It was 687 years ago today...

...Philipe de Vitry taught the French to play... without rhythmic modes. The point here, which should have escaped all but the most dim-witted readers (no, I didn't get that wrong), is that Philipe de Vitry is like the Beatles. How, you may ask? Well, I'll tell you. Up until the early 14th century, French musicians had been restricting themselves half-heartedly to a set of rhythmic modes (yes, I know you're tired of hearing about rhythmic modes), in part because they had become embedded in the musical notation. In 1322, de Vitry may have changed all that with a collection of "avant garde" music in which he broke all the rules (you might say he left nothing sacred, LOL).

I say he may have changed things because historians still aren't sure that he was the author, but let's say for the sake of pseudo-simplicity that he was. This "new" art music turned more than a few heads, and so was dubbed ars nova (that is, "new art"). It wasn't very good at first -- composers mainly liked it because it was different and gave them more rhythmic space in which to be unpleasant to listen to. I'll admit that de Vitry had a few good pieces, but for the most part he was just feeding the community's hunger for something new... like a medieval Lou Reed. I started out saying that he was like the Beatles, however, so I'll try to make that (seemingly contradictory) case as well.

You see, until the 14th century, music wasn't much of an art form. Nobles used it to dress up their courts and churches used it to augment their drone-happy services, but it wasn't generally viewed as an intellectual pursuit. That began to change with the ars nova, however, as musicians stopped being decorative and became something much more annoying -- they became artists. Just as Sgt. Pepper ushered in an era in which rock musicians could begin to snub their noses at one another, ars nova blanketed the music world in an air of pretension that it would never really escape from.

Many believe the true beginnings of ars nova can be traced back to the Roman de Fauvel, an allegorical play about a self-important equine antichrist. Philippe de Vitry composed most of the score, but I haven't gotten around to listening to it just yet. Its "rebellious" political satire could be compared to the drug-induced, postmodern fumblings of the late 1960's... or perhaps to some elaborate Orwellian version of an Aesop's fable. Either way, I'm happy to see musicians getting more pretentious, because it makes my journey a lot more interesting.