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In
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 ...
, the rhythmic modes were set patterns of long and short
duration
Duration may refer to:
* The amount of time elapsed between two events
* Duration (music) – an amount of time or a particular time interval, often cited as one of the fundamental aspects of music
* Duration (philosophy) – a theory of time and ...
s (or
rhythm
Rhythm (from Greek , ''rhythmos'', "any regular recurring motion, symmetry") generally means a " movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular recu ...
s). The value of each
note
Note, notes, or NOTE may refer to:
Music and entertainment
* Musical note, a pitched sound (or a symbol for a sound) in music
* ''Notes'' (album), a 1987 album by Paul Bley and Paul Motian
* ''Notes'', a common (yet unofficial) shortened version ...
is not determined by the form of the written note (as is the case with more recent European musical notation), but rather by its position within a group of notes written as a single figure called a
"ligature", and by the position of the ligature relative to other ligatures. Modal notation was developed by the composers of the
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 hav ...
from 1170 to 1250, replacing the even and unmeasured rhythm of early
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, h ...
and
plainchant
Plainsong or plainchant (calque from the French ''plain-chant''; la, cantus planus) is a body of chants used in the liturgies of the Western Church. When referring to the term plainsong, it is those sacred pieces that are composed in Latin text. ...
with patterns based on the metric feet of classical poetry, and was the first step towards the development of modern
mensural notation
Mensural notation is the musical notation system used for European vocal polyphonic music from the later part of the 13th century until about 1600. The term "mensural" refers to the ability of this system to describe precisely measured rhythm ...
. The rhythmic modes of Notre Dame Polyphony were the first coherent system of rhythmic notation developed in Western music since antiquity.
History
Though the use of the rhythmic modes is the most characteristic feature of the music of the late
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 hav ...
, especially the compositions of
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 introdu ...
, they are also predominant in much of the rest of the music of the ''
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-Dam ...
'' until about the middle of the 13th century. Composition types which were permeated by the modal rhythm include Notre Dame
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 ...
(most famously, the organum triplum and organum quadruplum of Pérotin),
conductus
The ''conductus'' (plural: ''conducti'') was a sacred Latin song in the Middle Ages, one whose poetry and music were newly composed. It is non-liturgical since its Latin lyric borrows little from previous chants. The conductus was northern Frenc ...
, and
discant clausulae. Later in the century, the motets by
Petrus de Cruce Petrus de Cruce (also Pierre de la Croix) was active as a cleric, composer and music theorist in the late part of the 13th century. His main contribution was to the notational system.
Life
13th-century composer, theorist, and scholar, Petrus de ...
and the many anonymous composers, which were descended from discant clausulae, also used modal rhythm, often with much greater complexity than was found earlier in the century: for example each voice sometimes sang in a different mode, as well as a different language.
In most sources there were six rhythmic modes, as first explained in the anonymous treatise of about 1260, ''De mensurabili musica'' (formerly attributed to
Johannes de Garlandia, who is now believed merely to have edited it in the late 13th century for
Jerome of Moravia
Jerome of Moravia (or Hieronymus de Moravia) (died after 1271) was a medieval music theorist. He was a Dominican friar. His origin is unknown, but he is believed to have worked in Paris at the Dominican convent on the Rue Saint-Jacques. He most l ...
, who incorporated it into his own compilation). Each mode consisted of a short pattern of long and short note values ("
longa" and "
brevis") corresponding to a
metrical foot
The foot is the basic repeating metre (poetry), rhythmic unit that forms part of a line of poetry, verse in most Indo-European languages, Indo-European traditions of poetry, including English accentual-syllabic verse and the quantitative meter of ...
, as follows:
# Long-short (
trochee
In English poetic metre and modern linguistics, a trochee () is a metrical foot consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one. But in Latin and Ancient Greek poetic metre, a trochee is a heavy syllable followed by a light one (al ...
)
# Short-long (
iamb)
# Long-short-short (
dactyl
Dactyl may refer to:
* Dactyl (mythology), a legendary being
* Dactyl (poetry), a metrical unit of verse
* Dactyl Foundation, an arts organization
* Finger, a part of the hand
* Dactylus, part of a decapod crustacean
* "-dactyl", a suffix used ...
