Search results
People also ask
When did medieval music start and end?
What is medieval music?
What type of music was used in medieval times?
How did medieval music develop?
Jun 7, 2021 · Last updated: Jun 7, 2021 • 5 min read. Medieval music covers a long period of music history that lasted throughout the Middle Ages and ended at the time of the Renaissance. The history of classical music begins in the Medieval period.
Medieval music encompasses the sacred and secular music of Western Europe during the Middle Ages, from approximately the 6th to 15th centuries. It is the first and longest major era of Western classical music and is followed by the Renaissance music ; the two eras comprise what musicologists generally term as early music , preceding the common ...
- c. 1730-1820
- c. 1400-1600
- c. 500-1400
Nov 4, 2019 · Updated on 11/04/19. During the medieval period or the Middle Ages from roughly 500 A.D. to approximately 1400, is when musical notation began as well as the birth of polyphony when multiples sounds came together and formed separate melody and harmony lines.
Significant DatesEvents And Composers590—604During this time the Gregorian chant was ...695The organum was developed. It is an early ...1000—1100During this time of liturgical musical ...1030It was around this time when a new method ...Jul 9, 2015 · The middle ages covers a period of a thousand years – and yet much of its music-making is a mystery to us. We’re not completely in the dark, though, so the aim of this article is to give a broad beginner’s guide to the principles of secular medieval music. When were the middle ages? How do we know what the music sounded like?
- Overview
- The Middle Ages
- The Renaissance
The tradition of sung prayers and psalms extends into the shadows of early civilization. Such sacred singing was often accompanied by instruments, and its rhythmic character was marked. In the synagogue, however, the sung prayers were often unaccompanied. Ritual dance was excluded from the synagogue as the rhythmic character of sacred music surrendered its more sensual aspects. Even in the prayers themselves, rhythmic verse gave way to prose. The exclusion of women, the elevation of unison singing, and the exclusion of instruments served to establish a clear differentiation between musical performance in the synagogue and that of the street.
The musical performance tradition of the Christian Church grew out of the liturgical tradition of Judaism. The melodic formulas for the singing of psalms and the sung recitation of other scriptural passages are clearly based on Hebraic models.
Music in the Roman Catholic liturgy was performed mainly for the mass. Originally, the music was performed by the priest and the congregation, until, in time, there emerged from the congregation a special group of singers, called the choir, who assumed the musical role of answering and contrasting the solo singing of the priest. Women participated actively in musical performances in the ancient Christian Church until 578, when older Hebraic practices excluding them were restored. From that time until the 20th century, Roman Catholic Church choirs were composed solely of men and boys.
The first codification of early church music was reputedly made by Pope Gregory I during his reign (590–604). Gregory’s collection was selected from chants already in use. His codification assigned these chants to particular services in the liturgical calendar. In general it reinforced the simple, spiritual, aesthetic quality of liturgical music. The music in this collection serves as a model of melodic design even in the 21st century and is regarded as one of the monuments of Western musical literature. This school of unison liturgical singing is called plainchant, plainsong, or Gregorian chant. Specific details concerning the manner in which chant was performed have been lost. There are speculations that the quality of sound the singers employed was somewhat thinner and more nasal than that used by contemporary singers. The authentic rhythmic style of chant cannot be ascertained. There is a theory, however, that the basic rhythmic units had the same durational value and were grouped in irregularly alternating groups of twos and threes. Pitch levels and tempos apparently varied somewhat according to the occasion. There are preserved manuscript notations reminding singers to be careful and modest in their work, indicating that temptations of inattention and excessive vocal display existed for even the earliest liturgical musicians.
While modern musical traditions in the West are based to a large extent on the principles of antiquity preserved in the notated music of the early church, a secular musical practice did exist; but because of the pervasive influence of the church, the dividing line between sacred and secular aspects was thin throughout a good part of the medieval period.
Several types of later secular song have survived. The musical notations are for the most part inadequate to give an accurate impression of the music, but it is known that it retained the essential monophonic character of liturgical music. One curious type of secular song, conductus, originated in the church itself. This song did not use traditional liturgical melodies or texts but was composed to be sung in the liturgical dramas or for processions. For this reason it dealt occasionally with subjects not religious in character. The goliard songs dating from the 11th century are among the oldest examples of secular music. They were the often bawdy Latin songs of itinerant theological students who roamed rather disreputably from school to school in the period preceding the founding of the great university centres in the 13th century.
The tradition of sung prayers and psalms extends into the shadows of early civilization. Such sacred singing was often accompanied by instruments, and its rhythmic character was marked. In the synagogue, however, the sung prayers were often unaccompanied. Ritual dance was excluded from the synagogue as the rhythmic character of sacred music surrendered its more sensual aspects. Even in the prayers themselves, rhythmic verse gave way to prose. The exclusion of women, the elevation of unison singing, and the exclusion of instruments served to establish a clear differentiation between musical performance in the synagogue and that of the street.
