simontarassenko

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Project 1, Part two: Medieval Instruments

Hurdy Gurdy

The hurdy gurdy is a kind of mechanical fiddle which was originally used as an accompinament in liturigical music. Its sound is produced by a revolving wheel inside the instrument, turned by a handle (or ‘crank’), rubbing against strings (much like a bow being drawn across a violin). Instead of fingers, stopping rods - small pieces of wood which projected at the side of the instrument like keys - were used to press against the strings, thereby altering its pitch.

The hurdy gurdy was fiddle-shaped, around five to six feet long and held and played seated by two people - one to press the stopping rods and another to turn the crank. It originally was likely to have had only 3 strings, probably tuned in unison, which were stopped and sounded simultaneously.

The hurdy gurdy has existed in various different forms, such as the organistrum (an early form of the instrument). During the thirteenth century, the introduction of the organ saw the use of the hurdy gurdy phased out of churches and schools. Subsequently, it underwent significant changes in its construction. It was made small enough to be portable and require only one person to play it. Additionally, stopping rods were replaced by devices with a ‘tooth’ which could be pushed in and stopped the strings laterally - when released, the stop fell back due to its own weight and the elasticity of the string (unlike the earlier stopping rods, the ‘keys’ of which had to be turned like a latchkey). By the seventeenth century, the hurdy gurdy had become exclusively a folk instrument.

Portative Organ

The portative organ was a small organ that was used primarily in secular music of the Medieval era. As suggested by its name - the Latin verb, portare, meaning “to carry” - it was played while strapped to or suspended from the neck of the performer. It consisted of either one or two rows of pipes, with a keyboard positioned at right angles to the player and bellows on the back of the instrument. The keyboard would be played with the right hand while the bellows were operated by the left.

Like many instruments of the era, some portative organs were able to sustain a drone by prolonging certain notes with a lever or slide.

The portative organ first came into use during the twelth century. Its use peaked in the fifteenth century, eventually declining completely in the sixteenth century.

Bagpipe

The bagpipe, at least in its original form, was comprised of a skin bag (i.e. made of leather) which served as a flexible windchest - a chamber containing the air supply for the reeds or pipes of an instrument - and one or more reed pipes.

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Project 2: Piano Sonata No 21 in C, by Joseph Haydn, 1st Movement

https://open.spotify.com/track/6rLhG2Cz58k3UyWbbLRE8A?si=w-daCCPpRa6kiEsnqHdwXQ

It was difficult to establish the beat of the piece at first, as I kept hearing it as if the second quaver of the first full bar was the start of a new downbeat. The beat only became clear at bar 11, with the phrase in the left-hand ending on a strong downbeat at the start of the bar.

The music seems light-hearted and playful in character, jaunty even. This is largely sustained throughout, though the mood changes somewhat for brief moments, such as when it becomes more minor-key sounding at the eigth bar of the second page.

There is a mixture of both high and low notes used, as the melody spans different registers, although it never ventures towards the farthest ranges of the piano (either high or low).

As it’s performed here, the piece is relatively brisk without being too fast or hurried. This seems in keeping with its tempo marking: Allegro [moderato].

The use of chords is sparing and seems to be mainly for emphasis. One notable example of this is in the last bar on the third page, where seven-note chords occur with a fortissimo dynamic marking. Otherwise, both the left and right hands play largely one note at a time.

This is not the kind of music I would usually seek out! But it was enjoyable to follow along with the score whilst listening to it. Even though I did not find it particularly moving (not that all music has to be!), I could appreciate the craft that was involved in its composition.

A note about the performer: This version is performed by Markus Becker, a German pianist whose achievements include being “the three-time winner of the Echo-Klassik award as well as the German Critics’ Choice Award and the Editor´s Choice award in the British trade journal Gramophone”, as well as having played with orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic and the BBC Welsh Orchestra.

