Journey Highlights: April and May 2009

For all you lazy brutes out there who don't want to follow my regular blog entries, I present my journey highlights. In these posts (framed in red), I pick my favorite composers and tracks from the last month of the Journey, along with an explanation for why their awesomeness wowed my senses. Since I have two months of posts already, I will pick two from each category. First, my composers of the month:

April: Pérotin
May: Anonymous

The Notre Dame School of Polyphony pretty much got things started for music worth listening to on the European continent. Without a doubt, the best of the Notre Dame composers was Pérotin, who flourished around 1200. I reviewed two of his songs (Beata Viscera and Sederunt Principes) and read much about his influence on later composers. His simple approach to composition remains accessible to this day and was a major influence on the modern minimalist movement.

The fallout from the musical blast that was the Notre Dame School spread throughout Europe. Many of the techniques pioneered by this school (most notably the rhythmic modes) were used by composers of both sacred and secular music. Unfortunately, the vast majority of compositions from this period were written anonymously and may have been copied many times before finally appearing in collections like the Montpelier Codex. The identities of these lost masters may have been erased from historical records, but they will live on through their music.

The compositions of the month are:

April: Sederunt Principes (Pérotin)
May: Hoquetus I - II (Anonymous)

My favorite of Pérotin's compositions, Sederunt Principes impresses me more each time I listen to it. This four-voice motet demonstrates all of the major musical advances of the early medieval period, including the rhythmic modes and parallel and contrary vocal motion. Similarly, Hoquetus I - II is an excellent demonstration of early medieval techniques, including the hocket and the rare second rhythmic mode. This piece has garnered a lot of attention from the people I've spoken to about my journey, so I suggest giving it a listen.

Medieval Musical Modes: A Modal Frame of Mind

Album: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme
Track: "Scarborough Fair" (Track #1)
Composer: Simon & Garfunkel/Traditional
Instruments: 2 voices, 1 piano, 1 guitar
Year: 1966

Medieval music has a particular sound to it that for most of us is difficult to describe. We may be able to connect it to particular movies or plays (or perhaps the renaissance fair our friends with questionable taste dragged us to), but unless we happen to have a background in music theory, these will only be vague associations. Some of these associations may be due to the medieval composers' use of rhythmic modes (see Sederunt Principes and the Rhythmic Modes), but these were not in common use much beyond the 13th century. Most likely, the "medieval" sound is dominated by the use of musical modes, a set of intervals between notes that are used to compose a particular piece.

One example of a musical mode is the major scale -- if you've ever heard a singer do their "Do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do" exercises, you've heard the major scale (listen). If you have a piano handy, this mode corresponds to the seven white keys starting with C. The vast majority of modern popular composers use this set of intervals (or those of a similar minor scale) to write their songs, but neither the major nor minor scales were recognzied as modes in medieval times and pieces were very rarely composed with them. One mode that was frequently used, however, was the Dorian mode. On a piano, this corresponds to the seven white keys starting with "D." The mode has something of a minor sound to it, but differs from the minor scale in its sixth note (the Dorian sixth is a half step higher, listen). To my ear, the Dorian mode has something of a "transcendental" feel to it and that may be why the church was so fond of using it.

Although many of the pieces I have reviewed use the Dorian mode, you would be hard-pressed to find it in modern music. A famous exception is "Scarborough Fair," a song released by Simon & Garfunkel in 1966. The song is actually a reworking of a traditional English ballad that dates back to the middle ages, so the use of Dorian mode is in retrospect not that surprising. Compare "Scarborough Fair" to Beata Viscera, also written in the Dorian mode -- see if they evoke similar images and associations.

External Links: YouTube

A Final Note on the Troubadours

Album: Music of the Middle Ages, Vol. 1: Troubadour and Trouvere Songs
Track: "Ples de tristor, marritz e doloiros" (Track #2)
Composer: Guiraut Riquier
Instruments: 1 voice, 1 viol
Musical Form: Troubadour song
Year: ~1200

Although much romanticized even in modern culture, I believe that the essence of troubadour music is much further from our grasp than we might think. Even if we disregard all of the uncertainties in its arrangement (discussed in detail in Troubadour Shmoubadour), those of us not fluent in Occitan, the language in which troubadour music was written, will still be deprived of the imagery that accompanies good lyric poetry. Fans of the 20th century troubadours, those of us with an appreciation of Bob Dylan and Niel Young, understand that the impact of good folk music is rooted in these images. Although we might have access to translations of 13th century troubadour lyrics, their words will never have the same impact on us that they had on their contemporaries. Even a crash course in Occitan would likely not be sufficient -- words mean much more than what they refer to and without proper context, their spirit is lost.

