Medieval Sacred Music

General Terms
Psalms: song; book of psalms is a book of songs
Cantillation: chanting of sacred texts based on melodic formulas that reflected the
phrase divisions of the text
Rite:
Mass: the most important service in the Roman Church
Proper of the Mass: the texts for certain parts of the Mass that vary from day to day
Ordinary of the Mass: the texts for other parts that do not change
Office: a series of either services that since the early Middle Ages have been
celebrated daily at specific times
Antiphon: a chant sung before and after psalms
Responsories: lessons with musical responses
Canticles: poetic passages from parts of the Bible other than the Book of Psalms
Church Calendar: kept track of religious events
Liturgy: sequence of events that happen at meeting
Liturgical Dramas: dialogues and more elaborate plays in Latin
Psalmody: the singing of psalms, was part of the Mass as well as Office
Cantor: the leader of a choir, sings the opening words of the antiphon; the cantor
sings the first half of the psalm or canticle verse, the choir completes the second half
Polyphony: the art of voices singing together in independent parts
Organum: two or more voices singing different notes in agreeable combinations
according to given rules
Sequence: a genre popular from the late ninth through the twelfth centuries
Ars Nova: (meaning New Art or New Method), has come to denote the new French
musical style inaugurated by Vitry in the 1310s and continued until the 1370s


Characteristics of Chant
Responsorial: from response
Antiphonal: two groups or halves of the choir alternate
Direct: without alternation
Syllabic: chants in which almost every syllable has a single note
Neumatic: chants in which syllables carry one to six notes or so - generally one
neume per syllable
Melismatic: chants that feature many melismas


Types of Chants
Plainchant: early European Unison song. The earliest notation we have of
plainchant was A.D 800, but was most likely happening hundreds of years before
that
Chant Dialects: the different regional repertories
Gregorian Chant: the codification of liturgy and music under Roman leaders,
helped by Frankish kings.
Byzantine:
Ambrosian Chant: the songs of a Milanes rite, named after St. Ambrose, bishop of
Milan from 374 to 397
Old Roman Chant: More ornate melodies based on the same principles as
Gregorian chant.

Music Notation/Terms:
Notation: a way to write down music
Neumes: the earliest notation signs (usually dots, splotches, or squiggles) that were
placed above words to indicate the melodic gesture for each syllable.
Diastematic " Heighted" Neumes: Neumes that are placed at varying heights on
the staff to indicate the relative size as well as direction of the interval
Echoi:
Musica Mundana: the music of the universe, according to Boetheius
Musica Humana: human music
Musica Instrumentalis: instrumental music
Final: the main note in the mode and usually the last not in the melody
Mode: each chant was assigned to a particular mode, which made it easier to learn
and memorize chants
Authentic: the odd-numbered modes that typically cover a range from a step below
to the final octave above it
Plagal: each authentic mode is paired with a plagal mode that has the same final but
is deeper in range, moving from a fourth (or sometimes a fifth) below the final to
fifth or sixth above it.
Recital Tone: a second characteristic note in addition to the final tone. While finals
of corresponding plagal and authentic modes are the same, recital tones differ.
Solmization: (ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la) syllables created by Guido of Arezzo to recognize
pattern tones and semi tones.
Hexachords: the interval pattern of six notes from ut to la with a semitone between
mi and fa
Mutation: changing hexachords, a note that was shared by both hexachords was
begun as if in one hexachord a left as if in another.
Recitation Formulas: simple melodic outlines that can be used with many different
texts
Intonation: a rising motive used only for the first verse
Mediant: a cadence for the middle of each verse
Termination: a finale cadence for each verse
Lesser Dox-Ology: a formula of praise to the Trinity father
Strophic: hymns consisting of several stanzas that are al sung to the same melody
Psalmody: the singing of psalms, was part of the Mass as well as Office
Jubilus: the final syllable of "alleluia" that is extended by an effusive melisma
Drone: typical sustain the modal final, sometimes joined by the fifth above
Parallel Organum: two melodies singing in parallel motions, consisting of the
principle voice (original chant) and the organal voice (the other chant moving a fifth
below)
Mixed Parallel and Oblique Organum: combines oblique motion, like a melody
over a drone, with parallel motion
Aquitanian Polyphony: a new more ornate type of polyphony developed by French
singers and composers in the early twelfth century
Discant: occurs when both parts move at about the same rate, with one to three
notes in the upper part for each note of the lower voice
Florid Organum: refers to a texture in which the upper voice sings note groups of
varying lengths above each note of the lower voice, which accordingly moves much
more slowly than the upper
Tenor: the lower voice that holds the principle melody
Score Notation: the voices are written above the text, the top voice above the tenor,
separated by a line
Ligatures: combinations of note groups
Longs: long notes
Breves: short notes
Rhythmic Modes: the six basic patterns, which were then referred to as modes
Tempus: the basic time unit
Duplum: Latin for double
Triplum: Latin for triple
Quadruplum: Latin for quadruple
Clausula: the Latin word for a clause or phrase in a sentence
Voice Exchange: where voices trade phrases
Isorhythm: (meaning equal rhythms), in which the tenor is laid out in segments of
identical rhythm
Minims: (meaning least) division of the semibreve, formerly the smallest possible
note value
Mensuration Signs: symbols that are the ancestors of modern time signatures
Talea: the repeating rhythmic unit
Color: recurring segment of melody
Hocket: two voices alternate in rapid succession, each resting while the other sings
Contratenor: (meaning against the tenor) in the same range as the tenor,
sometimes below it and sometimes above it
Virelai: a popular French genre
Formes Fixes: (fixed forms) text and music have particular patters of repetition
that include a refrain, a phrase or section that repeats both words and music. Three
forms include Virelai, Ballade, and Rondeau


