Mining the Ivrea Codex: Clap 'Em Like You Just Don't Care... Par Un Matin

Album: Music of the Gothic Era
Track: "Clap, Clap, Par Un Matin" (Track #12, disk 2)
Composer: Anonymous
Instruments: 2 voices, 1 harp, 1 fiddle, 1 psaltery, 1 mandora
Musical Form: Motet
Year: ~1350-1370

Beginning a long tradition of unsolicited choreographic suggestions by overzealous musicians, "Clap, Clap, Par Un Matin" presents a clever use of the rare second rhythmic mode to create a sound that is both peppy and bizarre. I can almost imagine hordes of medieval peasants clapping their hands and dancing to this peculiar number, though I doubt that their modern-day counterparts could find the beat. Personally, I find it intriguing and I suspect that other musicians agree with me; I stumbled upon at least two other recordings of it on my journey.

The piece is unique, even within the Ivrea Codex. The Ivrea Codex is a collection of medieval polyphony from the middle 14th century France and, although no composers are given credit within, stylistic analysis of elements in individual pieces suggests that it contains works by famous composers, like Philippe de Vitry and Guillaume de Machaut. "Clap, Clap, Par Un Matin" could not be attributed to any particular composer and so remains something of an enigma -- to me, anyway. The style is likely to have originated in secular music and it may be that a great many secular pieces of this kind were composed but not transcribed for posterity. Our knowledge of music of that era was biased toward sacred music, as the church was one of the few entities with the means and motivation to distribute large volumes of transcribed music. However, one of the defining features of the ars nova movement was the increasing use of secular styles and techniques in sacred music, so perhaps these gaps will slowly be filled in later periods.