Untitled Deck

Question 1

The Middle Ages and Renaissance

Answer 1

“Hearing” from The Lady and the Unicorn tapestry (late fifteenth century), Cluny
Museum Paris, France

Question 2

Music as Commodity and Social Activity

Answer 2

Nothing exists without music, for the universe itself is said to have been framed by a kind of
harmony of sounds, and the heaven itself revolves under the tone of that harmony.”

Question 3

Music as Commodity and Social Activity

Answer 3

Music as Commodity and Social Activity
Instead of Gothic
cathedrals and fortified castles, palaces and villas were built. Realism pervaded the visual arts, as
in Michelangelo’s David and da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.
Artwork:

Question 4

humanism

Answer 4

humanism - the focus being on human fulfillment on earth
rather than on the hereafter

Question 5

Musicians in Medieval and Renaissance Society

Answer 5

Musicians were supported by the church, city, and state as well as royal and aristocratic courts.
It was a good time for employment for musicians in such fields as choirmasters, singers,
organists, instrumentalists, copyists, composers, teachers, instrument builders, and, by the
sixteenth century, music printers. The merchant class became a new group of music patrons.
Most cultivated middle- and upper-class individuals were amateur musicians. Music literacy
became more widespread as a result of music printing.

Question 6

Voices and Worship: Tradition and Individuality in Medieval Chant

Answer 6

Early Church music is an outpouring of the spiritual nature of the Middle Ages. Liturgy refers to
the set order of church services

Question 7

Gregorian chant

Answer 7

Gregorian chant (also plainsong
or plainchant). These chants consist of a single-line melody that is monophonic in texture
(meaning that it lacks harmony and counterpoint), non-metric, and set to a sacred Latin text.

Question 8

Voices and Worship: Tradition and Individuality in Medieval Chant
.

Answer 8

Chant melodies fall into three main classes, according to the ratio of syllables to notes.

Question 9

A syllabic

Answer 9

setting consists of one note per syllable of text.

Question 10

neumatic

Answer 10

neumatic setting will have up to five or six
notes sung to a syllable of text

Question 11

melismatic setting .

Answer 11

melismatic setting has many notes per syllable of text.

Question 12

Chants

Answer 12

were originally handed down by oral tradition until the number increased to the point
where singers needed help remembering the shapes of the melodies. The first system of notation
consisted

Question 13

neumes,

Answer 13

neumes, which were little ascending and descending symbols written above the
words to suggest the contour of the melody. Neumes eventually evolved into a system of
musical notation consisting of square notes on a four-line staff. More than 3,000 chant melodies
survive.
Artwork: Manuscript illumination of Pope Gregory the Great dictating to his scribe Peter. The
dove, representing the Holy Spirit, is on his shoulder.

Question 14

Early Church Modes

Answer 14

Western music used a variety of scale patterns known as modes. This modal system
preceded the major-minor system.

Question 15

modes

Answer 15

This modal system
preceded the major-minor system.

Question 16

Tradition and Individuality in Medieval Chant
Roman Catholic Church - The Mass

Answer 16

services of the Roman Catholic Church can be divided into two categories: the daily Offices,
which are a series of services celebrated at various hours of the day i

Question 17

Proper

Answer 17

with texts that vary from
day to day

Question 18

Ordinary,

Answer 18

with texts that remain the same in every Mass.

Question 19

cloister

Answer 19

is a place for religious seclusion that allows an individual to withdraw from secular
society

Question 20

monastery

Answer 20

(men) or convent

Question 21

(women)

Answer 21

and devote themselves to
prayer, scholarship, preaching, charity, or healing.

