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45
b. enhanced impor tant feast days
c. became mark of distinction
D. Gaude Maria virgo (Rejoice, Virgin Mary)
1. prayer in praise of the Virgin Mary
a. in the style of Pérotin, possibly by him
b. three- part polyphony
c. sustained bottom voice taken from chant of
the same name
2. LG 3: Notre Dame School: Gaude Maria virgo
(Rejoice, Virgin Mary) (Early 13th century)
a. alternates polyphony (soloists) and mono-
phonic chant (choir)
b. upper 2 voices highly melismatic, in rhythmic
mode
c. chant sustained in bottom voice
OVERVIEW
This chapter introduces students to the earliest notated poly-
phonic music— organum—as it was developed at the Cathe-
dral of Notre Dame in Paris during the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. To understand the earliest polyphonic music in the West
as rooted in improvisation and eventually notated
2. To recognize the sound and style of Notre Dame
organum
3. To understand the importance of preexisting chants and
the incorporation of rhythmic modes in the creation of
Notre Dame organum
OUTLINE
I. Early Polyphony
A. Single most impor tant feature in development of
Western music
B. Eu ro pean polyphony distinctive: notated
1. Romanesque era (c. 850–1150)
a. notated polyphony emerged
b. precise rhythm, pitch indicated: exact nota-
tional system developed
2. Gothic era (c. 1150–1450)
a. individual composers recognized: mostly
clerics in religious communities
b. extended works, varied textures and forms
C. Organum
1. polyphonic art blossomed
2. earliest polyphony: second voice added to
Gregorian melody
a. greater in de pen dence of voices
i. lower voice: Gregorian chant, extremely
long notes
ii. upper voice(s): freely composed, moved
rapidly
iii. chant no longer recognizable
3. Notre Dame composers at forefront
a. Léonin (fl. 1150– c. 1201)
i. first composer of polyphonic music whose
name we know
ii. compiled Great Book of Organum
(Magnus liber organi)
b. Pérotin (fl. c. 1200)
i. Léonin’s successor
ii. expanded organum to 3 and 4 voices
4. polyphonic music increasingly sought after
a. required specialized singers
CHAPTERfi15 Layering Lines: Polyphony at Notre Dame
46 | Chapterfi15
Wright, Craig. Music and Ceremony at Notre Dame of Paris:
500–1500. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. An
extensive history of the musical institution of Notre Dame up to
YOUR TURN TO EXPLORE
Many hip- hop songs are especially multilayered, but most
other traditions that feature multiple performers (jazz and
prominent throughout, or do dif fer ent ones emerge in turn as
leaders?
MODEL RESPONSE
Herbie Hancock’s Watermelon Man has been recorded doz-
shouts. While this was reportedly intended as an imitation
of a par tic u lar style of vocal per for mance in Central African
Pygmy music, the effect here is to create a fairly dense wash
ered effortlessly over the laid- back groove of the main tune
and gradually reassumes prominence in the final seconds of
LECTURE SUGGESTIONS
students to point out the relationships between the sound of
the organum and the visual dimensions of the examples.
