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)

Johannes Ciconia: Art Imitates Art

Album: The Saracen and the Dove
Track: "Doctorum principem - Melodia suavissima - Vir mitis" (Track #1)
Composer: Johannes Ciconia
Instruments: 4 voices
Musical Form: Motet
Year: 1409 - 1411

For an artist, catching someone's attention is much more difficult than it may seem at first. It doesn't matter the form of expression, a work of art always seems much more significant to the maker than it does to the casual listener. Over the years, musicians in particular have developed a wide variety of techniques to help overcome this difficulty, the synthesis of which led to what we would now call "pop" music. If implemented carelessly, the use of pop techniques can cheapen music, but in the hands of a gifted composer, their use can enhance the elegance and impact of a piece.

Among the most common tools of this trade is repetition. Whether on the scale of short sequences of notes or entire verses, repetition acts to reinforce a particular musical or lyrical theme. Even in medieval times, composers made use of repeated poetic stanzas (as in, for example, the virelai) or musical sections. In the late Trecento period, composers used "imitation," in which brief musical passages would be repeated, one singer after another. The repetitions were not always identical to the original passage, but the effect often resembled an echo.

Imitation was a particularly potent musical tool when combined with the hocket, as can be heard in "Doctorum principem - Melodia suavissima - Vir mitis," by Johannes Ciconia. The motet is about Francesco Zarabella, the archpriest of Padua Cathedral in the early 15th century, and it makes extensive use of the imitation and hocket techniques to construct an emphatic tribute to the man and his cathedral. The rapid melodic jumps, particularly at the end of the piece, are vaguely reminiscent of modern electronic music, but lend a more regal feel to the music in this context. This is one of the most impressive performances on the engaging album, The Saracen and the Dove, so I highly recommend it.

Related Links: YouTube, Doctorum Principem

Douce Dame Jolie: Verse, Chorus, Virelai

Album: Machaut: Mirror of Narcissus
Track: "Douce Dame Jolie" (Track #12)
Composer: Guillaume de Machaut
Instruments: 1 voice
Musical Form: Virelai
Year: ~1330-1350

Seldom do we hear a song from the middle ages in our everyday lives... even of the musicians I've spoken to, few listen to medieval music. Our rationale for this may vary -- some will say that early music was primitive and therefore couldn't possibly be as "good" (or perhaps "complex") as the modern counterparts. Others will say that they simply cannot relate to the sentiments of the ancients; perhaps the music was too often religious or gentle for the modern ear. Quite frankly, I don't buy either explanation. Even in modern music, a gifted musician can make a great song in the simplest of forms (for example, punk or folk music). Furthermore, the basic human emotions and drives have changed little over the course of a millenium. We still feel the same love, loss, gratitude, and wonder that medieval composers express in their compositions. No, we haven't changed much, it's primarily our perception of ourselves that has changed. Perhaps it's this very perception that causes us to distance ourselves from our musical past.

Whatever the reason, it's worth examining the similarities between music composed in the medieval and modern eras. Perhaps the most striking similarities can be found in early secular music, where the poetic and musical forms bear a strong resemblance to modern pop music. To illustrate this point, let's compare two compositions: "Douce Dame Jolie" by Guillaume de Machaut and "Beat It" by Michael Jackson (may he RIP). The former is a virelai, a type of monophonic secular composition that was developed in the medieval period. The latter, of course, is a pop/rock song released in 1983.

First, let's consider the more familiar of the two songs. The first verse and chorus of "Beat It" are as follows:

They told him don't you ever come around here

Don't wanna see your face, you better disappear

The fire's in their eyes and their words are really clear

So beat it, just beat it

Just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it

No one wants to be defeated

Showin' how funky and strong is your fight

It doesn't matter who's wrong or right

Just beat it, beat it

In the verse we see a poetic structure of aaab, meaning that the first three lines rhyme with one another and the final line ends in a different sound. The chorus, by contrast, has the form aabba. The differences in the two sections are reflected in the musical structure, where the chorus uses a completely different melody and rhythm. These poetic and musical properties are typical of modern pop music -- indeed, of many genres of modern music.

