Chapter 3

Music in the
14th Century
 The Fourteenth Century

 After the economic boom of the preceding
centuries came the bust
 ‘The Hundred Years’ War’, 1337 to 1453
 The Black Death
 The Catholic Church in crisis
 Secularism, humanism, and
 A mood of morbidity, and ‘living for the
moment’
 The Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453):
a series of three conflicts between
England and France for control of the
French throne.

The Black Death (1346–53): the

‘Great Plague’ epidemic spread
across Europe, killing 50% of the
population.
 Avignon Papacy

 The ‘Babylonian Captivity’, 1309-78.
 Seven popes reigned at Avignon; all were
French, and they increasingly fell under
the influence of the French Crown.
 In 1376, Gregory XI moved his court to
Rome, leading to the Great Schism after
his death in 1378.
 The Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453):
a series of three conflicts between
England and France for control of the
French throne.

The Black Death (1346–53): the

‘Great Plague’ epidemic spread
across Europe, killing 50% of the
population.
 Great Achievements in the Arts

 Giotto di Bondone (c. 1267–1337), Italian painter
 Dante Alighieri (1265–1321), Italian poet and writer
 Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375), Italian author
 Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343–1400), English author, poet
 Philippe de Vitry (1291-1361), French composer,
theorist, and poet
 Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300–1377), French
composer and poet
Great Achievements in the Arts

 Dante’s Divine Comedy was the first
monumental literary work written in the
vernacular.
 Boccaccio’s Decameron and Chaucer’s
Canterbury Tales were all about the earthy,
rather than spiritual side of human experience.
 Giotto: texture and shape.
Giotto: a new naturalism

France: Roman de Fauvel

• Composed c. 1316
• Allegorical narrative poem
• Commentary on dangers of
corrupt and incompetent
government ministers
• Includes 169 pieces of music
France: Roman de Fauvel

• Fau-vel means ‘veiled lie’
• Fauvel embodies the sins
represented by his name:
Flaterie
Avarice (greed)
Uialanie (villainy)
Variété (duplicity)
Envie
Lacheté (laziness)
Ars nova: rhythm and metre

• Ars nova (‘The new art’): a treatise by Philippe
de Vitry, from ca. 1322-23
• A new approach to notation of more complex
rhythms
• Increased use of minim and semiminim
• Duple metre fully equal to triple metre
• Imperfection by notes of more remote values
• Syncopation
 Ars nova: rhythm and metre

 The division of the long was called mode, that of the breve
was called time (tempus), and that of the semibreve was
called prolation (prolatio).

 For the mode and time, division by three was perfect;

division by two was imperfect.

 For the prolation, division by three was major; division by

two was minor.

 This meant four possible combinations – four different

metres – which were indicated by mensuration signs.
Ars nova: rhythm and metre

 Ars nova: Isorhythm

 Isorhythm (‘equal rhythm’) – based on a repeating
fixed rhythmic and melodic pattern

 A way to organize the motet tenor

 Talea: the repeating rhythmic unit

 Color: the recurring segment of melody

 Most often two or three taleae for each color

Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300–77)

 The first ‘great composer’
 Both composer and poet
 Wrote 23 motets, in which he
outdoes de Vitry
 Wrote monophonic love
songs in the trouvère
tradition
 First to compose a complete
mass (as far as we know)
Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300–77)

 Spent his last three decades as a
tonsured cathedral canon, with
few official duties. He was in
effect a wealthy man of leisure.
 For his patrons, Machaut
supervised the copying of his
complete poetical and musical
works into rich manuscripts.
 Universally regarded as the
greatest French poet of his age.
 Machaut’s Messe de Nostre Dame

 From the 1360s – the only fourteenth-century polyphonic
setting of complete Mass Ordinary.
 Treats the whole mass as a somewhat unified composition,
linked by similarity of style and by tonal focus (on D in the
first 3 movements and F in the last 3)
 In four voices, with tenor, duplum, triplum, and the
contratenor, in the same range as the tenor.
 Kyrie, Sanctus, Agnus Dei, and Ite, missa est are isorhythmic.
 Tenor carries the cantus firmus, the melody to a chant on the
same Ordinary text, divided into two or three taleae.
 Machaut’s Messe de Nostre Dame

 From the 1360s – the only fourteenth-century polyphonic
setting of complete Mass Ordinary.
 Treats the whole mass as a somewhat unified composition,
linked by similarity of style and by tonal focus (on D in the
first 3 movements and F in the last 3)
 In four voices, with tenor, duplum, triplum, and the
contratenor, in the same range as the tenor.
 Kyrie, Sanctus, Agnus Dei, and Ite, missa est are isorhythmic.
 Tenor carries the cantus firmus, the melody to a chant on the
same Ordinary text, divided into two or three taleae.
 Secular Song and the formes fixes

Ballade Virelai Rondeau
Three stanzas Three stanzas One stanza

AAB Abba Abba Abba ABaAabAB

Machaut, ‘Je puis trop Machaut, ‘Douce dame Machaut, ‘Ma fin est mon
bien’ jolie’ commencement’

Polyphonic Monophonic Polyphonic

Philosophical or historical Nature and love Feelings of love

Secular Song and the formes fixes

 Machaut: Rondeau

A Ma fin est mon commencement
B et mon commencement ma fin
a Et teneure vraiement.
A Ma fin est mon commencement
a Mes tiers chans trois fois seulement
b se retrograde et einsi fin.
A Ma fin est mon commencement
B et mon commencement ma fin.

