Monódia non-liturgical and secular

Monódia non-liturgical and secular

   FIRST SECULAR MUSICAL FORMS

   The earliest specimens of music Songs are preserved with Latin texts. The first of these form the Repertoire of the songs of the goliards of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The goliards - name From a probably mythical patron, Bishop Goliath - were students or Wandering clerics who migrated from school to school in the days preceding Foundations of the great sedentary universities. His vagabond life, barely seen by respectable people, was celebrated in his songs, of which numerous Handwritten collections. The themes of the texts are almost always Eternal trinity of interests of young males: wine, women and satire. The treatment given them is sometimes delicate, others are not; The spirit is Frankly biting and informal, as it becomes very noticeable when we hear some Of the modern musical versions of Carmina Burana by Carl Orff. Just a little Part of the original music of the goliardos is recorded in the manuscripts, and even this Only in neumes without agenda; Therefore, all modern transcriptions are Conjecturais, unless some melody has been preserved in some other source More accurate notation. Another type of monophonic song from the period between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries is Conductus, which illustrates well how vague in the Middle Ages the dividing line Between the sacred music and the secular music. They may have been originally sung in When a clergyman representing a liturgical drama or celebrant Or other religious service were formally 'led' from one place to another. other. The texts were verses of regular meter, like the texts of the sequences of the Same period, but its relation to the liturgy was so tenuous that at the end of the century Xii the term conductus already applied to any and all non-liturgical Latin song, Usually of a serious nature, with a regular metric text, either on a theme Sacred, or profane. An important characteristic of the conductus was that, as a rule In general, the melody was composed again, rather than being borrowed or Adapted from the chime or from any other source. The characteristic aspects of the secular spirit of the Middle Ages are more Clearly, as one might expect, in vernacular-language songs. a Of the oldest known types of song in the vernacular is chanson de Geste, or song of deed, an epic poem, narrative, reporting the feats of heroes Sing to simple melodic formulas, with only one Formulas follow, without any modifications, each of the verses of long Segments of a poem. The poems were transmitted orally and only Written in a relatively late date, almost nothing of the music being conserved Who accompanied them. The most famous of chansons de geste is the Song of Roland, The French national epic, dating from approximately the second half of the Century x i, although the events that narrates belong to the time of Charlemagne.

jograis

Individuals who sang chansons de geste and other secular songs Of the Middle Ages were the jongleurs, or minstrels (jograis or minstrels), a Professional musicians that began to emerge around the tenth century: men And women wandering isolated or in small groups from village to village, from Castle in castle, precariously gaining the life to sing, to touch, to make abilities, To exhibiting trained animals - pariahs who were often denied protection Of the laws and sacraments of the Church. With the economic recovery of Europe in the The twelfth and twelfth centuries, as society has organized itself in a more stable way, Feudal bases, and the cities were growing, their condition improved, although only Years have passed since people stopped looking at them with a mixture of Fascination and repulsion. People without great spirit, but with an extraordinary memory, Very diligent and with a limitless impudence, this is how Petrarch would define them. In the eleventh century they were organized in confraternities, which later gave rise to corporations of musicians, providing professional training in the manner of the current conservatories. The minstrels, as a class, were not poets or composers in the precise sense That we give to these terms. They sang, played and danced composite songs Other people or extracted from the common domain of popular music, altering or Creating, of course, their own versions as they walked from land to land. At Its professional traditions and ingenuity have played an important role in an important The development of secular music in Western Europe - this set of Now commonly known as the music of troubadours and thunderers.

