The Classical Music Book

36

MUSIC IS A SCIENCE

THAT MAKES YOU LAUGH,

SING, AND DANCE

MESSE DE NOTRE DAME (c. 1360–1365),

GUILLAUME DE MACHAUT

T

he 14th century was one

of the most turbulent

periods of medieval history.

The “Little Ice Age,” which began

around 1300, resulted in crop

failures and famines, including

the Great Famine of 1312–1317,

and the Black Death killed up to

60 percent of Europe’s population.

Such extreme social, economic,

and environmental upheaval shook

religious certainties. Scholars,

such as the French scientist-cleric

Nicole Oresme (c.1320–1382), began

to envision a more complex

universe than the faith-based

view of the natural world. Music,

already embracing polyphony,

was also influenced by this way

of thinking and exploded into

new metrical complexity when

Oresme’s fellow Frenchman, the

mathematician-composer Philippe

de Vitry (1291–1361), devised a

precise method to notate rhythm.

A new order of rhythm

The new style became known

as Ars nova after de Vitry’s treatise

Ars nova notandi (“The New Art

of Notation”), published in 1322.

Vitry composed vocal pieces to

demonstrate the novel notation

in the form of motets (polyphonic

compositions based on one melody

and text, with other voices bringing

in different words and melodies).

Each of Vitry’s motets, only 12

of which survive, displayed

different aspects of a technique

known today as isorhythm (from

the Greek for “same rhythm”),

which aimed to give structure

to extended compositions.

Musicians illuminate a 1316

manuscript of Le Roman de Fauvel,

a French poem by Gervais du Bus,

which is interspersed with some

of the first Ars nova music.

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

Polyphony and the

notation revolution

BEFORE

c. 1320 The Tournai Mass is

the first known Mass that uses

polyphony—“many sounds.”

c. 1350 The Toulouse Mass

assembles polyphonic

Mass movements arranged

from existing motets (short,

unaccompanied choral pieces).

AFTER

1415–1421 The Old Hall

Manuscript contains several

polyphonic settings of the

Ky rie to suit the English

fashion for elaboration of

that section of the Mass.

1440s Missa Caput is an early

Mass by an English composer

using a cantus firmus (“fixed

song”) around which other

melodies are based. It includes

a bass voice below that of

the tenor—one of the first

compositions with a bass part.

US_036-037_Guillaume_de_Machaut.indd 36 26/03/18 1:00 PM