and in the 11th century a system
of differently shaped dots written
on a staff of four or more horizontal
lines was established this way—
the forerunner of our modern
system of music notation.Music spreads
Notation not only helped standardize
performance but also enabled
musicians to write new music,
which they did from the 12th
century onward, marking the
beginning of classical music as
it is known today. Music was no
longer anonymous and passed
on orally, and this led to the
emergence of composers and
compositions. This new breed
of composer was keen to try out
innovatory techniques. The simple
harmony of organum, with voices
singing in parallel with the melodyof the plainchant, was succeeded
by a more complex style, polyphony,
in which each voice has its own
melody. This new technique was
pioneered by Léonin and Pérotin
in Paris and rapidly caught on
across Europe.
At the same time, secular
music was flourishing, too, in the
form of traveling minstrels who
entertained in the aristocratic
courts and on the street. Known
as trobadors, trouvères, or similar
regional variations, they were
poets as well as composers and
performers and, unlike church
musicians, sang their songs with
an instrumental accompaniment.
It is likely that these entertainers
also played purely instrumental
music for dancing, but as such
secular music was still an oral
tradition, none has survived.By the mid-14th century, polyphonic
music with interweaving vocal
lines had become known as Ars
nova, the “New Art,” and composers
who had mastered the technique
were commissioned to write
Masses for the cathedrals.
The new style was not
exclusively developed for the
Christian Mass. Composers also
wrote shorter settings of words in
the same polyphonic style called
“motets.” Some were settings of
sacred texts, but a number of
“serious” composers were also
writing polyphonic motets on
secular poems. As the medieval
period drew to a close, and the
Renaissance got under way,
the Church’s monopoly on music
was on the wane. Sacred and
secular music were about to
flourish side by side. ■EARLY MUSIC 1000–1400
C.1170
C.1280 –1283
C.130 0
C.1320 C.1360 –1365
C.135 0
Adam de la Halle’s
Le Jeu de Robin et
de Marion, regarded
as the first secular
French play, is
premiered in Naples.Music theorist
Johannes de
Garlandia’s De
mensurabili musica
explains modal
rhythmic systems.The Tournai Mass,
composed by several
anonymous authors, is the
first known polyphonic
setting of a Mass
transcribed to a manuscript.French composer
Guillaume de
Machaut’s
polyphonic mass
Messe de Notre
Dame is composed.In Paris, Léonin
bridges the gap
between plainchant
and polyphony in his
Magnus liber organi.The Toulouse
Mass assembles
polyphonic Mass
movements adapted
from existing motets
for three voices.21
US_020-021_Chapter_Intro_Early_Music.indd 21 27/03/18 4:49 PM