Question 22

Hildegard of Bingen

Answer 22

(tenth child of a noble couple who promised her to the
service of the church as a tithe.)

in 1150. Her major works include poetry collections

music resembles
that of Gregorian chant but contains many expressive leaps

Question 23

Hildegard of Bingen: Alleluia, O virga mediatrix (Alleluia, O mediating branch)

Answer 23

Alleluia plainchant, from the Proper of the Mass on feasts for the Virgin Mary
Hildegard set many of her texts to music. Her poetry is filled with imagery and creative
language. Some songs praise local saints, others praise the Virgin Mary, celebrating her purity.
Attached is a listening guide to an Alleluia

Question 24

Minstrels

Answer 24

(were a class of musicians who wandered among
courts and towns, playing instruments, dancing, singing, juggling, presenting tricks and animal
acts, and performing plays)

France, the trouvères from northern France, and the Minnesingers from Germany.
The poetry praised the virtues of the age of chivalry: valor, honor, nobility of character, and
quest for perfect love

Question 25

Ars nova

Answer 25

was a musical style that appeared at the beginning of the fourteenth century in France and Italy. It reflected changes in rhythm, meter, harmony, and counterpoint from its predecessor

Question 26

Ars Antiqua,

Answer 26

(which was a term that came to describe the Notre Dame school polyphony. Artwork: Manuscript illumination of the poet-musician Guillaume de Machaut.)

Question 27

Guillaume de Machaut: Puis qu’en oubli

Answer 27

Guillaume de Machaut: Puis qu’en oubl The poetic forms – rondeau, ballade or virelai established the formal scheme of the chansons. The text of this chanson is rondeau form (fixed form) and speaks of the pain of unrequited love. The low melodic range establishes the depths of despair. Listen for a conjunct low range melody The meter is slow triple with gentle syncopation. The harmony contains open, hollow cadences at phrase endings. There are two sections A and B in repetitious patterns.

Question 28

Singing in Friendship:

Answer 28

Singing in Friendship: The Renaissance Madrigal

Question 29

lute

Answer 29

(or keyboard. The study of music was considered to part of the proper upbringing for a young girl; thus women began to have prominent roles in music performance) secular genres arose which were the result of the fusion of poetry and music: the chanson and the madrigal.

Question 30

Word painting

Answer 30

is the musical depiction of word

Question 31

madrigal

Answer 31

(is a vocal piece set to a short love poem of a lyric or reflective nature either with or without instruments.) the most important secular music genre of the Renaissance, flourishing in the Italian courts

Question 32

Arcadelt: Il bianco e dolce cigno

Answer 32

(Listen for lyrical, conjunct lines with a focus on the highest voice. The meter is duple with simple movement, and the harmonies are mostly consonant, though there are some instances of chromaticism and dissonance. The texture is homophonic with imitative entries on the last line. It is through-composed until the last line. This emotional text is a 10-line poem by Alfonso d’Avalos, set expressively with some melisma for four voices, a cappella. References to death in madrigal poetry were understood as erotic, which in that light, gives the text a whole new meaning.)

Question 33

The English Madrigal

Answer 33

The English continued to develop the Italian madrigal. The first book of English madrigals was a translation of an Italian collection called Música transalpina (Music from beyond the Alps). English composers eventually wrote their own madrigals, some in the Italian style, and some with a simpler text and lighter style. Humorous madrigals were often written with refrain syllables such as “fa-la-la.”

Question 34

John Farmer (c. 1570–1601)

Answer 34

was active as an organist and master of choirboys at Christ Church in Dublin. He moved to London in 1599 where his only collection of four-voice madrigals was published. Following is a listening guide to John Farmer’s famous madrigal: Fair Phyllis

Question 35

Farmer: Fair Phyllis

Answer 35

John Farmer’s Fair Phyllis has a pastoral text, lively rhythms, and good humor. The poem is about a shepherdess (Phyllis) who while tending her sheep is found by her lover Amyntas and a happy ending follows. There are a number of examples of word painting in this work, including some which are illustrated here. “Fair Phyllis sitting all alone” is sung by a solo soprano voice. “Up and down” features descending melodic lines imitatively in different voices.

