Mensural Notation

27 Sunday Nov 2011

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beats, colours, dances, Franco de Cologne, Guido d'Arezzo, heart, illuminations, neumes, printing, the scriptorium

William-Adolphe Bouguereau

William-Adolphe Bouguereau (30 November 1825 – 19 August 1905)

Guido d’Arezzo (991/992 – (17 May?) 1050): Micrologus

I did not finish my last blog. Suddenly, I stumbled upon information that contradicted what I had learned. I therefore stopped to investigate matters. Fortunately, the information I had provided was accurate.

In other words, it is true that in his treatise, entitled the Micrologus, Guido

renamed or gave a second name to the C-D-E-F-G-A set (the hexachord);
and that he used the first syllable of each line of the Ut queant laxis, (presumably worded by Paul the Deacon (c. 720 – 13 April probably 799), or Paulus Diaconus. The Ut queant laxis was a popular hymn to St. John. Consequently, Guido d’Arezzo chose a mnemonic device.
As well, Guido placed the neumes on a four-line staff, to which a fifth line was added later. Neumes could be placed on lines or in the spaces between (as well as above and under) the lines.

The Staff

The Keyboard

However, what he renamed were neumes (rectangles), the name given to notes in Gregorian chant. Because Gregorian chant is monophonic (one voice), all Guido needed was the ut clef. It could be moved from one line to another, and the line on which he placed the key was the ut or do.

‘ut’

Mensural Notation: Ars cantus mensurabilis, c. 1280

With respect to mensural notation, one should mention Franco of Bologne‘s treatise Ars cantus mensurabilis (The art of measured chant). His mensural notation is called Franconian notation. Franco’s main contribution stems from shaping the notes themselves in a manner that indicated not only pitch, but also duration.

Printing

We know that before the invention of printing, colours were used to indicate duration. In fact, the manner in which neumes were drawn was also useful and decorative, without the use of colour. Some manuscripts, often named a codex, resembled books of Hours. But printing did not preclude making neumes black or white. Moreover shapes, the stem and quavers sufficed to demonstrate duration. Schools emerged that did away with Guido’s rectangle or, as indicated in my last blog, composers started to use it to represent a rest.

Key signature

This is a subject I will not discuss, except to say that

the do or ut can start on C or-D-E-F-G-A and later B set, and that;
by adding sharps or flats, we can make the ut (do)-ré-mi-fa-sol-la-si chain sound identical, but higher or lower. If the melody starts on si or B, one needs a high voice, the soprano being the highest;
If the ut or do starts on C, there is no sharp (#); nor is there a flat (b).

For a depiction of the above, click on this link.

Dance and mensural notation

Mensural notation was also related to dances. For instance, in a waltz, one slides into the first beat. Therefore, the first beat may not always be perfectly equal to the second and thirds beats. At one point in history, the Baroque era mainly, suites or partitas were dances: the sarabande, the minuet, the corrente, the bourrée, the polonaise, the allemande, etc. Earlier, people danced pavanes, galliardes, branles estampies, etc.

—ooo—

By linking mensural notation to the movements of a dance, rythm acquires a more meaningful and pleasurable dimension. First, rhythm shapes the melody. Second, it touches the body. If music has beats, the human heart beats. Music also breathes. So mensural notation cannot be too rigid. We must also take tempo into account. It seems we play music faster now than before, which might be explained because the disk or record may also dictate duration. That should not be the case. Tempo is part of the composition. There is room for interpretation, but interpretation also has its limits.

Lumina Vocal Ensemble
Evan Sanders (descant), James Cowling (descant) and Kenneth Pope (treble)
University of Adelaide, March 2011
Medieval Tune c. 1300

: Dancers

Melodic Notation

26 Saturday Nov 2011

Posted by michelinewalker in Music

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Franco de Cologne, Guido d'Arezzo, medieval music, mensural notation, Micrologus, WordPress

Boëthius, c. 480 – 525

Guido d’Arezzo (991/992 – [17 May?] 1050): the Micrologus

In an earlier blog on Paul the Deacon’s Ut queant laxis, I indicated the origin of the do-ré-mi sequence. The first initial of each line of the Ut queant laxis gave the name of the note or pitch.