The musical performance tradition of the Christian Church grew out of the liturgical tradition of Judaism. The melodic formulas for the singing of psalms and the sung recitation of other scriptural passages are clearly based on Hebraic models.
Music in the Roman Catholic liturgy was performed mainly for the mass. Originally, the music was performed by the priest and the congregation, until, in time, there emerged from the congregation a special group of singers, called the choir, who assumed the musical role of answering and contrasting the solo singing of the priest. Women participated actively in musical performances in the ancient Christian Church until 578, when older Hebraic practices excluding them were restored. From that time until the 20th century, Roman Catholic Church choirs were composed solely of men and boys.
The first codification of early church music was reputedly made by Pope Gregory I during his reign (590–604). Gregory’s collection was selected from chants already in use. His codification assigned these chants to particular services in the liturgical calendar. In general it reinforced the simple, spiritual, aesthetic quality of liturgical music. The music in this collection serves as a model of melodic design even in the 21st century and is regarded as one of the monuments of Western musical literature. This school of unison liturgical singing is called plainchant, plainsong, or Gregorian chant. Specific details concerning the manner in which chant was performed have been lost. There are speculations that the quality of sound the singers employed was somewhat thinner and more nasal than that used by contemporary singers. The authentic rhythmic style of chant cannot be ascertained. There is a theory, however, that the basic rhythmic units had the same durational value and were grouped in irregularly alternating groups of twos and threes. Pitch levels and tempos apparently varied somewhat according to the occasion. There are preserved manuscript notations reminding singers to be careful and modest in their work, indicating that temptations of inattention and excessive vocal display existed for even the earliest liturgical musicians.
While modern musical traditions in the West are based to a large extent on the principles of antiquity preserved in the notated music of the early church, a secular musical practice did exist; but because of the pervasive influence of the church, the dividing line between sacred and secular aspects was thin throughout a good part of the medieval period.
Several types of later secular song have survived. The musical notations are for the most part inadequate to give an accurate impression of the music, but it is known that it retained the essential monophonic character of liturgical music. One curious type of secular song, conductus, originated in the church itself. This song did not use traditional liturgical melodies or texts but was composed to be sung in the liturgical dramas or for processions. For this reason it dealt occasionally with subjects not religious in character. The goliard songs dating from the 11th century are among the oldest examples of secular music. They were the often bawdy Latin songs of itinerant theological students who roamed rather disreputably from school to school in the period preceding the founding of the great university centres in the 13th century.
The very concept of improvisation as a mere subcategory within performance practice could arise only after the invention of music printing, which had at first little discernible effect on performance. Extemporized ornamentation of polyphonic music continued and increased during the 16th century in instrumental, vocal, and combined performance, both secular and sacred. Later in the century, liturgical music again became less extravagant in the wake of the Council of Trent (1545–63), which ordered that masses be sung “clearly and at the right speed” and that singing “be constituted not to give empty pleasure to the ear, but in such a way that the words may be clearly understood by all.” Music printing was at first too expensive to alter seriously the social structure of musical performance; the traditions of ostentation and exclusiveness embodied in music written by Guillaume Dufay for the early 15th-century Burgundian court were continued in the magnificent musical establishments of the Italian Renaissance princes and popes. Detailed records exist of the elaborate musical festivities arranged for weddings and baptisms of the powerful Florentine family, the Medici. Printing increased the dissemination as well as the survival of these works; but, like the earlier Burgundian chanson and unlike the contemporary Parisian chanson, which was cast in a more popular mould, they were nonetheless primarily intended for a select group of discriminating performers.
Printing, both of music and of books, does document the ever increasing development and sophistication of instrumental music during the 16th century. Printed descriptions of instruments date from the 16th century. Their discussions of tuning and technique supplied the needs of professional and nonprofessional musicians alike. There was a growing tendency to construct instruments in families (whole consorts of homogeneous timbre, high, middle, and low), a tendency perhaps related to recent expansion at both ends of the musical scale: with more space available, contrapuntal parts no longer crossed so frequently and no longer needed the differentiation provided by the markedly contrasting timbres of the medieval “broken consort.”
Introduction and Historical Context. Timeline: Music of the Middle Ages. Timeline: Leading up to and through the Middle Ages. 300-400 CE, 4th century: Founding of the monastic movement in Christianity. Further refinement of musical notation, including notation for rhythm. 300-900 CE, 4th–9th centuries: Development/codification of Christian chant.
Medieval Music - New World Encyclopedia. The term medieval music encompasses European music written during the Middle Ages. This period contains compositions written by kings ( Roy Henry) as well as poets ( Guillaume de Machaut) and musicians ( Arnold de Lantins ).
