En Seumeillant: Recorder Heaven

Album: En Seumeillant (French Ars Subtilior)
Track: "En Seumeillant" (Track #12)
Composer: Trebor
Instruments: 3 bass recorders
Musical Form: Ballade
Year: ~1380 - 1400

There is something very haunting about old songs. When a song becomes so old that the stylistic trends that gave birth to it are no longer familiar to its listeners, it becomes stripped down to its most naked form and the emotions it evokes spring only from those facets of ourselves that are universal to all human beings. In this way, we forge a connection to a long-dead society of people, but with the context lost, we never fully grasp the message of the song. The feelings are there, but cannot be understood or explained... they are ghosts trapped in sound.

Never did I feel this haunting quality so profoundly than when listening to "En Seumeillant", a ballade in the French ars subtilior style. The piece was composed by a medieval composer who, mysteriously, is known as Trebor (a backwards anagram of "Robert"). Very little is know about him -- he appears to have had several aliases -- but he was well regarded in his time and his pieces often make references to significant historical events. I don't know anything about the meaning of the lyrics, since I could find only one recorded version and it was performed entirely with bass recorders. However, unlike for many of the other ars subitlior pieces, I suspect the ambience of "En Seumeillant" is captured best by the recorders, rather than vocal performers. I recommend playing it in a very quiet place, with all of the lights out. If you listen carefully, you might hear the ghosts.

Related Links: Trebor

The Trecento Madrigal: Art by Improvisation

Album: Landini and His Time: 14th Century Italian Ars Nova
Track: "Vestisse la Cornachia" (Track #9)
Composer: Jacopo da Bologna
Instruments: 1 voice, 1 vielle
Musical Form: Madrigal
Year: ~1350
Composition for comparison: "Freddie Freeloader" by Miles Davis (1959)

For those of us who like to sing or hum along to our favorite songs, improvised music can present an unwelcome challenge. Unlike arranged music, it should not be approached with the intention of developing familiarity; just the opposite, the thrill of improvisation is in the unexpected. It's not completely random (like the more obscure "chance music") -- the musicians are still working within a prearranged structure -- but the driving melody is seldom predictable or repetitive. The notes that are played depend more upon the mood of the musician at the moment it was recorded than on any larger artistic purpose. The casual listener may allow the music to carry them astride, like an elaborate neural massage, while for the connoisseur the experience may be more like a voyage of discovery -- notes arise in new and unexpected patterns as the performers freely explore the vast musical spaces stored in their brains.

Truly improvisational music is, of course, a fleeting thing. There is no way for a modern performer to play ancient improvised music in the way it was intended to be played because our minds are polluted by exposure to the many centuries of subsequent musical development. Nevertheless, there do exist musical forms that are written in a pseudo-improvisational manner; that is, with a melody that is fairly free in form and not adhering to any larger-scale melodic structure. One such form is the madrigal, a development of the Italian Trecento in the mid-14th century.

A short but characteristic example of the madrigal is "Vestisse la Cornachia" by Jacopo da Bologna. The piece is composed for two voices, but in this particular arrangement, only the melody is carried by a vocalist. Note the relatively simple manner in which the two parts interact, with the accompanying vielle moving steadily in the background as the lead voice provides an elaborate melismatic foreground. There is a great deal of similarity between melodic motion heard here and that found in modern improvisation forms, such as jazz and blues. For comparison, listen to "Freddie Freeloader," a jam off of Miles Davis' groundbreaking album, Kind of Blue (1959). Listen to how the saxophones, piano, and trumpet exchange the lead melody, while the backing musicians provide a skeletal accompaniment.

The madrigal did not last much beyond the 14th century, although an unrelated form with the same name arose in 16th century Italy. It seems that the early madrigals of this type had very little popular appeal... if only Coltrane had been born six centuries earlier.

Related Links: Improvisation in Madrigals

Minnesang: A Troubadour Alternative

Album: Wanderers' Voices - Medieval Cantigas & Minnesang
Track: "Owê dirre nôt!" (Track #4)
Composer: Nedhart von Reuental
Instruments: 1 voice, 1 vielle
Musical Form: Minnesang
Year: ~1210 - 1240

Every now and then, I may feel the need to turn back the clock on my Hopeless Journey and revisit an earlier time period. My reasons will vary; sometimes I'll have simply overlooked something, while other times I may be backtracking to provide context for a future entry. Whatever my reasons, these posts will be framed in green to distinguish them from main flow of the Journey.

