Copy of Notes Lecture 03 (1 31 17) PDF

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Mary Caldwell...

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Listening quiz next Tuesday Josquin - Mille Regrets (pg 68) - Genre → chanson (secular vocal music) - Term not particularly illustrative of the style of a song, just a catch-all for secular vocal music - Text → French poetry, written by court poet (poss Clement Marot) and set by Josquin (Machaut wrote his own poetry). Usually about love, one or two stanzas - Aspects of Josquin’s style (we see these in the mass as well) - Chordal homophony, four parts moving in same rhythm - Movement to pair of voices, select passages taking voices and breaking them into different pairs → not seen with other composers like Machaut, Perotin - Changes texture, number of voice parts, sometimes both Madrigal - also secular vocal Renaissance music Late Renaissance (time after Josquin, mid to end century 1550-1600) Palestrina (1524-1594), Pope Marcellus Mass (1557) - Palestrina dedicated the mass to Pope at the time. Kind of a proof of concept → polyphonic music could be constructed in a way that all the words can be clearly heard. Piece encodes a legend. - First need to understand Catholic Counter-Reformation (response to Luther’s Reformation, 1520). At the time, the only successful challenge to the Roman Catholic Church - 1525 → RCC begins systematic evaluation of liturgy/tradition in church, largely in response to Luther’s accusations of abuse. Music also included under this scrutiny - Objections to church music → in imitative polyphony, words get lost. It’s really hard to understand what’s being sung b/c every part’s at a different place in the music. People are in church to listen to the prayer and participate, that shouldn’t be compromised simply for the sake of beautiful music. Also, some of the melodies coming from secular, non-sacred sources (cristobal de morales). In Renaissance mind, everything a topos, everything signifies everything and so non-religious melody discordant with religious text. Melody inappropriate for context - For a while, religious leaders considered going back to monophonic music and eliminating polyphonic. Probably not seriously considered b/c cardinals were really wealthy, loved music, had private musicians, they loved the new style. BUT.

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idea that polyphony was at a moment when it might be done away with → enter Palestrina, here to prove that polyphony can have clear, understandable text and interesting melodic lines Gloria: 6 vocal lines → takes advantage of chordal homophony for overall texture, text setting is almost exclusively syllabic (one note, one syllable). Not strictly chordal - lets vocal parts move ahead, then comes back in sync. Occasionally voices become melismatic, but movement is always controlled/contained Historically, almost no composers followed in Palestrina’s footsteps. Palestrina is a stylistic “dead end,” even his contemporaries didn’t follow the explicit rules from the Council of Trent Bach copied Palestrina’s bass parts from vocal compositions and practiced adding new parts on top → counterpoint - Fundamental tool and pedagogical device for all composers, even today - Basis of all composition in modern practice

Madrigal → Palestrina’s counterpart in secular world - Palestrina concerned with control and clarity, others less concerned with the clarity of words and are grappling with this new style. Certain musical gestures, if coupled with right words, seems to suggest what words are saying. Concerned with capturing meaning of texts in musical gestures - Josquin didn’t really try to put meaning of words into music. Kind of moving in that direction, but a lot of examples where he doesn’t do that Weelkes (1575-1623), “As Vesta Was from Latmos Hill Descending” (1601) - From collection called The Triumphs of Orianna - Madrigal → secular vocal composition (English, Italian [direct predecessor of Bach]) - Most popular genre of Late Renaissance, but short lived → almost none after 1601-02 - Frequently associated with aristocratic entertainment - Helped create advances in modern printing - Composer seeks to portray meaning of words and phrases directly in music (pg 73) → text/word painting Instrumental music in the Renaissance - Daphne → type of dance piece called a galliard, may have begun as a chanson - A lot of early instrumental music composed for dance (Dancing Masters) - Instruments are not specified - Kemp’s jig → type of dance - Dance type structures - Repetition → brief repeated musical phrases, easy to count off

BAROQUE PERIOD MUSIC 1600-1750 Transition to Baroque - Gabrieli: O magnum mysterium (1610) - Motet → any composition that has a Latin text on a sacred subject, but not liturgical. Doesn’t fit into church service. Dates back to time of Perotin, but we don’t know the context for a lot of these pieces, they were performed outside the church service but in the church itself - Many of Gabrieli’s works were composed specifically to take advantage of acoustic properties of the Cathedral of St. Mark’s in Venice. Musicians in different groups on different sides/balconies of Cathedral → polychoral/antiphonal performance - First time singers and instruments together in two groups, each group 3 voice parts and 4 instrumental parts, total 14 lines - Expression of wonderment, Christmas motet celebrating miracle/humbleness of Christ’s birth - “Old” feature → word painting - Use of dissonance to recall the sensation/idea of lying in a manger Monteverdi - Coronation of Poppea (1642), libretto by Busenello (pg 86) - Story of Nero and Poppea → story itself a topos for aristocracy, story of a ruler making bad choices. relatable. Poppea wants to be empress of Rome → seduces/manipulates - Interaction between Poppea and Nero on pg 87 → changing of emotions reflected with music - Opera - Object is constantly signifying, creating topoi to be decoded - For much of its history, existed for ultra rich. Not designed for public audience, designed for richest families, ruling class. People didn’t necessarily have a lot of musical knowledge, but usually they were familiar with the stories that operas were based on → Greek/Roman mythology, Roman (ancient) history - Can’t tell the whole story → singing really inefficient. What you see on stage is truncated/abbreviated version, focuses on most dramatic/telling elements of story - Often humorous if you know what’s going on - Structure - Acts made up of scenes - Music → recitatives and arias (songs). In Monteverdi’s time, emphasis on recitatives - Developed from experiments of Florentine Camerata. Trying to recreate power/greatness of music of ancient Greeks

Fluid combining of music and text, musical language reflects significance of text. One singer at a time, no predictable meter, should sound free flowing. Dialogue and plot points → move the story. Accompanied by basso continuo → bass instrument and chording instrument, fundamental sound of baroque music - Arias → moments of pause/reflection. Strong sense of meter, accompaniment of orchestra We don’t have stage directions/sets/costumes from the earliest operas → what we see today is largely conjecture Unusual to have author write own text → usually the text comes first and the setting comes after Voice types → heroic male characters sung by castrato in 17th century through Handel, sounds like a soprano. Today we either cast a woman or transpose the part -

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Purcell: Dido and Aeneas (1689) - Based on mythology - Both use recitative, both have aria - Musical emphasis has shifted away from recitative to the aria - Recitative is now more of a connective device which gets us from one aria to the next - Excerpt from act III finale - Repetition in bass line - ostinato, basso ostinato. Preceded by pes in pieces like sumer...