Monday, October 29, 2012

The Oxford History of Western Music, Pt. 9

Although written traces of instrumental dance music date back to the thirteenth century, the earliest extensive collections of instrumental dance music come in the form of the fifteenth century collections of bassadanza (in Italian) or basse danse (in French), meaning "low dance." That term referred to the height of the dancer's feet off of the floor. "Low dances" were generally the stuff of the upper classes and nobility.

These collections of bassdanza resemble the notation of Gregorian chant, rectangular figures on a staff, but with one difference: large strings of letters now adorned the pages.

What these manuscripts actually document were improvised accompaniments to dances over a given bass lines (or "tenor," as they were known at that time). The ensemble, know as alta capella, musicians formed something akin a guild, transferring their craft to one another via aural, rather than notated forms, hence this music's delayed entry into the literate tradition.

In the final section of the bassadanza book composer Diego Ortiz writes: "I thought I'd include the following recercadas on these bass lines that are usually called tenors in Italy, but that are mainly played as written here, in four parts, with the recercada over them." What follows is an improvisation not accompanied as it would normally be: by a cantus firmus in long note values, but a series of harmonic cells that can each be repeated in order to prolong the improvisation, if needed.

Thus, the tenor has now become what we might call a "ground bass," and forms the first harmonic-driven structure in Western art music. They create harmonic structures that are not born from voice leading but exists purely as vertical structures, and "accompany" an improvisation.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

The Oxford History of Western Music, Pt. 8

Continental musicians adopted the cyclic Mass from the English as the standard "high" genre in the mid-the-early 1400's. As such, the Mass became the form composers were most drawn to to demonstrate their compositional prowess, something that had been happening since the Notre Dame school and can be found in the development of the isorhythmic motet, for example.
Each movement of a mass utilises the same "Cantus Firmus," and, seeing each movement's texts were drawn from disparate parts of the larger service, exemplifies the role literacy played in developing new forms in music; the mass' movements were combined only because of the common melody, not because of any over-arching textual narrative.
Around 1440, an anonymous English composer (possibly John Dunstable) created Missa Caput: a composition that reached over and above previous levels of grandeur. It is the first documented polyphonic composition in four parts. Scribes adopted a new way of naming the four voices: the tenor remained as such, while the parts directly above and below became known as contratenor altus and contratenor bassis respectively. The top-most part was known as the superius.
At cadences, the tenor and alto parts follow the convention of resolving, in contrary motion, from an imperfect consonance (a sixth or third) to a perfect consonance (octave or unison). The only way to have the two other voices form consonances with both the tenor and alto while remaining independent of them is to sing notes that result in two triads a fifth apart. Here, we have the first explicit example of the perfect cadence, V-I. Using a Landini sixth to, say, the soprano, would result in the fourth degree of the mode sounding, giving the V chord an added "seventh."
This should not be viewed as the "beginning" of tonal harmony; that is our tendency to see (early) examples as essences. However, it is a point where developments in form and the fusing of continental and English approaches to harmony helped give rise to occurrences we now regard as conventions.

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

The Oxford History of Western Music, Pt. 7

One of the things I love most about this book is Taruskin's quasi-philosophical interjections to remind the reader what they are and aren't reading.

In his introduction, which is identical for each volume, Taruskin explains that his book should be viewed more as a history of people and societies, rather than of music. Hence many "developments" in music are linked to shifts in the function and reception of music in different parts of a socio-political climate. Perhaps a good example is the Notre Dame's music academy, which gave rise to the Ars Nova style. This was music composed by literate, educated types, who were part of a community (that is, other like-minded composers) where invention and innovation in composition was encouraged. Hence such forms as the isorhythmic motet and the canon came to be used a demonstrations of compositional finesse.

But I digress . . .

I write this post simply to quote one of Taruskin's musings, which also seem to really hit home for me. From page 381 (almost half-way!) of Volume 1:

When periods are essentialized, moreover, we may then begin seeing objects classed within them in invidious comparative terms as more of less essentially medieval of Renaissance. We may become burdened with the considerations of purity or fidelity to a Zeitgeist (a "spirit of the time") that never burdened contemporaries. And that is because unless we are very cautious indeed, we can forget that the Zeitgeist is a concept that we, not "the time," have constructed (or abstracted). We may then value some objects over others as being better, or even as being "the best" expressions of "the spirit of the Middle Ages" or "the spirit of the Renaissance." If this sort of essentialism seems innocuous enough, we might transpose the frame of reference from the chronological to the geographical, and reflect on what happens when people become concerned over the purity or genuineness of one's essential Americanism or Africannes or Croathood.

I'm loving this book.