Mass Settings: Sitting Through Church

Album: Guillaume de Machaut: Motets & Music from the Ivrea Codex
Track: "Gloria: Et verus homo" (Track #2)
Composer: Anonymous
Instruments: 3 voices
Musical Form: Mass movement
Year: ~1350-1370

I don't usually enjoy the music in church services. In my youth, I remember spending many Sunday mornings squirming in the pews as the church organ bleated out some droning melody that did more to test my faith than reinforce it. The simplistic and monotonous arrangements seemed little meant for human ears, although the pews were sufficiently moved that they would rattle and creak at the rise of each note. At the outset of my Hopeless Journey, I had hoped that the great composers of medieval polyphony would help to elucidate the original beauty and appeal of sacred music. Sadly, with the possible exception of Pérotin, these composers have, despite fairly complex arrangements, succeeded at capturing the monotony of my early childhood church experiences. The most tedious of all are the mass movements, like "Gloria: Et Versus Homo," referenced above. These polyphonic compositions are written to accompany individual sections of the Catholic Mass and necessarily incorporate a standard religious text as lyrics.

Up to this point, I have primarily discussed motets, which incorporate a traditional gregorian chant but are generally played as an addendum to the standard mass rituals. Individual mass movements did not begin to appear until the middle of the 14th century and some of the earliest are found in the Ivrea Codex. In that manuscript, the mass movements -- Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei -- are written separately and by different composers, but they could have been used to accompany an entire mass. The Gloria referenced above is a typical example of how polyphony was used to express standard religious texts. Unlike motets and secular compositions, these mass movements emphasize the words over the music; the vocal parts move primarily in parallel motion to ensure that the text comes through clearly. This effect is most pronounced in Gloria and Credo mass movements, in which significant portions of text must be recited.

Although it helps a little to see a translation of the texts in these movements (it can be found on wikipedia), I wouldn't recommend spending a lot of time on individual medieval mass movements. However, as the medieval period progressed, the mass evolved and composers began constructing entire masses as individual works of art. Stay tuned for this, the mass will soon become more interesting.

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.