TROUBLES AND TROUBLES

These two words have the same meaning: discoverers And inventors; The term troubadour (female, trobairitz) was used in southern France, Trouvère in the North. In the Middle Ages these designations applied, apparently, To anyone who wrote or composed any kind of piece; the use Modern, which restricts them to two specific groups of musicians, is, therefore, Historically inaccurate. The troubadours were poet-composers who multiplied In Provence, a region that covers the present South of France; Wrote in Provencal, The so-called langue d'oc. His art, initially inspired by the Hispano-Moorish culture Of the neighboring Iberian Peninsula, spread quickly to the north, in particular For the provinces of Champagne and Artésia. Here the troveiros, who exercised the Their activity throughout the thirteenth century, wrote in langue d'oil, the dialect Of medieval French that gave rise to modern French. Neither the troubadours nor the thunderers were a well-defined group. both them Like their art flourished in aristocratic circles in general (it To have kings among their ranks), but a low-born artist could also To a higher social category by virtue of his talent. Many of Poets-composers not only created their songs, but also sang them. In Alternative to this solution, they could entrust the interpretation of the pieces to a minstrel. When the currently known versions differ from one manuscript to another, May represent the versions of different scribes - or, perhaps, the various interpretations Of the same song by several minstrels who would have learned it by heart, Then introducing her personal changes, as is always the case That the music is transmitted orally for some time before being recorded by written. The songs were kept in collections (chansonniers, or songbooks), Some of which have been published in modern editions with fac- -similes. About 2600 poems and more than 260 melodies have come to us, Of troubadours and about 2130 poems and 1420 melody of thunderers.

The poetic and musical substance of the songs of troubadours and thunderers is not, as a rule General, very deep, but the formal structures used denote great variety And ingenuity. There are simple ballads and dramatic ballads, which require or Suggest two or more characters. Some of these dramatic ballads, Manifestly to be spoiled; Many certainly required an interpretation Dance. In many cases there is a refrain, which, at least in the older pieces, It must have been sung by a choir. In addition, especially in the South, the cantigas Were predominantly of love - the theme par excellence of the poetry of troubadours. There are also songs on political and moral issues and songs whose texts are Debates or discussions, often about more or less abstruse points of chivalrous or courtly love. Songs of a religious nature are characteristic of the And began to emerge only in the late thirteenth century. Each of these types Generics of cantigas included many subtypes, each of which obeyed conventions Quite rigid on the subject, on treatment and on form. One of the most cultivated genera was pasture, one of the types of Dramatic ballad The text of a herding always tells the following story: a Knight makes the cut to a shepherdess, who, generally, after the initial resistance, ends up For yielding; Alternatively, the shepherdess cries out loudly, and then the brother appears, Or boyfriend, who puts the rider in flight, not without first being caught a Combat between both. In the older herding the whole narrative was monologue; The next step, however, was, of course, to make the text a dialogue between The knight and the shepherdess. Later, the dialogue became not only sung, but also Also represented; When one or two episodes were added, Pastor to the rescue of his beloved with a group of rustic companions, and enriching himself, The performance with several songs and dances, the result was a small Play with music.

TECHNIQUES OF TROUBLE AND TROUBLE MELODIES

The melodic treatment of songs Of troubadours and trouvères was generally syllabic, with one or other brief Melismatic figure, predominantly in the penultimate syllables of the verses, as in Cari vei (N A WM 7). It is probable that in the interpretation if they added ornaments Melodies and the melody underwent modifications from stanza to stanza. Of such melodies, Invited to improvisation as the singer moved from a stanza to the Following, we find an example in The chant of the twentieth-century troubadour Comtessa Of Day (N A WM 8). The scope of the melody is limited, not often exceeding A sixth and rarely exceeding one octave. The modes seem to be mainly The first and the seventh, with their respective plagiarisms; Certain notes from these Modes were, in all likelihood, chromatically altered by the singers, for Almost equivalent to the current major and minor modes. There is some Uncertainty as to the rhythm of the songs, especially with regard to the Known melodies, the notation of which does not indicate the temporal values ​​of the various grades. Certain scholars argue that these songs were sung in a rhythm Free, not subject to measure, as the notation seems to suggest; Others, however, believe That the rhythm should be fairly regular and that the melody would be measured in long notes And brief, corresponding generically to the accented and unstressed syllables of the words. The divergence of views on this point is well Different modern transcriptions of the same sentence as in Example 2.10.