Key Historical Figures
Boethius: (ca. 480-524) the most revered music authority on music in the Middle
Ages
Guido of Arezzo: (ca. 991-est.1033) a musical theorist of the medieval era. He is
regarded as the inventor of modern musical notation (staff notation) that replace
neutmatic notation
Elias Salomo:
Jacques de Lige:
Johannes de Garlandia:
Philippe de Vitry: (ca. 1291-1361) a French composer, poet, church canon,
administrator for the duke of Bourbon and the king of France, and later Bishop of
Meaux, is named by one writer as the "inventor of a new art"
Guillaum de Machaut: (ca. 1300-1377) the most important composer and poet in
14th-century France. His music has come to typify the French Ars Nova

Medieval Secular Music


General Terms:
Minnesinger: knightly poet musicians who flourished between the twelfth and 14th
centuries and wrote in Middle High German
Fin' Amors or Fine Amour: (meaning "refined love") idealized love through which
the lover was himself refined. The object was a real woman, usually a man's wife,
but she was adored from a distance, with discretion, respect, and humility
Refrain: a recurring phrase or verse with music
Troubadours: poet-composers in Southern France whose language was Occitan
Trouvres: poet-composers in Northern France whose language was Old French
Bards: poet-singers in Celtic lands, who sang epics at banquets and other occasions
Jongleurs: (from the same English root as Jugglers) were lower-class itinerant
musicians who traveled alone or in groups, earning precarious living by performing
tricks, telling stories, or singing and playing instruments
Mistrel: (from the Latin word "servant") used for more specialized musicians, many
of whom were employed by the court or city for at least part of the year
Chansonniers: (songbooks) songs preserved in manuscript anthologies
Refrain: a recurring phrase or verse with music
Rondeau: a dance song with a refrain in two phrases
Bar Form: the most common melodic form AAB
Haut: French for "high"
Bas: French for "low"
Ballata: (meaning "to dance") originally meant song to accompany dancing, became
popular later than the madrigal and caccia
(14th Century) Madrigal: a song for two or three voices without instrumental
accompaniment
Treble: the principle line, supported by a slow-moving tenor without text
Rota: (similar to Rondellus) a perpetual canon or round at the unison


Types of Song/Chant:
Minnelieder: (meaning "love songs") were more spiritual than Fin' Amors
Goliard Songs: a medieval Latin song associated with wandering students and
clarics known as Goliards
Chanson De Geste: (songs of deeds) was an epic in the northern French vernacular
recounting the deeds of national heroes and sung to simple melodic formulas
Minnelieder: (meaning "love songs") were more spiritual than Fin' Amors