Ut queant laxis
resonare fibris,
Mira gestorum
famuli tuorum,
Solve polluti
labii reatum,
Sancte Iohannes (added later)

Guido d’Arezzo’s contribution to musical notation was indeed a quantum leap. As well, we can presume that Guido created the staff, then composed of four lines only. One climbs up the scale by going from line to space. Each is a note or pitch.

The Semitone

I would now like to indicate that Guido’s C-D-E-F-G-A set (an hexachord) also contained a semitone. If one looks at a keyboard, one can see that there is no black note between mi and fa. As I wrote yesterday, Carlo Gesualdo used semitones, which was extremely innovative. If one goes from do to si playing every note, white and black, of the piano, one has played a chromatic scale. Chrome means colour. During the Romantic era, or beginning with Beethoven (the nineteenth century), music was more and more chromatic.

A Keyboard

Mensural Notation

However, useful as it may be, the do–ré–mi–fa–sol–la-(si) chain provided no information regarding rhythm or duration. Duration was still an oral tradition. It was transmitted from teacher to student.

Colours shape, stem and quavers

As time passed, composers started to use colours to show duration. They then used shapes: squares, diamonds, etc. Soon the stem was introduced as were quavers, or croches. Rests were also introduced to indicate a silence, or pause. However, the bar lagged behind, but the time signature was in use.

Time Signature

Equivalent rests: pauses or silences

Do-ré-mi: the Chanson and the Madrigal

23 Wednesday Nov 2011

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Adriaan Willaert, chanson, Claudin de Sermizy, Clément Marot, Do-ré-mi, Guido d'Arezzo, Julie Andrews, madrigal, madrigalism, The Sound of Music

Angel with Lute by Raphael

Raphael (6 April or 28 March 1483 – 6 April 1520) High Renaissance

Earlier in history, singing monks had their Ut queant laxis to remember the “Do-Re-Mi.” But, a thousand years later our reference is Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s The Sound of Music‘ s (1959) “Do-Ré-Mi,” sung by Julie Andrews.

The Sound of Music

—ooo—

The history of musical notation is fascinating, but intricate. As we saw in telling the story of fables and fairy tales, one often has to go back to an oral tradition, as did Guido d’Arezzo (991/992 – (17 May?) 1050). When Guido chose the first syllables of the Ut queant laxis to exemplify and simplify his C-D-E-F-G-A set (a hexachord=6), he displayed ingenuity and vision.

—ooo—

Before Guido, reading music was well-nigh impossible. So, he was very much a pioneer. Our current notation system was not fully developed until the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras. Even then, composers did not always provide vertical lines to separate “measures.”

Yet, music could be just as beautiful then as it can be today, except that there were extremes. The chansons of the trouvères were simple and drew much of their beauty from their simplicity. The little madrigal we used to illustrate the work of Franco-Flemish composer Adriaan Willaert, O quando a quando havea, is wonderfully uncomplicated. Adriaan Willaert (c. 1490 – October 13, 1562) is the most celebrated Franco-Flemish musician, that one musician who founded the Venetian School.

But there came a point when composers so ornamented melodies that it resembled Rococo art and architecture. The Madrigal developed into “madrigalism” or too ornate a piece of music. The phenomenon was an extreme form of word-painting (setting a text to music).

In an earlier blog, on the idea of “absolute music,” I noted that music had long been considered too powerful a language. As a result, words were used to restrain music, but there have been instances when words were also abused and a song much too decorated.

Given that I am a little tired today, allow me to provide you with a video that illustrates the polyphonic (many voices) madrigal. My example is a famous madrigal by Claudio Monteverdi’s, 15 May 1567 (baptized) – 29 November 1643, entitled Cruda Amarilli (Cruel Amarilli).

