 2 with score on pp. 44-45)
[remember, the "Mass Ordinary" consists of 5 prayers: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei

- The late Medieval French composer Guillaume de Machaut was the first composer to write a complete polyphonic setting of the Mass Ordinary.

- In the "Agnus Dei" movement of this Mass, Machaut uses an "Agnus Dei" Gregorian chant tune as a cantus firmus.

- This "Agnus Dei" movement also uses a new development in Medieval rhythm called "isorhythm" ("iso" means "the same").

ISORHYTHM
An isorhythmic section has two independent aspects (know the difference between a "talea" and a "color"):

-TALEA (recurring rhythm pattern)
-COLOR (pitch pattern)--pronounced "koh-LOHR"

Look at the Powerpoint "...Medieval Sacred" slideshow on the Music 1700 E-Learning site (click the "Powerpoint Lecture Files" icon, then select the "...Medieval Sacred" link), focus on the slides about Machaut's "Agnus Dei" and its use of cantus firmus and isorhythm, and compare that information to what you see in the musical score [ornamented cantus firmus in the tenor at mm.1-6; isorhythm in all voices in mm. 31-46 (each voice repeats its own individual rhythmic pattern every three measures)

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To truly appreciate the innovations in Machaut's Messe de Notre Dame, we compared its structure and techniques to Perotin's "haec dies" organa, and to the Anonymous 13th-century motet "O mitissima- Virgo- haec dies" (Music Guide 6, Chapter 3--also outlined on MUS1700 Resource Guide, p. 2 with scores on pp. 38 and 39)

See the PowerPoint file on Medieval Sacred Music:
It is a pdf file