Musical Notation/Terms:
Versus: a type of Latin song, normally sacred and sometimes attached to the liturgy
Conductus: originated in the twelfth century as a serious Latin song with a rhymed,
rhythmical text, akin to a sequence but without the paired phrases
Stollen Abgesang: uses the same poetic meter, rhyme scheme, and melody as bar
form but is usually longer
Carole: a circle dance that was usually accompanied by a song sung by one or more
dancers
Estampie: the most common form of Medieval instrumental dances
Open: the estampie has several sections, each played with two different endings,
open (ouvert) is the first, closed (clos) is the second
Caudae: (meaning "tail") conductus that features mellismatic passages, at the
beginning and end and before important cadences
Motet: (meaning "word") musicians at Notre Dame created a new genre in the early
thirteenth century by adding newly written Latin words to the upper voices of
discant clasulae, like texts added to chant mellismas. Motet was the result
Cauntus Firmus: term introduced around 1270 by the theorist Hieronymus de
Moravia to designate an existing melody, usually a plainchant, on which a new
polyphonic work is based
Virelai: a popular 14th-century French genre in which text and music have
particular patterns of repetition that include a refrain
Chansons: French for "songs"
Ars Subtilior: a new term coined by Ursula Gnther
Trecento: (comes from "mille trecento, meaning 1300) what Italians refer to as the
14th century
Ritornello: (Italian for "refrain") the closing pair of lines that follow a Madrigal
Caccia: (in French is "Chace") when a popular-style melody is set in strict canon to
lively, graphically descriptive words
Landini Cadence: a tenor descends by step, the upper voice decorates its ascent by
first descending to the lower neighbor and then skipping up a third
Musica Ficta: certain chromatic alterations
Phryigian Cadences: when the lower voice descends by a semitone and the upper
voice rises a whole tone

Key HistoricalFigures:
Hieronymus de Moravia:
Franco of Cologne:
Franconian Notation: a new system created by Franco of Cologne, which followed
rhythmic modes less closely, in part by subdividing many notes
Rondellus: an elaborate form of a technique from the Notre Dame style, which
involves voices trading segments of the melody. Two or three phrases, first heard
simultaneously, are each taken up in turn by each of the voices
Ursula Gnther:


Instruments:
Laude: sacred Italian monophonic songs
Cantigas: songs
Vielle: fiddle, violin
Gurdy: a three-stringed vielle sounded by a rotating wheel
Transverse Flute: a similar modern flute, but made of wood or ivory and without
keys
Shwam: a double-reed instrument, similar to the oboe
Pipe and Tabor: a high whistle fingered with the left hand while the right hand beat
a small drum with a stick
Portative Organ: an organ small enough to be carried or suspended by a strap
around the neck
Positive Organ: a medium sized organ that had to be placed on a table to be played,
and required an assistant to pump the bellows
Cornetts: hollowed-out wood, often slightly curved, with finger holes and brass-
type mouthpiece


Renaissance Sacred Music

General Terms:
Renaissance: French for "rebirth"
Humanism: the study of humanities and things pertaining to human knowledge
(Court) Chapels: groups of salaried musicians and clerics that were associated with
a ruler rather than with a particular building
Homophony: all the voices move together in essentially the same rhythm, the lower
parts accompanying the cantus with consistent sonorities
Carol: a distinctively English genre
Lady Mass: a special service dedicated to the Virgin Mary
Contratenor Bassus: low conratenor (voice)
Bassus: bass, low male voice
Altus: alto (voice)
Superius: highest (voice)
Canon: two or more voices deriving from a single notated voice
Inversion: moving by the same intervals but in the opposite direction
Retrograde: meaning "backward"
Lieder: German meaning "song"
Imitation Mass: when a composer borrows extensively from all voices of the model,
reworking the latter's characteristic motives, points of imitation, and general
structure
Chorale:
Anthem: a principle form of Anglican music
Pslaters: a collection of metrical pslams
Metrical Psalm: metric, rhymed, strophic translations of pslams in the vernacular
that were set to newly composer melodies
Services: a principle form of Anglican music, consisting of certain portions of Matin,
Holy Communion, and Evensong
Polychoral Motets: works for two or more choirs
Sonata: (Italian for "sounded") consists of sections each based on different subjects
or variants of a single subject


