Isorhythm
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Isorhythm (from the Greek for "the same rhythm") is a musical technique using a repeating
rhythm Rhythm (from Greek , ''rhythmos'', "any regular recurring motion, symmetry") generally means a " movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular r ...
ic 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
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 Eng ...
s 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 Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice ( monophony) or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chord ...
. Ludwig later extended its use to the 14th-century music of
Guillaume de Machaut Guillaume de Machaut (, ; also Machau and Machault; – April 1377) was a French composer and poet who was the central figure of the style in late medieval music. His dominance of the genre is such that modern musicologists use his death to ...
. Subsequently, Heinrich Besseler and other
musicologist Musicology is the academic, research-based study of music, as opposed to musical composition or performance. Musicology research combines and intersects with many fields, including psychology, sociology, acoustics, neurology, natural sciences, f ...
s expanded its scope further as an organizing structural element in 14th- and early 15th-century compositions—in particular, motets. Some of the earliest works organized around isorhythms are early 14th-century motets by various composers in an
illuminated manuscript An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared manuscript, document where the text is decorated with flourishes such as marginalia, borders and Miniature (illuminated manuscript), miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Churc ...
of the '' Roman de Fauvel''. Two of the era's most important composers of isorhythmic motets are Phillipe de Vitry and Guillaume de Machaut. Machaut's second motet, , is an example of typical 14th-century use of isorhythm. Isorhythm is a logical outgrowth of the
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 Europea ...
s that governed most late medieval polyphony. Discarding modal-rhythmic limitations, isorhythm became a significant organizing principle of much of 14th-century French polyphony by extending the ''talea'' of an initial section to the entire composition in conjunction with variation of a corresponding ''color''. "The playful complexity of ... 'taleae''that mixes mensuration and undergoes diminution by half—became a typical, even a defining feature of motets in the 14th century and beyond".


Example

The structural diagram shows the isorhythmic
tenor A tenor is a type of male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. Composers typically write music for this voice in the range from the second B below m ...
voice of a late 14th-century motet, ''Sub arturo plebs / Fons citharizantium / In omnem terram'' by Johannes Alanus (''c.'' late 14th century), featuring threefold isorhythmic diminution. * Staff 1: preexisting Gregorian ''
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 trea ...
'' melody, from the first antiphon for the first nocturn of the commons for Apostles, ''In omnem terram exivit sonus eorum'' ('their voice has gone out into all the world'). The cantus firmus of the motet is a perfect fifth higher than the original chant; notes used for the tenor marked in red. * Staff 2: isorhythmic tenor as notated in mensural notation. Numbers 1–3 and brackets indicate three rhythmically identical sequences (''taleae''). The three mensuration signs in the beginning define the pattern of diminution, indicating ''tempus perfectum cum prolatione maiore, tempus perfectum cum prolatione minore'' and ''tempus imperfectum cum prolatione minore'', respectively. (In the manuscript these signs are in fact found at the end of the line, together with a repetition sign.) * Staves 3–5: abbreviated transcription into modern notation. Each line represents one full repetition of the tenor's melody (''color''), including the three ''taleae'' in each, resulting in a nine-part structure. (Within each ''color'', only the first few notes of each ''talea'' are rendered here.) The three mensuration signs in the line above correspond to the change in time signatures: , , . During the decades following and into the 15th century, upper voices became increasingly involved in isorhythmic organization. Many compositions became isorhythmic in all voices, a practice known as ''panisorhythm''. In such compositions, the length of the color and talea are often unequal, causing the repetition of the melody in differing rhythmic patterns. As an example, if the "color" includes nine notes and the "talea" five, the "color" would have to be repeated five times before the two schemes again realign. Examples can be found in motets and Mass movements by John Dunstable, Johannes Ciconia and Guillaume Du Fay. A 15th-century mass by a composer known only as
Pycard PYCARD, often referred to as ASC (Apoptosis-associated speck-like protein containing a CARD), is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ''PYCARD'' gene. It is localized mainly in the nucleus of monocytes and macrophages. In case of pathogen ...
found in the Old Hall manuscript (named for the English town in which it was eventually discovered), demonstrates the high sophistication and complexity of panisorhythmic techniques. The lower parts have a recurring ''color'' and ''talea'' that unite the composition. The upper parts have four different ''talea'', one for each major section of the composition. The rhythmic relationship between upper and lower parts changes as the music progresses. Each quarter note in the lower part equals 4 quarter notes in the upper parts, creating an uneven ratio of 4:9 that causes the parts to lose synchronization. The lower part then steadily contracts in a series of Pythagorean proportions (12:9:8:6) until the parts come back into alignment. As an analytical concept, isorhythm has proven valuable for understanding musical practices in other cultures; for example, the peyote culture songs of certain North American Indian groups and the
music of India Owing to India's vastness and diversity, Indian music encompasses numerous genres in multiple varieties and forms which include classical music, folk, rock, and pop. It has a history spanning several millennia and developed over several ...
and
Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...
.