But for sheer pleasure, let us also listen to Claudin de Sermisy‘s (c. 1490 – 13 October 1562) Tant que vivray (1527), a simple through-composed (durchkomponiert) love chanson in which a young man pledges to love his “lady” for as long as he lives. The words are by famous French poet Clément Marot (1496–1497– 1544), a French Huguenot who was imprisoned because of his beliefs.

Claudin precedes Monteverdi. Both, however, are representatives of Renaissance songs: the chanson and the madrigal.

Tant que vivray en asge florissant

Je serviray d’amours le roy puissant

En fais en ditz en chansons et accords.

Par plusieurs fois m’a tenu languissant

Mais après deuil m’a fait réjouissant

Car j’ay l’amour de la belle au gent corps.

Son alliance, c’est ma fiance,

Son cœur est mien, le mien est sien,

Fy de tristesse, Vive liesse,

Puisqu’en amour a tant de bien.

Quand je la veulx servir et honorer

Quand par escripts veux son nom décorer

Quand je la veoy & visite souvent

Ses envieux n’en font que murmurer

Mais notre amour n’en scauroit moins durer

Autant ou plus en emporte le vent

Malgré envie, toute ma vie

Je l’aimeray et chanteray,

C’est la première, c’est la dernière

Que j’ay servie et serviray.

Madonna of Sistine Chapel by Raphael (1513)

(Please click on the image to enlarge it.)

23 November 2011

WordPress

Musical Notation: Ut Queant Laxis

22 Tuesday Nov 2011

Posted by michelinewalker in Music

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Guido d'Arezzo, musical notation, Paulus Diaconus, St. John the Baptist, Summer Solstice, Ut queant laxis

Ut Queant Laxis

I spoke of madrigals without first providing Guido d’Arezzo‘s (991/992 – (17 May?) 1050) source, the Ut queant laxis for the well-known ut (do), ré, mi, fa, sol, la, si (ti), as the notes are still named and used in certain national languages and in solfège.

Ut queant laxis
resonare fibris
Mira gestorum
famuli tuorum,
Solve polluti
labii reatum
Sancte Iohannes. s+i = si (ti, to distinguish it from ‘c’)

Nor did I mention that the poem had been written, in Horatian Sapphics, by Paulus Diaconus, the eighth-century historian. The Ut queant laxis was written for the feast of St. John the Baptist, celebrated on 24 June, near the Summer Solstice, the day of the shortest night (darkness). The Saint-Jean-Baptiste is marked each year by a bonfire, les feux de la Saint-Jean, and, in Quebec, by displays of fireworks. The Saint-Jean-Baptiste is the official feast day of French-Canadians.

Guido had introduced a group of syllables C-D-E-F-G-A, the hexachord, a mnemonic device. But Guido noticed that the first syllable of the six phrases of the Ut queant laxis, a latin-language hymn to Saint John, corresponded with his C-D-E-F-G-A set. Musicians had had difficulty remembering the neumatic notation used in Gregorian chant. In Gregorian chant the notes are called “neumes.”

So Guido’s immediate purpose was pedagogical. The do-ré-mi chain was easy to memorize. It was the familiar Ut queant laxis. In this regard, Guido resembles Comenius who was also an advocate of simplification.

In short, the do-ré-mi chain is a cultural phenomenon and, therefore, possesses a degree of arbitrariness, which is not the case with the more logical A-B-C-D-E-F-G, starting on the middle C, or ‘do,’ a scale or key that does not have alterations (sharps and flats). But it has remained useful.

As for the melody of the Ut queant laxis, it would appear it was the melody of Horace‘s “Ode to Phyllis.”

Here is an English translation: “So that your servant may, with loosened voices, resound the wonder of your deeds, clean the guilt four our strained lips, O Saint John!”