Chapter 5 The Middle Ages

1. Chapter 5The Middle Ages Music and the Church: Plainchant

2. Jongleurs Plainchant Medieval modes Vihuela Recitation Reciting tone Preface Antiphon Sequence Drone Key Terms

3. Middle Ages Timeline

4. The Middle Ages • From fall of Rome (476 C.E.) to c. 1400 • Access to international trade waned • Feudal economy • Primitive, often brutal living conditions • Mass migrations due to invasions, famine, plagues • Much of the education and technology of Greco-Roman civilization lost in the West

5. The Middle Ages • Slow but sure movement away from the absolute authority of the Church • New musical concepts originated and evolved—“quantum leaps” in music history • Music notation • Polyphony • Tunes

6. Music and the Church • The Church held a central position in all areas of life • The single greatest preserver of western civilization in the Middle Ages • Patron of the arts: music, art, architecture, poetry, learning • Most musicians trained in the Church • Except at the end, most notated music was Church music

7. Plainchant • Chanting sacred texts is a nearly universal phenomenon • Practiced by Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Buddhists • Also used by many smaller traditional religions, as in Hawai’ian or Navajo cultures • Plainchant (Gregorian chant) is the body of chant melodies sung in the Catholic Church from the Middle Ages to 1964

8. Plainchant • Music was used at services in cathedrals, monasteries, and convents every day • The Mass: the major worship service • The Divine Office: eight shorter services at various times of day and night • Thousands of texts and melodies required for these daily services • Prior to notation, all sung from memory! • Pope Gregory I supposedly mapped out the standard order of chants for these services—thus, Gregorian chant

9. Medieval Modes • Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, and Mixolydian • White-key scales starting on D, E, F, and G, respectively • These scales don’t use same patterns of whole steps and half steps as major or minor scales • As a result, “pull” to tonic is weaker • Richer palette of possible scales

10. Medieval Modes

11. Listening to Plainchant • Describe the style of plainchant • Melody • Harmony • Key and tonality • Rhythm, meter, and tempo • Dynamics • Texture • Tone color • Form • How is this music not like a tune?

12. Features of Plainchant • Legato melody moves mostly by step • Based on a medieval mode (Mixolydian) • Tonality weaker than with major scale • Nonmetrical: no fixed rhythm or meter • Rhythms follows text at moderate tempo • Unaccompanied, monophonic music • Sung by male (or female) voices • No obvious patterns of repetition or return • Avoidance of repetitions, dance rhythms, and strong tonic gives it a floating, otherworldly, spiritual quality—passionate yet serene

13. Antiphon, “In paradisum” • Burial antiphon from the Requiem Mass (funeral service) • Sung over and over while the coffin is carried from church to graveyard in a processional

14. Preface, “Vere dignum” • Preface from the Mass for Whit Sunday • Part of the Liturgy of the Eucharist, the Preface introduces the Elevation of the Host • Sung by the priest as he presents the bread and wine • The Preface immediately precedes the Sanctus (Holy, Holy, Holy), one of the most awe-filled moments of the Mass

15. Preface, “Vere dignum” • Legato melody with many repeated notes • Heightened speech; not as “melodic” as “In paradisum” • Based on a medieval mode (Dorian) • Nonmetrical: no fixed rhythm or meter • Rhythms follows text at moderate tempo • Unaccompanied, monophonic music • Sung by solo male voice • Based on a reciting tone, repeated three times

16. Hildegard of Bingen • Lived 1098-1179 • Abbess: founded Rupertsberg Abbey • Mystic: author of Scivias, a record of her visions • Author: wrote 13 other books on theology, medicine, and physical sciences • Composer: wrote some 77 works, including Ordo Virtutum, a liturgical drama

17. Hildegard, “Columba aspexit” • Legato melody mixes in more leaps, covers wider range than earlier plainchant • Based on a medieval mode (Mixolydian) • Nonmetrical: no fixed rhythm or meter • Rhythms follows text at moderate tempo • Monophonic music over instrumental drone • Sung by female voices • Sequence form: AA’BB’CC’ etc. • Series of solo tunes repeated by chorus • Ecstatic yet serene

18. Hildegard, “Columba aspexit”