The track I refer to above shouldn't necessarily be listened to in full -- it's only meant to illustrate my point. At over 12 minutes in length, "Ples de tristor, marritz e doloiros" feels repetitive and drab after around the fifth stanza. The melody is sweet and gentle -- it certainly offers more to the casual listener than the Gregorian Chant -- but we are still left wondering how it might have sounded to a 13th century ear. The troubadours are an important stage in the development of medieval music, but I wouldn't recommend them to a modern listener searching for anything more than ambient music.

Zelus Familie: Perfect Simplicity

Album: Music of the Gothic Era
Track: "Zelus Familie" (Track #7 on disk 2)
Composer: Anonymous
Instruments: 3 voices
Musical Form: Motet
Year: ~1300

The compositions of the ars antiqua period could only have been categorized as such in retrospect -- it is only in view of the musical advances of the following century that these pieces seem antiquated. In music, however, even the strictest and most simplistic rubric allows for beauty and we should not dismiss "primitive" work simply because of these limitations. In a modern context, perhaps punk music or blues are simplistic in comparison to progressive rock, but does that mean that they are inferior? Perhaps as music, but not as art.

It is with that mindset that I approach "Zelus Familie", an anonymously-composed motet from the early 14th century. Although technically classified as ars nova (more on this artistic movement soon), "Zelus Familie" has most of the elements of a 13th century composition. It keeps primarily within the third rhythmic mode and the voices remain tightly coupled throughout the piece. The only progressive element is its increased dynamic range, but I'm not sure if this was notated in the original manuscript or chosen by the performers. Either way, the results are beautiful in their simplicity -- a composition that might otherwise be hypnotic becomes emollient with the increased dynamic motion.

As far as medieval polyphony is concerned, the road gets rockier from here on. Although the most revered works from the medieval period were produced after 1300, the increased musical freedom that composers were allowed can be something of a burden to the untrained listener trying to cull the wheat from the chaff... bear with me, I'm sure there will be many gaps in my explorations.

The Petronian Motet: Baby Steps

Album: Music of the Gothic Era
Track: "Aucun ont trouvé" (Track #2 on disk 2)
Composer: Petrus de Cruce
Instruments: 2 voices, 1 fiddle
Musical form: Motet
Year: ~1290

Any politician will tell you that tradition can often be a sizable impediment to progress, even when progress is the universal goal. So it goes with music as well. Suppose you decided one day that you were going to write a song about... I don't know, your favorite piece of dishware. Any song you would sit down to write would likely be some combination of music you had already heard, even if that music had not itself been about dishware (most likely it wasn't). This applies equally in the 21st century as in the 13th century, but imagine further if all of the music you had heard previously had been performed (and likely written) within 100 miles of your house. Even further, imagine that when you want to write this music down (there are no recording devices onhand), you need to write within a preexisting rhythmic structure if anyone is going to be able to translate what you have written into a performance. In other words, you have two choices. You either write your song the traditional way or you invent your own notation for a new rhythmic structure, write a treatise explaining that notation, and then write a song within this new untested rhythmic structure.

Given these barriers, it should be no surprise that it took over a century to break from the traditions established by the Notre Dame School of Polyphony, particularly when the latter had exploited them so effectively. Nevertheless, two medieval composers, Petrus de Cruce and Philippe de Vitry, chose the more difficult of the two options described above. In this case, the tradition was the rhythmic modes, structures that had at that point become embedded in the musical notation. Phlippe de Vitry essentially started from scratch and I will discuss his work in a later entry. Petrus de Cruce did not eliminate the rhythmic modes, but in his treatise, Ars cantus mensurabilis, he invented a notation that allowed for an arbitrary number of rhythmic subdivisions within each mode repetition. For example, if I was writing within the first rhythmic mode, I could have the lower voice keep a "long - short" rhythm at an arbitrarily slow tempo while the highest voice filled the gaps with an elaborate melody many notes in length. Any motet that used this technique (and accompanying notation) was called a "Petronian motet," named after Petrus de Cruce himself.

The example given, "Aucun ont trouvé", has only two voices and works primarily within the first rhythmic mode. The Petronian technique certainly makes the piece sound more "free", but at the expense of substance. The upper voice sounds like it's performing a monologue, while the lower voice carries a rhythm, performed in a slow drawl, that often gets lost in the flowery melody. Although there is no doubt in my mind that the technique could be used effectively, this Petronian motet really does feel like a short-term fix to a long-term problem -- like treating hemorrhagic fever with band-aids. Well, it's not really anything like that, but bigger changes (and better similes) are to come. Stay tuned.