In A Final Note on Troubadours, I opined that troubadour music (and its close relatives) had little to offer the modern listener, primarily because we have lost much of the lyrical context and the music itself is fairly repetitive and simplistic. By and large, I will stand by that claim, but I thought it worthwhile to step back and review the Minnesingers, who are essentially the German equivalent of troubadours. Up to now, Germany has not been represented in my posts and I want to make sure I take a relatively even sampling of music from the European continent, at least to the extent that it's availbable to musical historians.

One thing I immediately notice when I listen to the Minnesingers is the way in which the differences in language affect the sound of the music. Unlike in French or Occitan, German words are pronounced with a great deal of inflection. When used in lyrics, this inflection creates a pronounced sense of rhythm a sense of rhythm that is very much independent of the musical structure. Some of the Minnesinger lyrics may sound a bit goofy at first, but this cultural bias passes quickly. Overall, I think the exaggerated rhythm of the poetry adds to the music.

The song structure of the Minnesinger compositions is very similar to that of the troubadours, though they have a distinct melodic feel. In "Owê dirre nôt!" one gets a very wistful feeling from the piece, no doubt reinforced by the final cadence, which ends on the mediant (the third in the scale, "mi" in "do-re-mi") rather than the tonic. If you enjoy troubadour music and are looking for a simple variation on that familiar theme, then Minnesang might be worth a look.

Related Links: YouTube, Minnesang

Belle, Bonne, Sage: Music in the Shape of a Heart

Album: Codex Chantilly (Ballades & Rondeaux)
Track: "Belle, Bonne, Sage" (Track #7)
Composer: Baude Cordier
Instruments: 2 voices, vielle, clavicythérium
Musical Form: Rondeau
Year: ~1380 - 1400

I can't think of any song better suited to provide an introduction to one of the most popular musical forms of the 14th and 15th centuries than "Belle, Bonne, Sage." This piece is not only a good listen, but as with most ars subtilior compositions, is also rhythmically complex and experimental. It's certainly one of the most recorded compositions from its time period, though every performance seems to carry a unique style and feel. The piece was originally written as sheet music that was wrapped into the shape of a heart, where red notes are meant to indicate a slight alteration of the note values. These stylistic tendencies have sometimes been associated with mannerism (a Renaissance art movement), but there doesn't seem to be any direct link to that later cultural phenomenon.

"Belle, Bonne, Sage" is a rondeau. As I mentioned previously, medieval secular music generally used one of three formes fixes: the ballade, the virelai, and the rondeau. Rondeaux generally follow ABaAabAB, where A (or a) is a verse-like section and B (or b) is a refrain/chorus-like section. Here, capital letters indicate one set of lyrics and lowercase letters indicate another -- the reasoning behind this structure is a mystery to me. It nearly follows an alternating verse-chorus structure, but there's an additional verse in the middle of the song; perhaps it was used to provide buildup and lyrical context for the finishing phrases. Whatever the reason, this form was widely used by composers throughout the 14th and 15th centuries.

As ars subtilior pieces go, this is one of the easier ones to listen to, so it's a good place to start if you're interested in developing a taste for the music. I would also recommend it to a listener interested in listening to only one piece from the movement. If you're looking to follow the rondeau structure, the first verse ends at 0:30 and first refrain ends at 1:06.

Related Links: "Belle, Bonne, Sage" lyrics and translation , The poetic rondeau form

The Harmonia Mundi Century Series: A Parallel History

I recently discovered a collection of recordings that attempts to provide a representative sample of the entire history of Western music, much as my blog is attempting to do. Unfortunately, the recordings I found, The Harmonia Mundi Century Series, are difficult to come by. A subset of them can be purchased here:

Presto Classical

I was pleased to see that my journey was covering most of the music included in these collections, although they put considerably more emphasis on chant and other early monophonic music (including music from Ancient Greece, see catalog listing below). As my journey progresses, I expect that my blog will cover the musical landscape more densely than this collection does, but for the era I'm currently covering (late 14th century), their selected recordings correspond very closely to my blog.

Related Links: Catalog listing

The Landini Cadence: A Pseudo-Suitable Ending

Album: The Second Circle: Love Songs of Francesco Landini
Track: "Nella partita pianson" (Track #4)
Composer: Francesco Landini
Instruments: 2 voices
Musical Form: Ballata
Year: ~1350-1370

I tried very hard to care about this, I really did. The way a composer chooses to end a composition (or a section of a composition) seems like it would be really important; after all, human aesthetic judgement is highly prejudiced towards endings. Nevertheless, I have yet to see a correlation between how much I like a composition and how it chooses its cadences.