)
# Short-short-long (
anapaest
An anapaest (; also spelled anapæst or anapest, also called antidactylus) is a metrical foot used in formal poetry. In classical quantitative meters it consists of two short syllables followed by a long one; in accentual stress meters it consist ...
)
# Long-long (
spondee
A spondee (Latin: ) is a metrical foot consisting of two long syllables, as determined by syllable weight in classical meters, or two stressed syllables in modern meters. The word comes from the Greek , , 'libation'.
Spondees in Ancient Greek ...
)
# Short-short-short (
tribrach)
Although this system of six modes was recognized by medieval theorists, in practice only the first three and fifth patterns were commonly used, with the first mode being by far the most frequent. The fourth mode is rarely encountered, an exception being the second clausula of ''Lux magna'' in MS Wolfenbüttel 677, fol. 44. The fifth mode normally occurs in groups of three and is used only in the lowest voice (or tenor), whereas the sixth mode is most often found in an upper part.
Modern transcriptions of the six modes usually are as follows:
# Quarter (
crotchet
A quarter note (American) or crotchet ( ) (British) is a musical note played for one quarter of the duration of a whole note (or semibreve). Quarter notes are notated with a filled-in oval note head and a straight, flagless stem. The stem u ...
), eighth (
quaver
180px, Figure 1. An eighth note with stem extending up, an eighth note with stem extending down, and an eighth rest.
180px, Figure 2. Four eighth notes beamed together.
An eighth note (American) or a quaver (British) is a musical note play ...
) (generally
barred, therefore, in or, because the patterns usually repeat an even number of times, in )
# Eighth, quarter (barred in or )
# Dotted quarter, eighth, quarter (barred in )
# Eighth, quarter, dotted quarter (barred in )
# Dotted quarters (barred in either or )
# Eighths (barred in or )
*Cooper gives the above but doubled in length, thus 1) is barred in , for example.
*Riemann is another modern exception, who also gives the values twice as long, in time, but in addition holds that the third and fourth modes were really intended to represent the modern , with duple rhythms ( and , respectively).
Notation
Devised in the last half of the 12th century, the notation of rhythmic modes used stereotyped combinations of ligatures (joined noteheads) to indicate the patterns of long notes (longs) and short notes (breves), enabling a performer to recognize which of the six rhythmic modes was intended for a given passage.
Linked notes in groups of:
:3, 2, 2, 2, etc. indicate the first mode,
:2, 2, 2, 2, … 3 the second mode,
:1, 3, 3, 3, 3, etc. the third mode,
:3, 3, 3, … 1 the fourth mode,
:3, 3, 3, 3, etc. the fifth mode,
:and 4, 3, 3, 3, etc. the sixth mode
The reading and performance of the music notated using the rhythmic modes was thus based on context. After recognizing which of the six modes applied to a passage of
neume
A neume (; sometimes spelled neum) is the basic element of Western and Eastern systems of musical notation prior to the invention of five-line staff notation.
The earliest neumes were inflective marks that indicated the general shape but not ne ...
s, a singer would generally continue on in that same mode until the end of a phrase, or a
cadence
In Western musical theory, a cadence (Latin ''cadentia'', "a falling") is the end of a phrase in which the melody or harmony creates a sense of full or partial resolution, especially in music of the 16th century onwards.Don Michael Randel (1999) ...
. In modern editions of medieval music, ligatures are represented by horizontal brackets over the notes contained within it.
All the modes adhere to a ternary principle of metre, meaning that each mode would have a number of beat subdivisions divisible by the number 3. Some medieval writers explained this as veneration for the perfection of the Holy Trinity, but it appears that this was an explanation made after the event, rather than a cause. Less speculatively, the flexibility of rhythm possible within the system allows for variety and avoids monotony. Notes could be broken down into shorter units (called ''fractio modi'' by
Anonymous IV
Anonymous may refer to:
* Anonymity, the state of an individual's identity, or personally identifiable information, being publicly unknown
** Anonymous work, a work of art or literature that has an unnamed or unknown creator or author
* Anony ...
) or two rhythmic units of the same mode could be combined into one (''extensio modi'').. An alternative term used by Garlandia for both types of alteration was "reduction". These alterations may be accomplished in several ways: ''extensio modi'' by the insertion of single (unligated) long notes or a smaller-than-usual ligature; ''fractio modi'' by the insertion of a larger-than-usual ligature, or by special signs. These were of two types, the ''plica'' and the ''climacus''.