Sources:

http://www.markusbecker-pianist.de/english-the-pianist.html

http://ks4.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/8/87/IMSLP00135-Haydn_-_Piano_Sonata_No_21_in_C.pdf

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Research Point 2: Hildegard von Bingen

Hildegard von (of) Bingen was an abbess of the Benedictine convent of Rupertsburg, who has the distinction of being the composer from the Medieval era with the most surviving chants. By all accounts, she was a veritable polymath, for as well as being a composer she was an author, theologian, philosopher and natural historian. 1. O vis aeternatis: https://open.spotify.com/track/446CINGs2ulE4ElObJJV8n?si=zXkxw_1STISl3s0fYglR4Q

It sounds neither particularly fast nor slow. The melody is sung quite freely over the drone.

The music is for voices, although there is a drone sustained in the background by a vielle (medieval fiddle). It serves as an example of a responsorial chant; there is one vocal line, which is sung alternatingly by a soloist and ensemble.

The vocal is dynamic, peaking in volume as its melody reaches its highest points.

The text is Latin and written by Hildegard herself, O vis aeternatis meaning “O power within eternity”. It is religious

The melody creates passing dissonances against the drone, such as the minor second interval that occurs at 2:17, but the music is lar

The music resembles plainsong of the era in its starkness, but there

https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/med/hildegarde.asp https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2018/06/16/SotD-O-vis-aeternitatis

https://thefivebeasts.wordpress.com/2015/06/30/o-vis-aeternitatis-the-power-of-st-hildegards-music/

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Research point 1: Eras of (Western) music

Medieval: c. 500-1400 Renaissance: c. 1400-1600 Baroque: c. 1600-1750 Classical: c. 1750-1820 (Romantic: c. 1820-1900) Twentieth Century (Modern): c. 1850-present Reference: Western Music Timeline. (2019). Essential Humanities. Retrieved from http://www.essential-humanities.net/art-overview/western-music-timeline/

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Project 1: A timeline of Medieval music

590-604: Liturgical chant begins to assume its definitive form under the pontificate of Pope Gregory I. Pre-existing melodies are collected in liturgical texts (Antiphonarium cento) as part of a collective, largely anonymous enterprise. (John the Deacon, writing in a biography in 873, propogates the myth that Pope Gregory I created musical notation and was the prinicpal composer of Gregorian Chant).

c. 7th Century: The Schola Cantorum in Rome is established, its role being to sing when the pope officiates at observances. The Schola sends cantors (ecclesiastical singers) to various countries in Europe. (One notable example being cantors accompanying St Augustine to Britain).

747: The second Council of Cloveshoe takes place in Anglo-Saxon Britain. Subsequently, all churches are obliged to sing plainchant in accordance with a visiting cantor from Rome.

c. 754: Pope Stephen II visits Pepin III, king of the Franks, leading to the inauguration of the Carolingian dynasty and a strong political and military alliance between the two. Pepin invades Italy, defending Rome from the Lombards, a Germanic tribe. He subsequently orders the use of Roman liturgy and chant in Frankish domains.

8th Century onwards: Neumes - the system of musical notation that existed before five-line staff notation - start to appear within Carolignian domains. The Frankish adaptation of Roman chant is imported back to Rome in this form. 780s onwards: The Carolignian Empire begins to consolidate and centralise power within its domains, leading to a period of increased cultural activity - the Carolingian Renaissance - and the importing of architecture, manuscript illustration and various administrative, legal and canonical practices from Italy. Charlemagne establishes courts at Aachen and Metz, the latter becoming the centre of Gregorian music in Europe. c. 781: Charlemagne invites Alciun (Albinius of York) to Aachen to establish a cathedral school. Alcuin devises a currciulum of seven ‘liberal arts’, which includes music. 789: Charlemagne issues the Admonito Generalis (”General Advisory”) to the Frankish clergy on 23rd March, ordering the clergy to replace the indigineous liturgy of northern churches (”Gallican” rite) with texts and melodies from the Roman liturgy. Cantors are sent from Rome to teach chant to the Franks, due to the absence of any means of notation.