Virelais, on the other hand, were chansons, French lyric-driven songs that dominated secular music in the 14th and 15th centuries. These early songs were essentially poems with a melody, where changes in the melodic structure would often mimic changes in the poetic form, just as they did in "Beat It". Consider the first two stanzas of "Douce Dame Jolie":

Douce dame jolie,

Pour dieu ne pensés mie

Que nulle ait signorie

Seur moy fors vous seulement.

Qu'adès sans tricherie

Chierie

Vous ay et humblement

Tous les jours de ma vie

Servie

Sans villain pensement.

In the first stanza we see a poetic structure of aaab, just as in "Beat It," while in the second stanza the structure is aabaab. The poem takes on a different rhythm in the second stanza, so it also carries a different melody and feel. The remainder of the virelai alternates between these two poetic/musical forms, creating a melodic structure that is very similar to the verse--chorus--verse structure of modern music.

It would not be fair to say that all secular music of the middle ages was so similar to our familiar radio tunes. "Douce Dame Jolie" is arguably the most enduring song of the medieval period, a fact that is due in part to its familiar structure, so it does not represent an unbiased sampling of the period. Nevertheless, I believe we are closer to our musical ancestors than is often appreciated. Give it a chance, you might be surprised.

External Links: YouTube

Medieval Musical Modes: A Modal Frame of Mind

Album: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme
Track: "Scarborough Fair" (Track #1)
Composer: Simon & Garfunkel/Traditional
Instruments: 2 voices, 1 piano, 1 guitar
Year: 1966

Medieval music has a particular sound to it that for most of us is difficult to describe. We may be able to connect it to particular movies or plays (or perhaps the renaissance fair our friends with questionable taste dragged us to), but unless we happen to have a background in music theory, these will only be vague associations. Some of these associations may be due to the medieval composers' use of rhythmic modes (see Sederunt Principes and the Rhythmic Modes), but these were not in common use much beyond the 13th century. Most likely, the "medieval" sound is dominated by the use of musical modes, a set of intervals between notes that are used to compose a particular piece.

One example of a musical mode is the major scale -- if you've ever heard a singer do their "Do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do" exercises, you've heard the major scale (listen). If you have a piano handy, this mode corresponds to the seven white keys starting with C. The vast majority of modern popular composers use this set of intervals (or those of a similar minor scale) to write their songs, but neither the major nor minor scales were recognzied as modes in medieval times and pieces were very rarely composed with them. One mode that was frequently used, however, was the Dorian mode. On a piano, this corresponds to the seven white keys starting with "D." The mode has something of a minor sound to it, but differs from the minor scale in its sixth note (the Dorian sixth is a half step higher, listen). To my ear, the Dorian mode has something of a "transcendental" feel to it and that may be why the church was so fond of using it.

Although many of the pieces I have reviewed use the Dorian mode, you would be hard-pressed to find it in modern music. A famous exception is "Scarborough Fair," a song released by Simon & Garfunkel in 1966. The song is actually a reworking of a traditional English ballad that dates back to the middle ages, so the use of Dorian mode is in retrospect not that surprising. Compare "Scarborough Fair" to Beata Viscera, also written in the Dorian mode -- see if they evoke similar images and associations.

External Links: YouTube

S'on Me Regarde: Pop Sensibilities

Album: Music of the Gothic Era
Track: "S'on me regarde" (Track #3)
Composer: Anonymous
Instruments: 2 voices, fiddle, mandora, harp, psaltery
Year: ~1250

Another piece included in the Montpellier Codex, "S'on me regarde" is a French love song in motet form. Of what I've heard during my journey thus far, this song comes closest to what I think of as a "traditional" song; that is, the sort of thing I might have sung in summer camp or high school french class. The tune is catchy and, interestingly, either of the two vocal parts could be argued to carry the melody. One can imagine that the composers of this time would have had only the crudest notion of how to write effective accompaniment -- perhaps here they chose to simply write another melody line to accompany the first, we can only guess. Either way, the result is impressive and I'm not aware of any equivalent in modern music.

External Links: YouTube