A cadence is a pattern of notes that establishes some kind of ending or transition within a piece. In medieval music, virtually all candences end on the tonic, with voices either singing in unison or an octave apart (sometimes including the fifth). For those of you who didn't take music theory, the tonic is simply the "root" note of a scale (the "do" in "do-re-mi"). If you don't end a song on this "root" note, it has a tendency to sound like it's not finished yet. In medieval music, the cadence is the sequence of notes that leads up to and includes this "root" note. A standard two-voice cadence in the ars nova period involved a transition from the leading tone (the note a half step down from the tonic, "ti" in the "do-re-mi" sequence) up to the tonic. Just as the tonic has a feeling of finality, the leading tone, true to its name, gives a feeling of leading to an ending; the next-to-last step, if you will.

What Francesco Landini did that was supposedly so important was that, in his "Landini cadence" (also called the "under-third" cadence), he stuck a note in between the leading tone and the tonic. Specifically, he moved down a step from the leading tone before coming back up to the tonic, "ti-la-do". This note did not give the listener the feeling that the composition was moving anywhere different than it would with the standard cadence, it simply "dressed up" the ending to his pieces. If you listen to enough of his compositions (such as "Nella partita pianson," referenced above), you'll begin to recognize it, but personally, I don't think it adds much to the music. Perhaps it's important for historical reasons, but I don't think it would be of much interest to the casual listener.

Related Links: Advanced discussion of Landini cadence; Youtube; Wikipedia; Intervals

Ars Subtilior: Subtle Art

Album: Codex Chantilly (Ballades & Rondeaux)
Year: ~1350 - 1400

This music really floored me. My reaction upon first listening to pieces from the ars subtilior was akin to a dog's ears perking up at the arrival of its master. Music like this was the reason I originally set out on my Hopeless Journey -- I craved something that was new... and yet also very old. I wanted to hear something that stimulated the ears of many great musicians but also something that was virtually unknown in the 21st century. I wanted to be challenged by something more than a placebo effect.

And so I was. These are not songs you can hum along to after one listen... or perhaps even ten listenings. They explore the musical space in a way that's both exciting and new. At first, they may sound as if the composers randomly chose notes to splotch together, like a child fingerpainting for an exhibit of abstract art. Eventually, however, the tunes will come together, and begin to sound energizing, somber, or perhaps even catchy.

The origins of this music are in the French ars nova movement, which was the first to challenge established polyphonic traditions in Western Europe. The music of the ars nova was still generally accessible to the casual listener; it was different, but not too different. Ars subtilior, however, took things to the next level -- it was music written for the musician or connoisseur, it was experimental, and it was challenging. Not until the 20th century would experimental music again attain such a prominent position in the musical world.

For the modern listener, this music is a special treat because it explores realms of musical space that are sparsely sampled by most composers, even in the six centuries that followed. It doesn't always contain the same tired cadences and chord structures that litter medieval music and which led to the standard musical practices that are so familiar today. It's true that some of the experiments carried out in this movement were influential on later composers, but the majority of what you hear will be fresh for most any listener. My first exposure to ars subtilior was in En seumeillant, in which the pieces are performed with recorders (simple wind instruments with that create very pure tones). This may have been a good jumping-off point because every note came through very clearly, but ultimately the pieces sound best performed vocally. Such recordings hard to come by, as ars subtilior pieces are notoriously difficult to perform. The collection linked above, Codex Chantilly (Ballades & Rondeaux), is the only pure ars subtilior vocal recording that I have been able to find. I strongly recommend it.

Related Links: Ars Subtilior

En Amer a Douce Vie: A Medieval Traveling Song

Album: Machaut: Chansons
Track: "En Amer a Douce Vie" (Track #10)
Composer: Guillaume de Machaut
Instruments: 4 voices
Musical Form: Ballade
Year: ~1350

One of the difficulties with listening to new genres of music is that we need to get our bearings; that is, our minds aren't accustomed to the structure and style of the compositions we're listening to. As such, the music often sounds like a garble of phrases, perhaps with some familiar note patterns, but lacking any coherent flow. I found that I had these same difficulties with medieval music, despite the fact that the composition structure is generally simpler than that found in modern music and the sections of the composition are usually very clearly delimited. When I made an effort to look for this structure, however, the music began to feel more comfortable and listenable.

