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Clausula (music)
The ''clausula'' (Latin for "little close” or “little conclusion"; plural ''clausulae'') was a newly composed section of discant ("note against note") inserted into a pre-existing setting of '' organum''. ''Clausulae'' flourished in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries and were associated with the Notre Dame school. The origin of the ''clausula'' has long been subject of scholarly debate, as the relationship between ''clausulae'' and motets is very complicated. ''Clausulae'' eventually became used as substitutes for passages of original plainchant. They occur as melismatic figures based on a single word or syllable within an ''organum''. Origins ''Clausulae'' emerged from the compositional practices of the Notre Dame school in Paris c. 1160–1250 (during the stylistic period known as '' ars antiqua''). The composers Léonin and Pérotin in particular contributed heavily in composing ''clausulae''. Rather than write entirely new music, the preference was to take e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area around Rome, Italy. Through the expansion of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language in the Italian Peninsula and subsequently throughout the Roman Empire. It has greatly influenced many languages, Latin influence in English, including English, having contributed List of Latin words with English derivatives, many words to the English lexicon, particularly after the Christianity in Anglo-Saxon England, Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons and the Norman Conquest. Latin Root (linguistics), roots appear frequently in the technical vocabulary used by fields such as theology, List of Latin and Greek words commonly used in systematic names, the sciences, List of medical roots, suffixes and prefixes, medicine, and List of Latin legal terms ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pérotin
Pérotin () was a composer associated with the Notre Dame school of polyphony in Paris and the broader musical style of high medieval music. He is credited with developing the polyphonic practices of his predecessor Léonin, with the introduction of three and four-part harmonies. Other than a brief mention by music theorist Johannes de Garlandia in his '' De Mensurabili Musica'', virtually all information on Pérotin's life comes from Anonymous IV, a pseudonymous English student who probably studied in Paris. Anonymous IV names seven titles from a '' Magnus Liber''—including '' Viderunt omnes'', ''Sederunt principes'' and ''Alleluia Nativitas''—that have been identified with surviving works and gives him the title ''Magister Perotinus'' (Pérotinus the Master), meaning he was licensed to teach. It is assumed that Perotinus was French and named Pérotin, a diminutive of Peter, but attempts to match him with persons in contemporary documents remain speculative. Ident ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magnus Liber Organi
The ''Magnus Liber'' or ''Magnus liber organi'' (English translation: ''Great Book of Organum''), written in Latin, is a repertory of medieval music known as organum. This collection of organum survives today in three major manuscripts. This repertoire was in use by the Notre-Dame school composers working in Paris around the end of the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth centuries, though it is well agreed upon by scholars that Leonin contributed a bulk of the organum in the repertoire. This large body of repertoire is known from references to a ''"magnum volumen"'' by Johannes de Garlandia and to a ''"Magnus liber organi de graduali et antiphonario pro servitio divino"'' by the English music theorist known as Anonymous IV. Today it is known only from later manuscripts containing compositions named in Anonymous IV's description. The ''Magnus Liber'' is regarded as one of the earliest collections of polyphony. Surviving Manuscripts The ''Magnus Liber organi'' most likely t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Motet
In Western classical music, a motet is mainly a vocal musical composition, of highly diverse form and style, from high medieval music to the present. The motet was one of the preeminent polyphonic forms of Renaissance music. According to the English musicologist Margaret Bent, "a piece of music in several parts with words" is as precise a definition of the motet as will serve from the 13th to the late 16th century and beyond.Margaret Bent,The Late-Medieval Motet in ''Companion to Medieval & Renaissance Music'', edited by Tess Knighton and David Fallows, 114–19 (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1992): 114. . The late 13th-century theorist Johannes de Grocheo believed that the motet was "not to be celebrated in the presence of common people, because they do not notice its subtlety, nor are they delighted in hearing it, but in the presence of the educated and of those who are seeking out subtleties in the arts". Etymology In the early 20th century, it was ge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isorhythm
Isorhythm (from the Greek for "the same rhythm") is a musical technique using a repeating rhythmic pattern, called a ''talea'', in at least one voice part throughout a composition. ''Taleae'' are typically applied to one or more melodic patterns of pitches or '' colores'', which may be of the same or a different length from the ''talea''. History and development Isorhythms first appear in French motets of the 13th century, such as in the '' Montpellier Codex''. Although 14th-century theorists used the words ''talea'' and ''color''—the latter in a variety of senses related to repetition and embellishment—the term ''isorhythm'' was coined in 1904 by musicologist Friedrich Ludwig, initially to describe the practice in 13th-century polyphony. Ludwig later extended its use to the 14th-century music of Guillaume de Machaut. Subsequently, Heinrich Besseler and other musicologists expanded its scope further as an organizing structural element in 14th- and early 15th-century composi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cantus Firmus
In music, a ''cantus firmus'' ("fixed melody") is a pre-existing melody forming the basis of a polyphonic composition. The plural of this Latin term is , although the corrupt form ''canti firmi'' (resulting from the grammatically incorrect treatment of ''cantus'' as a second- rather than a fourth-declension noun) can also be found. The Italian is often used instead: (and the plural in Italian is ). History The term first appears in theoretical writings early in the 13th century (e.g., Boncampagno da Signa, ''Rhetorica novissima'', 1235). The earliest polyphonic compositions almost always involved a cantus firmus, typically a Gregorian chant, although by convention the term is not applied to music written before the 14th century. The earliest surviving polyphonic compositions, in the '' Musica enchiriadis'' (around 900 AD), contain the chant in the top voice, and the newly composed part underneath; however, this usage changed around 1100, after which the cantus firmus typically ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhythmic Mode