External Links: YouTube

O Mitissima: The Hypnotic Modes

Album: Music of the Gothic Era
Track: "O mitissima" (Track #15 on disk 1)
Composer: Anonymous
Instruments: 3 voices, 1 shawm, 1 tabor
Year: ~1200

One of the defining characteristics of the ars antiqua period was the strict adherence to the set of rhythmic modes laid out by the Notre Dame School of Polyphony (see Sederunt Principes and Rhythmic Modes for a full description). Since there were six modes -- only three of which were commonly used -- and the modes were only two or three strikes in length, these early pieces tended to be repetitive in nature, with fairly simple dynamics. Furthermore, the preponderance of octaves, fifths, and fourths in the harmonic structure (anything else was viewed as a dissonance) made ars antiqua compositions sound very rigid.

Although this rigidity was often a bad thing (see Honking Geese), a clever composer could use it to give their music a hypnotic feel. Nowhere is this more apparent than in "O mitissima", one of the many Gregorian chants converted to polyphony by an anonymous ars antiqua composer. Interestingly, the composer here chooses to overlay the stanzas from the original chant, giving one to each voice and making it seem as if the singers are all part of a larger, ongoing conversation with God. In the modern era, rhythmic repetition is often used in dance music to put the listeners (or dancers) into a trance-like state, perhaps not so unlike that of a devout monk praying to God.

Medieval Minimalism: Polyphony in the Shape of a Square

Album: Music in the Shape of a Square
Track: "Piece in the Shape of a Square" (Track #3)
Composer: Philip Glass
Instruments: 2 flutes
Year: 1967

The purpose of my Hopeless Journey is not just to collect listenable tracks from ancient composers, but also to connect the music of days gone by with that of the present -- to help me better understand the music of my own time. Therefore, I will occasionally include blog entries on contemporary music (framed in blue, like this one), making explicit reference to the connections between these modern works and their humble predecessors.

In one of my first posts, Sederunt Principes and Rhythmic Modes, I mentioned how the repetitive structures in Pérotin's work had been an influence on modern minimalist composers. Philip Glass, perhaps the most famous minimalist composer of them all, takes a page from the works of the Notre Dame School of Polyphony with, "Piece in the Shape of a Square." Although not restricted to the simplistic rhythmic modes that dominated Pérotin's work, the slow and subtle shifts in Glass' repeated structures are reminiscent of the undulating patterns of "Sederunt Principes." Almost as striking is the harmonizing of the two flutes, which remain in unison or an octave apart for most of the piece, much like the early Notre Dame polyphony.

Reis Glorios: The Morning After, Courtly Love and the Walk of Shame

Album: Music of the Middle Ages, Vol. 1: Troubadour and Trouvere Songs
Track: "Reis Glorios" (Track #1)
Composer: Giraut de Bornelh
Instruments: 1 voice, 1 viol
Musical Form: Troubadour song
Year: ~1200

In Troubadour Shmoubadour, I explained my feelings about bastardized versions of medieval troubadour music and how they were ruining our culture... or something like that. In Music of the Middle Ages, Vol. 1, the performers duck my wrath with their stripped-down renditions of ancient chansons. In this volume, they truly capture the romantic aesthetic inherent in the music and poetry of troubadours, accompanying the vocalist with a single stringed instrument (a viol) that may or may not have resembled the instruments used by the troubadours of the time. Troubadour music is mostly about courtly love; that is, rich people comitting adultery. Despite the popular myth of the troubadour strapping an instrument to his back and traveling from town to town, troubadours were themselves mostly rich people, working in the courts of kings and lords. The myth is a more accurate description of the "jongleurs", who were essentially poor one-man cover bands and were often the subject of scorn and ridicule in troubadour poetry.

The author of "Reis Glorios", Giraut de Bornelh, actually began his life poor, but developed a reputation as the "Master of Troubadours" and was especially renowned for his ability to craft beautiful melodies to surround his poetry. Only four melodies survive, including that for "Reis Glorios." This song describes the coming of morning for a pair of adulterers who have just spent the night together. Presumably one or the other is preparing to take the walk of shame to their respective dwelling and isn't really looking forward to it. Although I can't really blame them, I'm glad that their infidelity was captured in song, as this really is a beautiful piece worthy of a listen. Troubadour music is all monophonic and tends to be very repetitive if you don't understand what they're singing about, but this one stands well on its own.