In medieval music, one of the forms with the simplest song structure is the ballade (distinct from a "ballad"). Essentially, a ballade is two verses followed by a refrain, repeated some number of times (usually three, in my experience). The length of the sections can vary from one piece to the next, but it's usually clear when they're ending because medieval composers have a tendency to establish their cadences very clearly -- the voices all sound at once and hold a sustained note. I think these rigid section endings detract from the flow of the piece, but it may be that the medieval ear would have gotten lost without them. I'm sure our music would sound like a garbled mess to them.

Anyway, one of the best ballades that I've heard is "En Amer a Douce Vie" by Guillaume de Machaut. It has a distinct rhythm that I tend to associate with some steady motion, perhaps walking or some other kind of traveling. For those trying to get their bearings, the first verse ends at 0:27 and the first refrain ends at 1:57. The verse 1-verse 2-refrain sequence appears three times in the piece. The refrain is unusually long in this ballade and I especially like how the bass line (established by the tenors) moves toward the end of that section.

La Messe de Nostre Dame: The Advent of the Cyclic Mass

Album: De Machaut: La Messe de Nostre Dame -- Le Voir Dit
Track: "Kyrie" (Track #1)
Composer: Guillaume de Machaut
Instruments: 4 voices
Musical Form: Cyclic mass
Year: ~1365

The development of music as an art form was not something that happened overnight, nor was it something that happened entirely within one musical period. In 14th century France, the freedom and sophistication of musical composition was increasing rapidly, but the musical community was still learning how to express itself. The ars nova revolution was bringing about great changes in the form and style of both sacred and secular music, while the Italian Trecento was integrating the expression of love into polyphonic composition. Nevertheless, music was still written in the form of independent motets or chansons lasting ~5 - 10 minutes, not long enough to express a broad or complex artistic message.

This first began to change in the sacred realm with the advent of the mass. In a previous entry, I commented on musical settings to individual portions of the Catholic mass, some of which date back to the early 14th century. It wasn't until ~1350, however, that the first cyclic mass (that we know of) was written. By cyclic mass, I mean a coherent work of art written by the same composer and with parts intended to be performed in a particular order. It should come as no surprise that the composer in question was Guillaume de Machaut, arguably the most important musician of the medieval period. His mass was titled, Messe de Nostre Dame (Mass of Our Lady).

Messe de Nostre Dame has six parts in total, the most interesting and impressive of which is the opening number, the Kyrie. The entire text to the Kyrie consists of a pair of two-word phrases repeated over and over again,

Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison,

which literally mean "Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy." Despite the simplicity of the text, the musical setting is extremely complex, including four voices and an isorhythmic structure. I consider this portion of the mass a must-hear for interested readers -- the voices undulate like a wave in motion, creating an effect that is both beautiful and characteristically medieval in style. The remainder of the mass is pleasant as well, though it resorts to simple parallel vocal motion to recite the more wordy texts of, for example, the Gloria and the Credo.

Whether or not Renaissance composers were even aware of this mass is unclear, but the idea of creating complete musical settings to the Ordinary of the Mass caught on fairly quickly. By the 15th century, any composer of sacred music worth his salt had composed at least one mass. The mass offers a unique opportunity to make a direct comparison between the compositional styles of different composers in different eras and I'll no doubt be returning to it many times in future blog entries.

External Links: YouTube

Geisslerleider: Blogging of Sloggin, Singing, and Flogging

So far I've been impressed with how much music I have been able to find on iTunes and amazon.com, but with this juicy morsel, I finally hit a roadblock: Geisslerleider. No, I didn't sneeze, I'm referring to a musical movement of the 13th and 14th centuries, the most famous examples of which date to the time of the Black Plague. In this wacky tradition, a procession of devout monks slog through the streets, flogging themselves and chanting inane proto-folk tunes as a vivid demonstration of their faith. I can think of few things that I'd rather listen to from the middle ages, but sadly, I haven't been able to locate any recordings.

I know that some of the songs have survived, as a resourceful monk by the name of Hugo Spechtshart transcribed note-for-note what he witnessed of these rituals and published it in 1349. The music is monophonic and is performed in a call-and-response format; that is, with one flagellant chanting the verse and his posse responding in unison with the refrain. Although it's hard to imagine any modern artist successfully capturing the sheer agony and desperation of the Geisslerleider, I would love to hear them try. If anybody stumbles on recordings of this music, please let me know.