Music 326/526

Secular Music in the Middle Ages

·        In Latin:

·        Goliards and Goliard Songs:

·        Scholar-poet-vagabonds  who flourished 12th and 13th centuries in England, France and Germany

·        Song subjects were drinking, womanizing.  Some texts satirical against church or Pope; often profane or lewd

·        Cambridge Songs: 11th Century collection ~40 poems on various religious and secular subjects

·        Carmina Burana: ~200 poems in Latin (a few in German too): mostly “Love” (lust) songs.  13th Century manuscript, but repertoire probably dates from 12th century

·        Some goliard song collections had staffless neume notation

·        Monophonic Conductus: music to “conduct” celebrants to one place or another during service

·        Originally, conductus was a strophic song; later term became more generic: any song in Latin that was non-liturgical but still serious

·        In French

·       Chanson de Geste, singing of epic poetry (1,000 to 20,000 lines): subject was feats of brave heroes

·        Song of Roland (c. 1050) is about Charlemagne

·        Probably sung to melodic formulas; none of the poems is preserved with musical notation.  Practice is extrapolated from Adam de la Halle’s play Le jeu de Robin et Marion (c. 1284): has a parody of a chanson de geste with a line of notated melody

·        Rondeau: has unison choral refrains.  An example from Robin & Marion was “Robin m’aime” 

·        Troubadour and Trouvere Songs: Troubadours and Trouveres were  French song writers and sometimes performers; the Trouveres were in the North, late 12th century; Troubadours were in South, 12th and 13th centuries.  Had different languages, and other minor differences

·        Much higher social position than minstrels/jongleurs; many of nobility or higher ranks of bourgeois. 

·        Troubadours’ songs celebrated “courtly love:” subscribes to notion that man’s emotions became more noble through subjection to his lady

·        Repertoire includes 2600 Troubadour poems, 260 melodies preserved; 4000 Trouvere poems, 1400 melodies. 

·        Subjects usually courtly love, sometimes politics or moral issues; might be religious (devotional). 

·        Usually syllabic settings with short melismas

·        Rhythm relatively free, but somewhat dictated by text

·        Trouvere songs often have refrain  (recurring line or pair of lines) which has same music each time

·        music has opening refrain, then new phrase is repeated, then refrain music is repeated.

• Music is ab cc ab ab

• Text is ab cd ef ab

·        Trobairitz (female troubadour) songs: about 20 women are known with surviving examples

·        Many of these poems have adversarial attitude (debate songs); love songs are often complaints against faithless lovers

·        Comtessa de Dia (b.1140)'s A chantar m'er de so que no volria.

• Professional performers: Jongleurs or Menestrels. (“Minstrel” is Anglicized version of name, but English Minstrels flourished a little later; first jongleurs ~10th century)

·        They knew about performance but not about theory; not composers, not poets. 

·        Itinerant, but don’t confuse with Goliards: they sang in vernacular, wouldn’t know Latin, and very uneducated; probably from the lowest order of society

·        In German

·       Troubadour/Trouvere tradition migrated from France

·        Minnelied: songs of courtly love, even more abstract than troubadour songs, often with more religious or pious slant.   People who wrote and sang were Minnesingers.  Earlier Minnesingers were often of high birth or nobility; by late 13th century, Minnesingers were from Burgher class

·        Minnelieder sound much more modal than Troub/Trouv songs (which often sounded major).

·    Common formal pattern: Bar form: melody is A A B: A sections were called Stollen or stanzas, B section called Abgesang. 

·        Earliest tunes not notated, but transmitted orally.  By mid-14th century they began to write down; by this time, tradition was already declining.  Notation inadequate to represent rhythm; probably derived from modes as in other secular song.

·        Meistersingers were successors to Minnesinger tradition.  Meistersingers formed guilds; flourished in 14th to 16th centuries, sponsored music competitions with complex rules for composition, but based on Minnesinger’s practices.

·        Most famous Minnesinger was Walther von der Vogelweide (“bird-meadow”)(1170-c.1228).