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Pérotin
Pérotin () was a composer associated with the Notre Dame school of polyphony in Paris and the broader musical style of high medieval music. He is credited with developing the polyphonic practices of his predecessor Léonin, with the introduction of three and four-part harmonies. Other than a brief mention by music theorist Johannes de Garlandia in his ''De Mensurabili Musica'', virtually all information on Pérotin's life comes from Anonymous IV, a pseudonymous English student who probably studied in Paris. Anonymous IV names seven titles from a ''Magnus Liber''—including '' Viderunt omnes'', ''Sederunt principes'' and ''Alleluia Nativitas''—that have been identified with surviving works and gives him the title ''Magister Perotinus'' (Pérotinus the Master) meaning he was licensed to teach. It is assumed that Perotinus was French and named Pérotin, a diminutive of Peter, but attempts to match him with persons in contemporary documents remain speculative. Identity an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Organum
''Organum'' () is, in general, a plainchant melody with at least one added voice to enhance the harmony, developed in the Middle Ages. Depending on the mode and form of the chant, a supporting bass line (or '' bourdon'') may be sung on the same text, the melody may be followed in parallel motion (parallel organum), or a combination of both of these techniques may be employed. As no real independent second voice exists, this is a form of heterophony. In its earliest stages, organum involved two musical voices: a Gregorian chant melody, and the same melody transposed by a consonant interval, usually a perfect fifth or fourth. In these cases the composition often began and ended on a unison, the added voice keeping to the initial tone until the first part has reached a fifth or fourth, from where both voices proceeded in parallel harmony, with the reverse process at the end. Organum was originally improvised; while one singer performed a notated melody (the ''vox principalis''), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Medieval Music
Medieval music encompasses the sacred and secular music of Western Europe during the Middle Ages, from approximately the 6th to 15th centuries. It is the first and longest major era of Western classical music and followed by the Renaissance music; the two eras comprise what musicologists generally term as early music, preceding the common practice period. Following the traditional division of the Middle Ages, medieval music can be divided into Early (500–1150), High (1000–1300), and Late (1300–1400) medieval music. Medieval music includes liturgical music used for the church, and secular music, non-religious music; solely vocal music, such as Gregorian chant and choral music (music for a group of singers), solely instrumental music, and music that uses both voices and instruments (typically with the instruments accompanying the voices). Gregorian chant was sung by monks during Catholic Mass. The Mass is a reenactment of Christ's Last Supper, intended to provide a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Notre Dame School
The Notre-Dame school or the Notre-Dame school of polyphony refers to the group of composers working at or near the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris from about 1160 to 1250, along with the music they produced. The only composers whose names have come down to us from this time are Léonin and Pérotin. Both were mentioned by an anonymous English student, known as Anonymous IV, who was either working or studying at Notre-Dame later in the 13th century. In addition to naming the two composers as "the best composers of organum," and specifying that they compiled the big book of organum known as the ''Magnus Liber Organi'', he provides a few tantalizing bits of information on the music and the principles involved in its composition. Pérotin is the first composer of ''organum quadruplum''—four-voice polyphony—at least the first composer whose music has survived, since complete survivals of notated music from this time are scarce. Léonin, Pérotin and the other anonymous composer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magnus Liber
The ''Magnus Liber'' or ''Magnus liber organi'' (English translation: ''Great Book of Organum''), written in Latin, was a repertory of medieval music known as organum. This collection of organum survives today in three major manuscripts. This repertoire was in use by the Notre-Dame school composers working in Paris around the end of the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth centuries, though it is well agreed upon by scholars that Leonin contributed a bulk of the organum in the repertoire. This large body of repertoire is known from references to a ''"magnum volumen"'' by Johannes de Garlandia and to a ''"Magnus liber organi de graduali et antiphonario pro servitio divino"'' by the English music theorist known as Anonymous IV. Today it is known only from later manuscripts containing compositions named in Anonymous IV's description. The ''Magnus Liber'' is regarded as one of the earliest collections of polyphony. Surviving Manuscripts The ''Magnus Liber organi'' most likely t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ars Antiqua
''Ars antiqua'', also called ''ars veterum'' or ''ars vetus'', is a term used by modern scholars to refer to the Medieval music of Europe during the High Middle Ages, between approximately 1170 and 1310. This covers the period of the Notre-Dame school of polyphony (the use of multiple, simultaneous, independent melodic lines), and the subsequent years which saw the early development of the motet, a highly varied choral musical composition. Usually the term ''ars antiqua'' is restricted to sacred (church) or polyphonic music, excluding the secular (non-religious) monophonic songs of the troubadours, and trouvères. Although colloquially the term ''ars antiqua'' is used more loosely to mean all European music of the 13th century, and from slightly before. The term ''ars antiqua'' is used in opposition to '' ars nova'' (meaning "new art", "new technique" or "new style"). The transition from ars antiqua into ars nova is not clearly defined, recent interpretation has described the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polyphony
Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice, monophony, or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords, homophony. Within the context of the Western musical tradition, the term ''polyphony'' is usually used to refer to music of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. Baroque forms such as fugue, which might be called polyphonic, are usually described instead as contrapuntal. Also, as opposed to the ''species'' terminology of counterpoint, polyphony was generally either "pitch-against-pitch" / "point-against-point" or "sustained-pitch" in one part with melismas of varying lengths in another. In all cases the conception was probably what Margaret Bent (1999) calls "dyadic counterpoint", with each part being written generally against one other part, with all parts modified if needed in the end. This point-against-point conception is opposed to " ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polyphony
Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice, monophony, or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords, homophony. Within the context of the Western musical tradition, the term ''polyphony'' is usually used to refer to music of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. Baroque forms such as fugue, which might be called polyphonic, are usually described instead as contrapuntal. Also, as opposed to the ''species'' terminology of counterpoint, polyphony was generally either "pitch-against-pitch" / "point-against-point" or "sustained-pitch" in one part with melismas of varying lengths in another. In all cases the conception was probably what Margaret Bent (1999) calls "dyadic counterpoint", with each part being written generally against one other part, with all parts modified if needed in the end. This point-against-point conception is opposed to " ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Léonin
Léonin (also Leoninus, Leonius, Leo; ) was the first known significant composer of polyphonic organum. He was probably French, probably lived and worked in Paris at the Notre Dame Cathedral and was the earliest member of the Notre Dame school of polyphony and the ars antiqua style who is known by name. The name Léonin is derived from "Leoninus," which is the Latin diminutive of the name Leo; therefore it is likely that Léonin's given French name was Léo. Overview All that is known about him comes from the writings of a later student at the cathedral known as Anonymous IV, an Englishman who left a treatise on theory and who mentions Léonin as the composer of the ''Magnus Liber,'' the "great book" of organum. Much of the ''Magnus Liber'' is devoted to clausulae—melismatic portions of Gregorian chant which were extracted into separate pieces where the original note values of the chant were greatly slowed down and a fast-moving upper part is superimposed. Léonin mig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johannes De Garlandia (music Theorist)
Johannes de Garlandia (Johannes Gallicus) (fl. c. 1270 – 1320) was a French music theorist of the late ''ars antiqua'' period of medieval music. He is known for his work on the first treatise to explore the practice of musical notation of rhythm, ''De Mensurabili Musica''. Life and problems of identification Until the mid-1980s it was believed that Johannes de Garlandia lived in the first half of the 13th century and wrote two treatises, ''De Mensurabili Musica'' and ''De plana musica'', and thus was intimately connected with the composers of the Notre Dame school, at least one of whom — Pérotin — may still have been alive in the earlier part of his career. Unfortunately the linking of his name with those two works only began after 1270, and it now seems likely that Garlandia was one Jehan de Garlandia, a keeper of a bookshop in Paris, records of whom appear on various official Parisian documents between 1296 and 1319. Most likely he was an editor of the two ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
High Middle Ages
The High Middle Ages, or High Medieval Period, was the periodization, period of European history that lasted from AD 1000 to 1300. The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and were followed by the Late Middle Ages, which ended around AD 1500 (by historiography, historiographical convention). Key historical trends of the High Middle Ages include the medieval demography, rapidly increasing population of Europe, which brought about great social and political change from the preceding era, and the Renaissance of the 12th century, including the first developments of rural exodus and urbanization. By 1250, the robust population increase had greatly benefited the European economy, which reached levels that would not be seen again in some areas until the 19th century. That trend faltered during the Late Middle Ages because of a Crisis of the Late Middle Ages, series of calamities, most notably the Black Death, but also numerous wars as well as economic stagnation. Fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louis VII Of France
Louis VII (1120 – 18 September 1180), called the Younger, or the Young (french: link=no, le Jeune), was King of the Franks from 1137 to 1180. He was the son and successor of King Louis VI (hence the epithet "the Young") and married Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine, one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in western Europe. The marriage temporarily extended the Capetian lands to the Pyrenees. During his march, as part of the Second Crusade in 1147, Louis stayed at the court of King Géza II of Hungary on the way to Jerusalem. During his stay in the Holy Land disagreements with his wife led to a deterioration in their marriage. She persuaded him to stay in Antioch but Louis instead wanted to fulfil his vows of pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He was later involved in the failed siege of Damascus and eventually returned to France in 1149. Louis' reign saw the founding of the University of Paris. He and his counsellor Abbot Suger, pushed for greater centralisation of the state and fa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
