1 / 16

Musical Style/Middle Ages

Musical Style/Middle Ages. An Introduction. Musical Style. Style: specific way of treating musical elements (melody, rhythm, tone color, dynamics, harmony, texture, form) Styles changes from one historical period to another (some transition music, sometimes sudden). Style Periods.

scott-massey
Download Presentation

Musical Style/Middle Ages

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Musical Style/Middle Ages An Introduction

  2. Musical Style • Style: specific way of treating musical elements (melody, rhythm, tone color, dynamics, harmony, texture, form) • Styles changes from one historical period to another (some transition music, sometimes sudden)

  3. Style Periods • Middle Ages (450-1450) • Renaissance (1450-1600) • Baroque (1600-1750) • Classical (1750-1820) • Romantic (1820-1900) • 20th Century (1900-1999) • Current (2000-present)

  4. Points to remember moving forward • Music is not created in a vacuum; it has a function • Entertainment for aristocracy or peasants? • Concert music? • Is it designed to accompany singing, dancing, religious ceremonies, drama? • Musical Style is shaped by political, economic, social and intellectual developments.

  5. Middle Ages (450-1450) • Began with the destruction of the Roman Empire • AKA “Dark Ages” , a time of migrations and war • Later middle ages (1050-1450) time of cultural growth (construction of Romanesque churches and monasteries and cathedrals were built) • Towns grew and universities were founded • The Crusades (1096-1291): Christian attempts to reclaim Jerusalem from the Muslims

  6. Middle Ages (450-1450) • 3 Social Classes (Nobility, peasantry, and clergy) • Nobles in the castles: spent time fighting other nobles; the women ran the estates, the households and cared for the sick • Peacetime activities included, hunting, tournaments and eating • Peasants: poor, bound to the land and lived in huts and subject to the landowners • Made up the majority of the European population • Clergy: Most powerful class • Heresy was the greatest crime • Clergy (monks in monasteries) controlled the learning and knowledge dissemination. Most people were illiterate • Heresy is proposing some unorthodox change to an established system of belief, especially a religion, that conflicts with the previously established opinion of scholars of that belief

  7. Middle Ages (450-1450)(14th Century) • Hundred years war(1337-1453) • Bubonic Plague (1350ish): Killed ¼ of European population, AKA “Black Death” • Weakened feudal system and religious control: Rival Popes (1378-1417),rumors of a third pope • Literature (Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Boccaccio’s Decameron) stressed realism and sensuality more than virtue and heavenly rewards

  8. Middle Ages (450-1450)(Music) • Catholic Church – center of musical life • Priest were the important musicians; important job in the monasteries was singing. • Boys received musical education in schools associated with church. Women were not allowed to sing in church but sung in the covenant. • Some nuns wrote music for choir (Hildegard of Bingen-1098-1179) • Only secular music was notated.

  9. Middle Ages Music • Medieval music primarily vocal • Few manuscripts indicated specific instruments. • We know from medieval paintings that instruments were used. • Church did not like instruments because of their role in pagan rites/rituals. • 1100 A.D. instruments used more in the church • Organ (initially primitive instrument played with fist) but developed into a instrument that can play polyphonic music • Clergy members complained (instrument could be heard for miles around

  10. Middle Ages Music • Common people would just stand and listen to the instrument. • Later Middle Ages: instruments source of conflict. • Composers wanted more elaborate music, clergy wanted discreet accompaniment to religious services

  11. Gregorian Chant • Official music of Roman Catholic Church for 1000 years • Melody set to sacred Latin texts and sung without accompaniment • Monophonic in texture • Melodies meant to enhance specific parts of religious services. • Background for prayers and ritual actions

  12. Gegorian Chant • Composers based original compositions on chant melodies. (since 2nd Vatican Council 1962-1965, services are in native language in each country) • Chant now no longer common • Represents the voice of the church, not an individual

  13. Gregorian Chant • Rhythm flexible without meter and has little sense of beat • Exact rhythm is uncertain: time values were never notated • Free flowing rhythm gives chant a floating character, almost improvised music • Melodies were step wise with a narrow range of notes or pitches

  14. Gregorian Chant • Depending on text, chants were recitations on one pitch or had complex melodic curves • Chants had an “other world” sound. • Gregorian Chant named after Pope Gregory I (the Great) who re-organized Catholic liturgy • Chant developed over centuries; originally passed down orally. Once chants were in the 1000s, they were notated to ensure musical uniformity throughout the church. • Earliest surviving manuscripts date from the 9th century. The composers of chant remain unknown

  15. Church Modes • Other world sounds came from unfamiliar scales. • Scales are called church modes or modes • Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Mixolydian, Domiant, Aeolian, Locrian (See diagram)

  16. Sample of Manuscript • Manuscipt

More Related