800: Pope Leo III crowns Charlemagne the “temporal” ruler of the Holy Roman Empire on Christmas day.

c. 9th Century: Two anonymous treatises - Musica enchiriadis and Schola enchiriadis - illustrate how a melody can be doubled in parallel consonant intervals (a practice known as ‘Organum); an anonymous treatise, Alia musica, establishes the Greek nomenclature of church modes (e.g. Dorian, Lydian, etc.). c. 843: Aurelian of Réôme completes his treatise, Musica Disciplina, which emphasises the role of the ‘tonic’ in music. 843: Louis the Pious, son of Charlemagne, dies, leading to the eventual division of the Carolingian Empire. c. 880: Hucbald, a Frankish music theorist and monk, completes De harmonica institutione, the earliest treatise to use the letters of the alphabet to names notes.

c. 10th Century: Liturgical dramas begin to appear in written sources.

c. 901: Regino of Prüm, a benedictine monk, compiles one of the most extensive of the earliest tonaries, liturgical books which list various items of Gregorian chant according to the tonus (mode) of their melodies.

973: The Counts of Poitou assume the title of ‘Duke’ and assert dominion over the region of Aquitane (in Southern France). It is during this period of independence that courtly poetic and musical traditions arise.

c. 1000: An anonymous Milanese treatise, Dialogus de Musica, establishes the concept of octave equivalency.

c. 1028: The monk of Guido of Arezzo completes the Micrologus, a treatise featuring the earliest guide to staff notation. Subsequently, neumes start to be arranged diastematically (where the pitch of a note is represented by its vertical position on the page).

1050-1300: Cathedral schools are established throughout Western and Central Europe. The popuation of Europe also triples during this time; 1200 onwards: Independent schools are established for laymen, leading to a large increase in rates of literacy amongst the non-clerical population in Europe.

During this time, in regions such as Aquitane in France, versus and conductus are composed. These are forms of Latin song which are set to newly composed melodies not derived from plainsong.

Various forms of vernacular song (i.e. not written in Latin) are composed during this time - such as epic, lyric and narrative poerms - and professional musicians begin to appear, including bards, jongleurs and minstrels.

The most significant works of vernacular song during this period are composed by troubadours (in Southern France, in the language of Occitan) and trouvères (in Northern France, in Old French). Their songs are preserved in chansonniers (songbooks).

c. 1160: Construction begins on the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris.

c. 1170: The Codex Calixtinus, a manuscript containing examples of Aquitanian polyphony, is compiled in France and is eventually sent to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain.

1208: Pope Innocent III declares a crusade against the Albigensians in Southern France, leading to the dispersion of troubadours from the region.

c. 1270: Hieronymus de Moravia introduces the term cantus firmus to denote an existing melody - such as plainchant - on which a new polyphonic work is based. c. 1280: Franco of Cologne sets out the system of Franconian Notation in the treatise, Ars cantus mensurabilis, the first to indicate the relative durations of notes by their shapes.

c. 1285: The treatise Anonymous IV is written, which gives an account of how a more ornate style of polyphony, associated with the Notre Dame cathedral, arises from the work of two figures, Leoninus and Petronius.

c. 1310: Philippe de Vitry, a French composer, initiates the Ars Nova, a new French musical style. His innovations include duple division of note values and the use of mensuration signs, symbols which are precursors to modern time signatures. References:

Taruskin, R. (2005). The Oxford history of western music; Volume 1: The earliest notations to the sixteenth century. Oxford University Press.

Donald Jay Grout, J  Peter Burkholder and Palisca, C.V. (2010). A history of western music. New York: W.W. Norton.‌

Anselm Hughes (1978). The new Oxford History of music. 2, Early medieval music up to 1300. London ; New York ; Toronto: Oxford University Press.‌