External Links: YouTube

Hoquetus I-II and Hoquetus David: Hocket Up

Album: Music of the Gothic Era
Track: "Hoquetus I-II" (first ~2 minutes of Track #1 on disk 2) and "Hoquetus David" (Track #20 on disk 2)
Composer: Anonymous and Guillaume de Machaut
Instruments: 2 cornetts, 1 shawm
Year: ~1300 - 1400

That's right, the hocket. Basically, a hocket is a piece where two voices alternate on notes of the melody, one resting while the other sounds. In modern music, you'll often hear a second voice harmonizing, backing the lead, or alternating on verses, but seldom will you hear two voices alternate on the melody multiple times in a measure. I was excited when I discovered this lost art, because it offers something that you'll never hear listening to the radio.

The hocket was actually pioneered by the Notre Dame School of Polyphony, but survived into the 14th century in secular music. I unknowingly encountered the hocket for the first time in "Amor Potest" (see Honking Geese), where its use was so simple-minded that I dismissed it almost immediately. In that piece, they alternated with uniform rhythm and minimal melodic complexity, but the two hockets listed above, "Hoquetus I-II" and "Hoquetus David", demonstrate a much more thorough mastery of the technique. Most notably, they offer rhythmic complexity ("Hoquetus David" is in 9/4 time) -- the way in which the voices pop in and out at irregular intervals, it feels as if they're surprising me even when I know exactly what's coming next.

External Links: YouTube

Music of the Troubadours: Troubadour Shmoubadour

Album: Music of the Troubadours
Year: 1100 - 1350

There is an endless debate among musicians, music theorists, and music historians about the value of authenticity in performances of old music. Is it best to perform the music as the composer originally envisioned it or should one include modern elements that will make it more palatable to the audiences of our time? This question has featured prominently in my Hopeless Journey, as I'm often forced to choose between renditions of Medieval music, each of which puts its own spin on old formula. Most such recordings will restrict themselves to instruments that were available at the time the music was written, but the performance itself is often improvisational, as is the chosen combination of instruments. Such is the case with Music of the Troubadours, a collection of old troubadour songs performed with everything from bagpipes to reed-flutes. Now you don't have to be a music historian to figure out that these performances are lacking in authenticity, but the real question is, does that matter? Can't we just enjoy the music for what it is?

No, I can't, and I think it's easy to see why -- these songs were written the way they were because of the limitations in accompaniment. How can we be expected to enjoy the lament of troubadour who has lost his castle when his poem is being drowned out by the buzzing and jangling of a cadre of overzealous 20th century musicians? It's true that my stated goal of immersing myself in ancient music is not necessarily shared by the average listener, but these "creative" additions may as well have included a computer-generated disco beat for all the good it did for the music.

I'm still determined to explore the music of the troubadours, but after listening to this recording a few times I decided that I'll have to look elsewhere. I found a more promising recording in Music of the Middle Ages, Vol. 1: Troubadour and Trouvere Songs and I'll post about it in the coming weeks.

S'on Me Regarde: Pop Sensibilities

Album: Music of the Gothic Era
Track: "S'on me regarde" (Track #3)
Composer: Anonymous
Instruments: 2 voices, fiddle, mandora, harp, psaltery
Year: ~1250

Another piece included in the Montpellier Codex, "S'on me regarde" is a French love song in motet form. Of what I've heard during my journey thus far, this song comes closest to what I think of as a "traditional" song; that is, the sort of thing I might have sung in summer camp or high school french class. The tune is catchy and, interestingly, either of the two vocal parts could be argued to carry the melody. One can imagine that the composers of this time would have had only the crudest notion of how to write effective accompaniment -- perhaps here they chose to simply write another melody line to accompany the first, we can only guess. Either way, the result is impressive and I'm not aware of any equivalent in modern music.

External Links: YouTube

Amor Potest: Honking Geese

Album: Music of the Gothic Era
Track: "Amor Potest" (Track #2)
Composer: Anonymous
Instruments: 2 voices, 1 shawm
Year: ~1250

Although I dug up many gems on my Hopeless Journey, "Amor Potest" was not one of them. Music of the Gothic Era is a diverse collection of motets spanning the medieval periods of ars antiqua (~1170 - 1310) and ars nova (1310 - 1375). This particular motet was included in the Montpellier Codex, a vast collection of French polyphony from the ars antiqua period that consisted of only anonymous works. Although it may have passed for creative composition in medieval times -- perhaps some ancient equivalent of "Love Shack" -- it sounds to me more like the triangulation honks of a gaggle of Canada geese migrating south for the winter. The techniques used, such as the staccato rhythmic interplay between voices, are fresh to my ears and if it weren't for their more effective use in later motets in this collection, I would be inclined to say that I hold an unfair prejudice against them. However, after many listens I still feel that the composition is overly simplistic and borderline annoying.

External Links: YouTube