Veni Sancte Spiritus and Missa Caput: Two Giant Leaps

Album: Dunstable: Sweet Harmony Masses and Motets
Track: "Veni Sancte Spiritus - Veni Creator" (Track #11)
Composer: John Dunstaple
Instruments: four vocalists
Musical Form: isorhythmic motet
Year: ~1431

Although early Renaissance composers were in many respects less experimental than their late medieval predecessors, there were still a great many musical forms and techniques that were being developed in the early 15th century. In an earlier post, I discussed John Dunstaple's pioneering the use of triadic harmony in his compositions; this technique can be heard again in "Veni Sancte Spiritus," a popular motet composed around ~1430. The piece is progressive in many respects, including its use of a musical mode that corresponds to the modern major scale and also its relatively wide range of pitches (called the "tessitura").

The wide pitch range of "Veni Sancte Spiritus" is most noticable in the tenor, which at times functions like a bass line. The tenor fails to truly carry the rest of the piece as a modern bass line would, but each time it strikes a low note, the piece is given new life. It does not move towards a dynamical climax as we might expect from a symphony, but is rather almost cyclic, as the isorhythmic tenor paces the higher voices. With each repetition, we are given a new opportunity for spiritual transcendence, but it is not just handed to us... we must find it for ourselves.

Although we hear hints of it here, a true bass part would not appear in a Renaissance composition until "Missa Caput," a cyclic mass composed by an anonymous English composer sometime around 1440. I haven't been able to locate any easily accessible recordings of this mass, but many other mid-15th century masses were modeled after it and I will review some of these in later entries. English composers were particularly influential on their continental counterparts during this period, in part because of the English occupation of France during the Hundred Years War.

Related Links: Allmusic

Nuper Rosarum Flores: The Power of Dynamics

Album: Guillaume Dufay: Quadrivium (motets)
Track: "Nuper Rosarum Flores" (Track #15)
Composer: Guillaume Dufay
Instruments: 4+ vocals, trumpet, organ, fiddle, harp
Musical Form: Isorhythmic motet
Composition for Comparison: "Lithium" by Nirvana (1991)
Year: 1436

As a teenager of the early '90s, still in the throes of adolescence, it was difficult to not get swept up in the pounding rhythms and catchy melodies of the grunge movement. In high school, I remember waking up every morning to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" -- the raucous transition between the opening guitar riff and distortion-heavy entrance of the bass and drums gave me something to be excited about at the start of a day that likely would, in all other respects, only erode my increasingly paltry teenage ego. There was something about the anticipation created by those guitar chords... a sort of musical foreplay by a song that knew to understate what it was soon to deliver.

This "soft-and-loud" dynamical technique was quite common in Nirvana's music and is perhaps most vividly demonstrated in "Lithium," a track off of their groundbreaking album, Nevermind. Note how the verse keeps a relatively low profile, emphasizing the lyrics and melody over the rhythm, while the chorus is an explosion of sound and a perfect expression of the "angst" that grunge music was known for exploiting. Kurt Cobain credited the Pixies with influencing his dynamical style, but this general technique had been around for many centuries before. Compare the verse-chorus transition of "Lithium" to the dynamical structure of Guillaume Dufay's "Nuper Rosarum Flores." To my ear, the effect is very similar. The melismatic, almost madrigaleque lines in the Triplum and Motetus (top two voices) are placed in contrast to the steady, booming rhythm provided by the bassus and tenor (bottom two voices) that enter 1:00 into the piece. I can imagine the dynamical changes would have sounded even more dramatic within the confines of a church sanctuary.

"Nuper Rosarum Flores" is famous for a variety of other reasons, perhaps most of all for being the last great isorhythmic motet. To some scholars, this represented a symbolic ending point for the medieval period of music, as the Renaissance style was noted for having a more free rhythmic form. Some have even claimed that the mathematical structure of the motet was formulated in order to mimic the proportions of the Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral, the building for which the piece was composed. My research has left me skeptical of this claim, however.