Question 36

Remember Me: Personalizing the Motet in the Renaissance

Answer 36

We know by experience that song has great force and vigor to move and inflame the hearts of men to invoke and praise God with a more vehement and ardent zeal.” —John Calvin

Question 37

Remember Me: Personalizing the Motet in the Renaissance

Answer 37

Polyphony in works of this era were often based on the principle of imitation. sounding harmonies such as thirds and sixths, fixed melody (cantus firmus) as the basis for elaborate ornamentation in other voices. Triple meter was favored because it symbolized the perfection of the Trinity.

Question 38

motet

Answer 38

developed into a sacred form with a single Latin text. The motet

Question 39

Personalizing the Motet in the Renaissance

Answer 39

(In the Renaissance, the motet became a sacred form with a single Latin text) Motets in praise of the Virgin Mary were common, because there were large numbers of religious groups across Europe who were devoted to her worship.

Question 40

Personalizing the Motet in the Renaissance

Answer 40

known as Josquin, was a Franco-Flemish composer who served for much of his career in Italy.

Question 41

Personalizing the Motet in the Renaissance

Answer 41

Josquin’s patrons in Italy included Cardinal Ascanio Sforza of Milan, Ecrole d’Este of Ferrara, and the papal choir in Rome. His sacred and secular works reflect the humanizing influences of the Renaissance and embody the expression of emotion.

Question 42

Josquin des Prez: Ave Maria . . . virgo serena

Answer 42

The piece is a rhymed prayer to the Virgin Mary written for four-voice a cappella choir. Listen for high and low voices in the melody, singing in pairs

Question 43

Glory Be: Music for the Renaissance Mass

Answer 43

five movements of the Ordinary of the Mass are the: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei. Originally these movements were sung in settings of the mass were often based on a fragment of Gregorian chant which became the fixed voice (cantus firmus)

Question 44

The Reformation and Counter-Reformation

Answer 44

Martin Luther (1483–1546), an Augustinian monk began the Protestant movement known as the Reformation with his 95 Theses—a list of reforms he proposed to the practices of the Catholic Church for which he was excommunicated. The Catholic Church eventually responded with its own reform movement

Question 45

Protestant movement

Answer 45

known as the Reformation with his 95 Theses—a list of reforms he proposed to the practices of the Catholic Church for which he was excommunicated. The Catholic Church eventually responded with its own reform movement

Question 46

Counter-Reformation-

Answer 46

—which focused on a return to values.

Question 47

The Council of Trent

Answer 47

was a long committee meeting (1545–1563) that sought to regulate every aspect of religious discipline,

Question 48

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina.

Answer 48

(c. 1525–1594), called Palestrina, was an Italian composer, organist, and choirmaster. including over 100 masses

Question 49

Palestrina: Pope Marcellus Mass, Gloria

Answer 49

Palestrina’s Pope Marcellus Mass was originally thought to have been written to satisfy the Council of Trent’s recommendations for polyphonic church music.

Question 50

Music as Exploration and Drama

Answer 50

The Baroque Era (1600–1750) was a time characterized by absolute monarchy, bloody religious wars (Protestants vs. Catholics), and the exploration and colonization of the New World The Baroque era was considered to be an age of discovery Many musical works of this era were functional, being created for specific occasions, such as weddings, festivals, or religious services.

Question 51

Monody

Answer 51

Monody – new style featuring solo song with instrumental accompaniment “The end of all good music is to affect the soul” —Claudio Monteverdi One of the great changes in style between the Renaissance and Baroque era was the shift in texture from polyphony, which consists of several independent melodic parts, to

Question 52

Camerata.

Answer 52

From this style, opera was developed. Artwork

Question 53

figured bass.

Answer 53

In this system, the keyboard player would improvise the harmony from numerals that the composer would place above or below a bass line

Question 54

basso continuo

Answer 54

(basso continuo is Italian for “continuous bass”) is often used in reference to this figured bass system of notation. The basso continuo performance group often consisted of two instruments—a melodic bass instrument, such as a cello or bassoon, along with a chordal instrument, such as a keyboard. Another important development with regard to harmonic structures was a shift to a harmonic system based on the use of the major and minor scales rather than one based on modes.

Question 55

New Harmonic Structures