My end is my beginning
and my beginning my end
And this holds truly. (Or: And truly the tenor.)
My end is my beginning.
My third voice gets to reverse itself only
Secular Song and the formes fixes

 France: Ars Subtilior

 In the late 14th century, composers at the court
of the Avignon pope across southern France and
northern Italy cultivated complex secular music
 Continuation of Ars Nova traditions
 Polyphonic songs in the formes fixes
 Pieces notated in fanciful shapes, such as hearts
or circles
 Love songs intended for an elite audience
France: Ars Subtilior

France: Ars Subtilior

France: Ars Subtilior

 France: Ars Subtilior

 Rhythmic complexity to a degree not seen again
until the twentieth century
 Voices in contrasting meters and conflicting
groupings
 Harmonies purposely blurred through rhythmic
disjunction
 ‘En remirant vo douce pourtraiture’ by Philippus
de Caserta (fl. ca. 1370)
 A ballade: aabC
 Performances used voices for all three parts, but
instrumental doubling was likely
France: Ars Subtilior

France: Ars Subtilior

 Italy: the Trecento

• Italian Trecento Music (from mille trecento, for ‘1300’)
• Italy was a collection of city-states, not unified as France
was
• Several city-states cultivated secular polyphony
• Florence, Bologna, Padua, Modena, Milan, and Perugia were
the main centers for secular polyphony
• Church polyphony was mostly improvised, but a few
notated works have survived
• Principal secular vocal genres: ballata, caccia, madrigal
• Each genre has its own textual and musical characteristics

 Italy: the Trecento

Squarcialupi Codex (copied about 1410-15)

• One of the main

sources for Italian
secular polyphony
from pre-1330
• Named for owner,
organist Antonio
Squarcialupi (1416-80)
• 354 pieces, for two or
three voices, by twelve
composers
 Madrigal

Stanza Stanza Ritornello
Sections of music a a b
Lines of poetry 123 456 78

❖ Song for two or three voices without accompaniment

❖ All voices sing the same text

❖ Subjects: love, satire, pastoral life

❖ The ritornello is set to different music in a different meter

 Madrigal

Stanza Stanza Ritornello
Sections of music a a b
Lines of poetry 123 456 78

‘Non al suo amante’, by Jacopo da Bologna, is a setting of a

poem by Petrarch

❖ The two voices are relatively equal, and there is some

hocketlike alternation
❖ The first and last syllables of each line of poetry are set
with long melismas, in between is mostly syllabic
 Caccia

Caccia (Italian, ‘hunt’)

❖ Similar to the French chace, a popular-style melody set in

strict canon with lively, descriptive words
❖ Popular from 1345 to 1370
❖ Two voices in canon at the unison with an untexted tenor
❖ Sometimes the text plays on the concept of a hunt
❖ Other texts concern pastoral settings, battles, or a dialogue
❖ Some cacce end with a hocket or echo effects between the
voices
 Caccia

Caccia (Italian, ‘hunt’)

❖ Similar to the French chace, a popular-style melody set in

strict canon with lively, descriptive words
❖ Popular from 1345 to 1370
❖ Two voices in canon at the unison with an untexted tenor
❖ Sometimes the text plays on the concept of a hunt
❖ Other texts concern pastoral settings, battles, or a dialogue
❖ Some cacce end with a hocket or echo effects between the
voices
 Ballata
Ripresa

Stanza Ripresa
Piedi Volta
Sections of music A b b a A
Lines of poetry 123 4567 8 9 10 123

❖ The ballata (pl. ballate) was polyphonic

❖ Early monophonic form with choral refrains was associated
with dancing (ballare means ‘to dance’)
❖ Popular later than the madrigal and caccia (after 1365)
❖ The stanza consists of two piedi (feet) and the volta, the
closing line sung to the music of the ripresa (refrain)
Francesco Landini

 Landini (ca. 1325-97) was blind from
boyhood, but played many instruments
 A virtuoso on the small organ (organetto)
 Worked for a monastery and a church but
composed mainly secular ballate
 Sonorities containing thirds and sixths, and
arching melodies that are smoother than
Machaut’s despite syncopation
 ‘Landini cadence’: under-third cadence,
typical of trecento music
 English Polyphony

• English culture was tied to that of France after the
Norman Conquest in 1066
• English musicians created a distinct style, with
greater use of imperfect consonances
• Improvised part-singing in close harmony was
documented as early as 1200
• English melodies are relatively simple, syllabic, and
periodic
 ‘Sumer is icumen in’

• Voice-exchange evolved into elaborate
techniques: the rondellus, and the rota
• A rota is a perpetual canon or round at the unison
• ‘Sumer is icumen in’ is the most famous
• Two voices sing a pes (Latin for ‘foot’ or ‘ground’)
• The canon produces alternating F-A-C-F and G-
Bflat-D sonorities
 ‘Sumer is icumen in’

Summer has come! Loudly sing cuckoo!
Seed is growing, the flowers are blowing in the field,
the woods are newly green.
The ewe bleats after her lamb, the cow lows after
her calf.
The bull starts, the buck runs into the brush.
Merrily sing cuckoo! That’s it, keep it up!