In medieval music, the rhythmic modes were set patterns of long and short duration (music), durations (or rhythms). The value of each musical notation, note is not determined by the form of the written note (as is the case with more recent European musical notation), but rather by its position within a group of notes written as a single figure called a Ligature (music), ligature, and by the position of the ligature relative to other ligatures. Modal notation was developed by the composers of the Notre Dame school from 1170 to 1250, replacing the even and unmeasured rhythm of early polyphony and plainchant with patterns based on the metric feet of classical poetry, and was the first step towards the development of modern mensural notation. The rhythmic modes of Notre Dame Polyphony were the first coherent system of rhythmic notation developed in Western music since Ancient history, antiquity. History Though the use of the rhythmic modes is the most characteristic feature of the musi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anonymous IV
Anonymous IV is the designation given to the writer of an important treatise of medieval music theory.The term originated in Edmond de Coussemaker's compilatioScriptorum de musica medii aevi, Volume 1 where the treatise appears fourth in a series of anonymous writings. He heads it "ANONYMI IV," which could mean "by Anonymous IV" or "by anonymous IV". Richard Taruskin, in the '' Oxford History of Western Music,'' has insisted that the designation apply only to the treatise and not to the author. However, Taruskin's suggestion goes against common usage and has not, at least yet, gained popular support. He was probably an English student working at Notre Dame de Paris, most likely in the 1270s or 1280s. Nothing is known about his life. His writings survive in two partial copies from Bury St Edmunds; one from the 13th century, and one from the 14th. Along with Johannes de Garlandia and Franco of Cologne, whose work precedes his, Anonymous IV's writings are the main source for unde ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Léonin
Léonin (also Leoninus, Leonius, Leo; ) was the first known significant composer of polyphonic organum. He was probably French, probably lived and worked in Paris at the Notre-Dame Cathedral and was the earliest member of the Notre Dame school of polyphony and the ars antiqua style who is known by name. The name Léonin is derived from "Leoninus", which is the Latin diminutive of the name Leo; therefore it is likely that Léonin's given French name was Léo. Overview All that is known about him comes from the writings of a later student at the cathedral known as Anonymous IV, an Englishman who left a treatise on theory and who mentions Léonin as the composer of the ''Magnus Liber,'' the "great book" of organum. Much of the ''Magnus Liber'' is devoted to clausulae— melismatic portions of Gregorian chant which were extracted into separate pieces where the original note values of the chant were greatly slowed down and a fast-moving upper part is superimposed. Léon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Discant
A descant, discant, or is any of several different things in music, depending on the period in question; etymologically, the word means a voice (''cantus'') above or removed from others. The ''Harvard Dictionary of Music'' states: A descant is a form of medieval music in which one singer sang a fixed melody, and others accompanied with improvisations. The word in this sense comes from the term ' (descant "above the book"), and is a form of Gregorian chant in which only the melody is notated but an improvised polyphony is understood. The ' had specific rules governing the improvisation of the additional voices. Later on, the term came to mean the treble or soprano singer in any group of voices, or the higher pitched line in a song. Eventually, by the Renaissance, descant referred generally to counterpoint. Nowadays the counterpoint meaning is the most common. Descant can also refer to the highest pitched of a group of instruments, particularly the descant viol or recorde ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ars Antiqua
''Ars antiqua'', also called ''ars veterum'' or ''ars vetus'', is a term used by modern scholars to refer to the Medieval music of Europe during the High Middle Ages, between approximately 1170 and 1310. This covers the period of the Notre-Dame school of polyphony (the use of multiple, simultaneous, independent melodic lines), and the subsequent years which saw the early development of the motet, a highly varied choral musical composition. Usually the term ''ars antiqua'' is restricted to sacred (church) or polyphonic music, excluding the secular (non-religious) monophonic songs of the troubadours, and trouvères. Although colloquially the term ''ars antiqua'' is used more loosely to mean all European music of the 13th century, and from slightly before. The term ''ars antiqua'' is used in opposition to ''ars nova'' (meaning "new art", "new technique" or "new style"). The transition from ars antiqua into ars nova is not clearly defined, recent interpretation has described the tr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Notre Dame School
The Notre-Dame school or the Notre-Dame school of polyphony refers to the group of composers working at or near the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris from about 1160 to 1250, along with the music they produced. The only composers whose names have come down to us from this time are Léonin and Pérotin. Both were mentioned by an anonymous English student, known as Anonymous IV, who was either working or studying at Notre-Dame later in the 13th century. In addition to naming the two composers as "the best composers of organum," and specifying that they compiled the big book of organum known as the '' Magnus Liber Organi'', he provides a few tantalizing bits of information on the music and the principles involved in its composition. Pérotin is the first composer of ''organum quadruplum''—four-voice polyphony—at least the first composer whose music has survived, since complete survivals of notated music from this time are scarce. Léonin, Pérotin and the other anonymous co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
