Concise History of Western Music
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Chapter Index Chapter 1: Music in Ancient Greece and Early Christian Rome Chapter 2: Chant and Secular Song in the Middle Ages, 400Ð1450 Chapter 3: Polyphonic Music from Its Beginnings through the Thirteenth Century Chapter 4: French and Italian Music in the Fourteenth Century Chapter 5: England and Burgundian Lands in the Fifteenth Century: The Beginnings of an International Style Chapter 6: The Age of the Renaissance: Music of the Low Countries Chapter 7: The Age of the Renaissance: New Currents in the Sixteenth Century Chapter 8: Church Music of the Late Renaissance and Reformation Chapter 9: Church Music of the Late Renaissance and Reformation Chapter 10: Opera and Vocal Music in the Late Seventeenth Century Chapter 11: Instrumental Music in the Late Baroque Chapter 12: Music in the Early Eighteenth Century Chapter 13: The Early Classic Period: Opera and Instrumental Music in the Eighteenth Century Chapter 14: The Late Eighteenth Century: Haydn and Mozart Chapter 15: Ludwig van Beethoven Chapter 16: Romanticism and Nineteenth-Century Orchestral Music Chapter 17: Solo, Chamber, and Vocal Music in the Nineteenth Century Chapter 18: Opera, Music Drama, and Church Music in the Nineteenth Century Chapter 19: European Music from the 1870s to World War I Chapter 20: The European Mainstream in the Twentieth Century Chapter 21: Atonality, Serialism, and Recent Developments in Twentieth-Century Europe Chapter 22: The American Twentieth Century
 

Outlines:
  - Early Polyphony
  - Music of the Thirteenth Century
  Quiz
  Listening Guide
Chapter 3: Polyphonic Music from Its Beginnings through the Thirteenth Century
Music of the Thirteenth Century
  1. Polyphonic Conductus

    1. Composed by Pérotin and others in the early thirteenth century (dropped out of favor after 1250).

    2. Texts
      1. Metrical Latin poems
      2. Usually nonliturgical but often on sacred themes
      3. Secular conductus texts dealt with serious issues.

    3. Text Setting
      1. Syllabic
      2. All voices (including the tenor) sing the same words in a homophonic texture that was usually notated in score in the manuscripts.

    4. Sometimes included melismatic passages (caudae).

    5. Tenor melody was usually newly composed rather than coming from chant.

    6. CHWM, ex. 3.10 and NAWM 17, Ave virgo virginum
      1. Three strophes with strophic text setting
      2. Probably used in special devotions and processions

  2. The Early Motet (to about 1280) NAWM 15d, f, g

    1. Origins
      1. Clausulae came to be separable pieces.
      2. The addition of words to clausulae resulted in motets, from the French word mot, meaning "word."
      3. At first the words were Latin tropes of the tenor text.
      4. By 1250 the two upper voices usually had differnt but related texts.

    2. Musical features
      1. Tenor melodies (cantus firmus)
        1. Continued to come from chant for most of the thirteenth century
        2. By the end of the thirteenth century tenor melodies often came from other sources.
        3. Tenor parts were laid out in repeated rhythmic patterns.
      2. Upper voices
        1. Second voice from the bottom: motetus
        2. Third voice from the bottom: triplum
        3. Fourth voice from the bottom: quadruplum

  3. The Franconian Motet

    1. Franco of Cologne
      1. Theorist active from ca. 1250 to 1280.
      2. Refer to vignette in HWM.

    2. CHWM, ex. 3.11 and NAWM 18, Amours mi font / En mai / Flos filius eius
      1. Tenor performs the chant melody twice (repeat marked by ||).
      2. Motetus
        1. Originally a clausula duplum
        2. French text added later
      3. Triplum
        1. Moves at a faster rate than the motetus voice
        2. Melody was probably original composition, not from clausula.

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