Key Historical Figures:
Johannes Tinctoris: (ca. 1435-1511)
Gioseffo Zarlino: (1517-1590)
Franchino Gaffurio: (1451-1522) read Greek theorists and incorporated much of
their ideas into his writing
Heinrich Glareanus: (1488-1563) was a Swiss theorist who added four new modes
to the traditional eight, using names of ancient Greek tonoi: Aeolian, Hypoeaolian,
Ionian, Hypoionian
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina: (1525/1526-1594) the leading Italian composer
of church music in the 16th century
Toms Luis de Victoria: (1548-1611) the most famous Spanish composer of the
first half of the 16th century
Orlande de Lassus: (ca. 1532-1594) a composer of sacred music during the 16th
century, served the duke of Bavaria for almost four decades
Canzona: one of the leading genres of contrapuntal instrumental music in the late
16th century
Giovanni Gabrieli: (ca. 1555-1612) one of the leading composers of the late
Renaissance and early Baroque periods

Music Notation/Terms:
Temperments: pitches were adjusted to make most or all intervals usable without
adding keys
Chromaticism: the use of two or more successive semitones moving in the same
direction
Contenance Angloise: (meaning "English quality") consisted especially in the
frequent use of harmonic thirds and sixths, often in parallel motion
Faburden: a plainchant in the middle voice is joined by an upper voice a perfect
fourth above it and lower voice singing mostly parallel thirds below
Cantilenas: similar to conductus are freely composed, mostly homorhythmic
settings or Latin texts, not based on existing chant melodies
Burden: similar to a refrain is sung at the beginning and then repeated after each
stanza
Hemiola: an effect with occasional cross-rhythms of three quarter notes
Fauxbourdon: only the cantus and tenor are written out, moving mostly in parallel
sixths and ending each phrase on an octave
Full Anthem: for an unaccompanied choir in contrapuntal style
Verse Anthem: employs one or more solo voices with organ or viol accompaniment
Contrafractum: secular songs given new words



Renaissance Secular Music

General Terms:
Villancico: the most important form of secular polyphonic song in Renaissance
Spain
Lute Song: a type of accompanied song
(16th Century) Madrigal: one of the most important secular genres in Italy and
perhaps the entire Renaissance
The Petrarchan Movement: a rise of the madrigal led by poet and scholar Cardinal
Pietro Bembo
Villanella: a lively strophic piece in homophonic style, usually three voices
Canzonetta: (meaning "little song") a light genre from the end of the 16th century
Balletta: (meaning "little dance") a light genre from the end of the 16th century
Musique Mesure: French composers imitating Greek rhythmic styles
Air De Cour: a French genre of song with irregular rhythms
Meistersingers: "master singers" preserved a tradition of unaccompanied solo song
Consort: an instrumental ensemble, consisting of four to seven instruments
Madrigalisms: striking musical images that evoke the text almost literally
Basse Dance: (meaning "slow dance") a stately couple dance marked by gracefully
raising and lowering the body

Musical Notation/Terms:
Frottola: an Italian counterpart of the villancico, a four-part strphoic song set
syllabically and homophonically, with the melody in the upper voice, marked with
rhythmic patterns, and simple diatonic harmonies
Intabulations: arrangements made by lutenists and keyboard players that were
written down on tablature
Organ Mass: a compilation of all the sections of the mass for which the organ would
play
Variation Form: improvising on a tune to accompany dancing, invented in the 16th
century
Ostinatos: short bass lines repeating over and over
Toccata: the chief form of keyboard music in improvisatory style during the second
half of the 16th century
Rivercar: a type of prelude that evolved into a motelike succession of imitative
sections

Key Historical Figures:
Charles V: (r. 1519-1556) the most powerful European ruler since Charlemagne
Jean de Ockegham: (ca.1420-1497) served the kings of France for almost half a
century. Especially esteemed for his masses
Antoine Busnoys: (ca.1430-1492) was the most prolific and widely praised
chanson composer of his time
Maddalena Casulana: (ca.1544-1590s) the first woman whose music was
published, and the first to regard herself as a professional composer

Instruments:
Sackbut: the early form of a trombone
Crumhorn: a double reed enclosed in the cap so the player's lips do not touch it,
sounds like a bagpipe
Vihuela: (Spanish) a flat backed instrument with a guitar-shaped body
Viol or Viol da Gamba: Developed in Spain, became a prominent bowed instrument
Clavichord: a solo keyboard string instrument, suitable for small rooms
Harpsichord: a solo or ensemble keyboard string instrument, played in medium
sized venues