See also

* Isometer


References

Sources * * * * * * * * *


Further reading

* Apel, Willi (1959). "Remarks about the Isorhythmic Motet". In ''Les Colloques de Wégimont II, 1955: L'Ars nova; recueil d'études sur la musique du XIVe siècle'', edited by Suzanne Clercx-Lejeune, 139–148. Paris: Société d'Edition "Les Belles Lettres". * Bent, Margaret (2008). "What Is Isorhythm?" In ''Quomodo Cantabimus Canticum? Studies in Honor of Edward H. Roesner'', edited by David Butler Cannata, Gabriela Ilnitchi Currie, Rena Charnin Mueller, and John Louis Nádas, 121–143. Publications of the American Institute of Musicology: Miscellanea, No. 7. Middleton, Wisconsin: American Institute of Musicology. . * Bent, Margaret, and Andrew Wathey (2001). "Vitry, Philippe de itriaco, Vittriaco. ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. * Cumming, Julie (2003). ''The Motet in the Age of Du Fay'', revised reprint edition. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. . * Earp, Lawrence (2018). "Isorhythm". In ''A Critical Companion to Medieval Motets'', edited by Jared C. Hartt, 77–101. Woodbridge: Boydell. . * Harbinson, Denis (1966). "Isorhythmic Technique in the Early Motets". '' Music & Letters'' 47, No. 2 (April): 100–109. * Hartt, Jared C. (2010). "Tonal and Structural Implications of Isorhythmic Design in Guillaume de Machaut's Tenors". ''Theory and Practice'' 35:57–94. * Hoppin, Richard H. (1978). ''Medieval Music''. New York: W. W. Norton. . * Leech-Wilkinson, Daniel (1982–83). "Related Motets from Fourteenth-Century France". ''
Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association In academia and librarianship, conference proceedings are a collection of academic papers published in the context of an academic conference or workshop. Conference proceedings typically contain the contributions made by researchers at the confere ...
'' 109:1–22. * Leech-Wilkinson, Daniel (1989). ''Compositional Procedure in the Four-Part Isorhythmic Works of Philippe de Vitry and his Contemporaries'', 2 vols. Outstanding dissertations from British Universities. New York and London: Garland University Press. * Ludwig, Friedrich (1903–04). "Die 50 Beispiele Coussemaker's aus der Handschrift von Montpellier". ''Sammelbände der Internationalen Musik-Gesellschaft'' 5:177–224. * Planchart, Alejandro Enrique (2013). "Proportion and Symbolism in Some Ars Antiqua Motets". '' Musica Disciplina'' 58:231–264. * Sanders, Ernest H. (2001). "Talea". ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan. * Zayaruznaya, Anna (2015). ''The Monstrous New Art: Divided Forms in the Late Medieval Motet''. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. .


External links


Isorhythm in Medieval Music
by José Rodríguez Alvira {{Authority control Rhythm and meter Musical techniques Medieval music theory