Related Links: YouTube (Dufay), YouTube (Nirvana), YouTube (Dufay, alternate version)

Ma Fin Est Mon Commencement: Bound by Symmetry

Album: Machaut: Chansons
Track: "Ma Fin Est Mon Commencement" (Track #13)
Composer: Guillaume de Machaut
Instruments: 3 voices
Musical Form: Rondeau
Year: ~1330-1350

There is something about symmetry, whether visual, auditory, or even tactile, that appeals to the human mind. We associate it with beauty, perhaps as much due to the ease with which we process it as its association with genetic quality in a mate. Although it is more often associated with the visual arts, musicians have been using symmetry in their compositions for millenia, allowing its predictability to massage our subconscious as we tackle the artist's larger purpose.

Perhaps the most striking demonstration of symmetry in medieval polyphony is in "Ma Fin Est Mon Commencement," a rondeau by Guillaume de Machaut. Even a passing familiarity with the French language (modern or otherwise) should allow one to translate the title: "My end is my beginning." And so it is -- the musical lines in this piece each display a certain symmetry. The lowest voice, the tenor, sings a line that sounds identical when sung in reverse. Furthermore, the cantus (2nd voice) and triplum (highest voice) sing lines that are the mirror images of one another. The net result is something that feels strikingly familiar, even on a first listen. I think this familiarity sprung from a subconscious recognition of the underlying patterns in the piece; I doubt I would have picked up on the symmetry without being told.

Indeed, large-scale patterns were the norm in the ars nova, as isorhythm dominated the rhythmic structure of motets during that period. It seems likely that this piece also bears some relation to a burgeoning art form, the canon (more on this soon), although it predates the widespread use of that technique in French polyphony. It is certainly not Machaut's best work, but its novelty value alone makes it worth a listen.

Related Links: YouTube, Allmusic.com

Isorhythm: The Hidden Patterns

One of the defining characteristics of the late medieval period (and the ars nova, in particular) was the use of isorhythm. In short, isorhythm is the repetition of an arbitrary pattern of note durations in all or part of a musical composition. This repetition may occur in more than one voice, but each voice need not carry the same rhythm. In contrast to the rhythmic modes, isorhtyhm allows the vocal parts of a composition more freedom by, 1) allowing for a rhythm of arbitrary duration and structure and, 2) allowing for overlap between the rhythmic units of different voices. Isorhythm is essentially nonexistent in modern music, but it is instructive to consider a similar musical technique, the round.

Most of us are familiar with the campfire song, "Row, Row, Row Your Boat," in which one person starts singing the melody and then, after one or more measures are complete, another person begins singing the same melody. After each singer completes main melody line, they return to the beginning and repeat. This song structure could be considered a special kind of isorhythm because each singer repeats a rhythmic structure (that of the melody line) and the rhythms overlap -- that is, the singers finish the melody at different times. In medieval motets, a similar technique was used, but each singer would be singing a different melody and using a different rhythm. To generalize the previous example, imagine instead that, after the first singer completes a measure of the song, another singer jumps in singing only, "Row, row, row." This second singer repeats these three words over and over again, using a different set of pitches each time but speaking the words at the same rate. This three-word sequence can serve as the basic unit of isorhythm and is perhaps a closer approximation to how medieval composers would craft the lower voices of a motet.

Despite this basic understanding of isorhythm, the technique has so far eluded me in the pieces I've listened to. Unlike "Row, Row, Row Your Boat," medieval motets are highly complex and isorhythm was generally only used in some of the voices and for only part of a piece. Two of the most prominent practitioners of isorhythm were Philippe de Vitry and Guillaume de Machaut, but their pieces were composed to blend into a graceful whole, hiding the underlying structure. It's likely that the "undulating" feeling I get from Machaut's compositions is in part due to his use of isorhythm, but seldom can I pinpoint its origin. For the casual listener, I would recommend against trying too hard to find it -- their motets are better experienced as a unified whole.