The ''plica'' was adopted from the liquescent neumes (''cephalicus'') of chant notation, and receives its name (Latin for "fold") from its form which, when written as a separate note, had the shape of a U or an inverted U. In modal notation, however, the plica usually occurs as a vertical stroke added to the end of a ligature, making it a ''ligatura plicata''. The plica usually indicates an added breve on a weak beat. The pitch indicated by the plica depends on the pitches of the note it is attached to and the note following it. If both notes are the same, then the plica tone is the upper or lower neighbor, depending on the direction of the stem. If the interval between the main notes is a third, then the plica tone fills it in as a passing tone. If the two main notes are a second apart, or at an interval of a fourth or larger, musical context must decide the pitch of the plica tone.
The ''climacus'' is a rapid descending scale figure, written as a single note or a ligature followed by a series of two or more descending lozenges. Anonymous IV called these ''currentes'' (Latin "running"), probably in reference to the similar figures found in pre-modal Aquitanian and Parisian polyphony.
Franco of Cologne
Franco of Cologne (; also Franco of Paris) was a German music theorist and possibly a composer. He was one of the most influential theorists of the Late Middle Ages, and was the first to propose an idea which was to transform musical notation per ...
called them ''coniunctura'' (Latin for "joined
ote
OTE is the national telecommunications provider of Greece.
OTE may also refer to:
* Ocean thermal energy conversion, a renewable energy source
* Oda of Haldensleben (978–1023), daughter of the Margrave of the North March, Theoderich
* On-ta ...
). When consisting of just three notes (''coniunctura ternaria'') it is rhythmically identical with the ordinary three-note ligature, but when containing more notes this figure may be rhythmically ambiguous and therefore difficult to interpret. The difficulty was compounded in the later half of the 13th century, when the lozenge shape came also to be used for the
semibreve. A general rule is that the last note is a longa, the second-last note is a breve, and all the preceding notes taken together occupy the space of a longa. However, the exact internal rhythm of these first notes of the group requires some interpretation according to context.
It was also possible to change from one mode to another without a break, which was called "admixture" by Anonymous IV, writing around 1280.
Because a ligature cannot be used for more than one syllable of text, the notational patterns can only occur in
melisma
Melisma ( grc-gre, μέλισμα, , ; from grc, , melos, song, melody, label=none, plural: ''melismata'') is the singing of a single syllable of text while moving between several different notes in succession. Music sung in this style is referr ...
tic passages. Where syllables change frequently or where pitches are to be repeated, ligatures must be broken up into smaller ligatures or even single notes in so-called "syllabic notation", often creating difficulty for the singers, as was reported by Anonymous IV.
An ordo (plural ''ordines'') is a
phrase
In syntax and grammar, a phrase is a group of words or singular word acting as a grammatical unit. For instance, the English expression "the very happy squirrel" is a noun phrase which contains the adjective phrase "very happy". Phrases can consi ...
constructed from one or more statements of one modal pattern and ending in a rest. Ordines were described according to the number of repetitions and the position of the concluding rest. "Perfect" ordines ended with the first note of the pattern followed by a rest substituting for the second half of the pattern, and "imperfect" ordines ended in the last note of the pattern followed by a rest equal to the first part. Imperfect ordines are mostly theoretical and rare in practice, where perfect ordines predominate.
Other writers who covered the topic of rhythmic modes include Anonymous IV, who mentions the names of the composers Léonin and Pérotin as well as some of their major works, and
Franco of Cologne
Franco of Cologne (; also Franco of Paris) was a German music theorist and possibly a composer. He was one of the most influential theorists of the Late Middle Ages, and was the first to propose an idea which was to transform musical notation per ...
, writing around 1260, who recognized the limitations of the system and whose name became attached to the idea of representing the duration of a note by particular notational shapes, though in fact the idea had been known and used for some time before Franco. Lambertus described nine modes, and Anonymus IV said that, in England, a whole series of irregular modes was in use.
References
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Footnotes
Further reading
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{{rhythm and meter
Musical techniques
Musical notation
European rhythm
Medieval music theory