2. Illustrate for your class the evolution of organum by first
extracting and playing the original chant of Gaude Maria
virgo, then adding (improvising) a second voice at par-
ASSIGNMENT SUGGESTIONS
1. Read the text of Gaude Maria virgo. What connections
can you identify among the text, its meaning, and the
2. At the time of Léonin’s and Pérotin’s affiliations with the
TEACHING CHALLENGES
SUPPLEMENTAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
47
1. foremost composer- poet of Ars nova,
far- reaching influence
2. double career: cleric, courtier
3. worked at vari ous French courts
4. self- consciously collected his works for posterity
5. sacred and secular compositions
a. favored chanson: French courtly love poems
b. poetic forms: rondeau, ballade, and virelai
c. new freedom of rhythms, syncopations, inter-
play of duple and triple meters
6. spent final years a priest and canon, Cathedral of
Reims
C. LG 4: Machaut: Ma fln est mon commencement
(My end is my beginning) (Mid-14th century)
1. three- voice, a cappella chanson
a. non- imitative polyphony
b. duple meter, syncopated rhythm
c. long melismas, hollow cadences
2. puzzle text: rondeau by Machaut
a. enigmatic text, palindromes
b. religious connotations as well
3. alternating A and B sections
4. palindromic structure
a. B section retrograde of A section
b. two upper voices trade parts at midpoint
c. bottom voice retrogrades at midpoint
OVERVIEW
Interactions between East and West (primarily through the
Crusades) are presented here as sparking the creative ener-
gies of troubadours, trouvères, and composers of the Ars
nova, especially Guillaume de Machaut. Machaut’s “puzzle”
OUTLINE
I. Human Fascination with Riddles and Puzzles
A. Western tradition: music linked with mathe matics
and geometry
1. ancient Greece: Pythagoras, musical experiments
2. medieval times: Quadrivium ( music, mathe-
matics, geometry, astronomy) considered essen-
tial education
II. Medieval Minstrels and Court Musicians
A. Popu lar repertoire of songs and dances
1. reflect aspects of medieval life
B. Minstrels
1. wandering, versatile entertainers
2. musicians on the fringe of society
C. Troubadours and trouvères
1. French poet- musicians, aristocratic courts
2. flourished at vari ous courts of Eu rope
3. poems: unrequited love, idealized love, chivalry,
laments, po liti cal and moral ditties, chronicles of
the Crusades
4. developments in polyphony carry over to secular
music
III. Machaut and the French Ars nova
A. New musical style
1. early 1300s France, then Italy
2. developments in rhythm, meter, harmony,
counterpoint
3. interest in regularity, complexity of musical
patterns
4. more refined and complex than Ars antiqua (old
art)
5. secular themes
B. Guillame de Machuat (c. 1300–1377)
CHAPTERfi16 Symbols and Puzzles: Machaut
and the Medieval Mind
48 | Chapterfi16
ficient for an overview of the compositional concept even if
students cannot hear the musical palindrome.
SUPPLEMENTAL REPERTORY
SUPPLEMENTAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
Aubrey, Elizabeth. The Music of the Troubadours. Bloomington
and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996. An infor-
mative and accessible study of the troubadours. Chapter1 (“His-
torical Background”) provides useful information on the art of
YOUR TURN TO EXPLORE
the composer and performer(s) found to make the palindrome
or canon audible (or even vis i ble) to a listener? How do the
musicians balance intellectual ingenuity with emotional
expression?
Per for mance Model Response
some order, but other wise the
deeper structure isn’t apparent
(The Palindrome), III hear sections that are played
both forward and backward.
chanson Ma fln est mon commencement serves to illustrate
the newly refined artistic dimensions of the Ars nova.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
3. To recognize the music of Machaut as embodying the
musical style of the Ars nova
LECTURE SUGGESTIONS
ment: 1. refrain, 2. verse, 3. partial refrain, and 4. partial
verse. Play the example (with the text clearly vis i ble to
the class and with the sections labeled as in the listen-
ASSIGNMENT SUGGESTIONS
1. After working through Listening Guide 4, listen care-
fully to the recording provided under “Another Hear-
ing.” Compare and contrast the vocal and instrumental
per for mances of this piece. Is one more effective than
modern examples of how the interaction of dif fer ent cul-
tures influences the musical values of one group or the
TEACHING CHALLENGES
times in a row in the middle of the piece!
Dulci Vento does not have the text to drive the piece, so
they exploit the timbres of the instrumentation instead. The
bone) provides the bottom voice. With three dif fer ent timbres,
the individual lines can be heard much more clearly and the
music is more front- and- center. The recorder, in par tic u lar,
seems to stand out.
Once one understands the games that Machaut is playing
odies are very distinctive. The music stands alone without
needing to understand the puzzle in the text.
RUBRIC
— The student has answered, in an or ga nized way, the four
questions in the prompt:
• How is the Dulci Vento per for mance dif fer ent?
looking up a definition for “sackbut.”
addition to writing this complex
puzzle movement, Haydn does
a wonderful job of using the
palindromic construction of the
music.
3. J. S. Bach: Canon for Compared to the others, the
Seven Violins and puzzle of this piece is easier to
Basso Ostinato, hear because of the short
game of follow the leader that
eventually ends with the last
violin finishing the piece
alone.
“ANOTHER HEARING” SAMPLE
MINI- ESSAY & RUBRIC
Dulci Vento only performs the A section and the B section.
