Menu
HomeHairstyles

Composers of the Middle Ages. Medieval marginal musicians

Music medieval era - development periodmusical culture, covering a period of time from approximately V to XIV centuries AD .
During the Middle Ages in Europe a new type of musical culture is emerging - feudal , combining professional art, amateur music-making and folklore Because the church dominates in all areas of spiritual life, the basis of professional musical art is the activity of musicians in temples and monasteries . Secular professional art was initially represented only by singers who created and performed epic tales at court, in the houses of the nobility, among warriors, etc. ( bards, skalds etc.). Over time, amateur and semi-professional forms of music playing develop chivalry: in France - the art of troubadours and trouvères (Adam de la Halle, XIII century), in Germany - the minnesingers ( Wolfram von Eschenbach, Walter von der Vogelweide, XII - XIII centuries ), as well as urban artisans In feudal castles and in the cities all kinds of genera are cultivated, genres and forms of songs (epic, “dawn”, rondo, le, virele, ballads, canzones, laudas, etc.).
New ones come into everyday lifemusical instruments, including those who came from East (viol, lute etc.), ensembles (of unstable compositions) arise. Folklore flourishes among peasants. There are also “folk professionals”: storytellers , traveling synth artists ( jugglers, mimes, minstrels, shpilmans, buffoons ). Music again performs mainly applied and spiritual-practical functions. Creativity acts in unity withperformance(usually one person).
Both in the content of music and in its form it dominates collectivity ; the individual principle is subordinate to the general one, without standing out from it (a master musician is the best representative communities ). Strict reigns in everything traditionality and canonicity . Consolidation, preservation and distribution traditions and standards.
Gradually, although slowly, the content of music is enriched, its genres, forms , means of expression. IN Western Europe from the 6th - 7th centuries . a strictly regulated system is emerging monophonic ) church music based diatonic modes ( Gregorian chant), combining recitation (psalmody) and singing (hymns ). At the turn of the 1st and 2nd millennia, the polyphony . New ones are being formed vocal (choral ) and vocal-instrumental (choir and organ) genres: organum, motet, conduction, then mass. In France in the 12th century the first one is formed composer (creative) school at Notre Dame Cathedral(Leonin, Perotin). At the turn of the Renaissance (ars nova style in France and Italy, 14th century) in professional musicmonophony is being supplanted polyphony , music begins to gradually free itself from purely practical functions (service of church rituals ), it enhances the meaning secular genres, including songs ( Guillaume de Machaut).

Revival.

Music in the period of the XV-XVII centuries.
In the Middle Ages, music was the prerogative of the Church, so most musical works were sacred, based on church chants (Gregorian chant), which have been part of the religion since the very beginning of Christianity. At the beginning of the 17th century, cult tunes, with the direct participation of Pope Gregory I, were finally canonized. Gregorian chant was performed by professional singers. After the development of polyphony in church music, the Gregorian chant remained the thematic basis of polyphonic religious works (mass, motets, etc.).

The Middle Ages were followed by the Renaissance, which was an era of discovery, innovation and exploration for musicians, an era of renaissance of all layers of cultural and scientific manifestations of life from music and painting to astronomy and mathematics.
Although music remained largely religious, the weakening of church control over society opened up greater freedom for composers and performers to express their talents.
With the invention of the printing press, it became possible to print and distribute sheet music, and from that moment what we call classical music began.
During this period, new musical instruments appeared. The most popular instruments were those that music lovers could play easily and simply, without requiring special skills.
It was at this time that the viol, the predecessor of the violin, appeared. Thanks to the frets (wooden strips across the neck), it was easy to play, and its sound was quiet, gentle and sounded well in small halls.
Wind instruments were also popular - recorder, flute and horn. The most complex music was written for the newly created harpsichord, virginel (an English harpsichord characterized by its small size) and organ. At the same time, the musicians did not forget to compose simpler music that did not require high performing skills. At the same time, changes occurred in musical writing: heavy wooden printing blocks were replaced by movable metal types invented by the Italian Ottaviano Petrucci. Published musical works quickly sold out, and more and more people began to get involved in music.
The end of the Renaissance was marked by the most important event in musical history - the birth of opera. A group of humanists, musicians, and poets gathered in Florence under the patronage of their leader Count Giovanni De Bardi (1534 - 1612). The group was called the "camerata", its main members were Giulio Caccini, Pietro Strozzi, Vincenzo Galilei (father of the astronomer Galileo Galilei), Giloramo Mei, Emilio de Cavalieri and Ottavio Rinuccini in his younger years.
The first documented meeting of the group took place in 1573, and the most active years of work "Florentine Camerata "were 1577 - 1582. They believed that music had "deteriorated" and sought to return to the form and style of ancient Greece, believing that the art of music could be improved and, accordingly, society would also improve. The Camerata criticized existing music for its excessive use of polyphony at the expense of intelligibility text and the loss of the poetic component of the work and proposed to create a new musical style in which the text in a monodic style was accompanied by instrumental music. Their experiments led to the creation of a new vocal-musical form - recitative, first used by Emilio de Cavalieri, which was subsequently directly related to the development of opera.
The first officially recognizedopera , corresponding to modern standards, was the opera "Daphne" (Daphne), first presented in 1598. The authors of "Daphne" were Jacopo Peri and Jacopo Corsi, libretto by Ottavio Rinuccini. This opera has not survived. The first surviving opera is "Eurydice" (1600) by the same authors - Jacopo Peri and Ottavio Rinuccini. This creative union also created many works, most of which are lost.

Early Baroque music (1600-1654)

The creation by the Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) of his recitative style and the consistent development of Italian opera can be considered the conventional point of transition between the Baroque and Renaissance eras. The beginning of opera performances in Rome and especially in Venice already meant the recognition and spread of the new genre throughout the country. All this was only part of a larger process that captured all the arts, and was especially clearly manifested in architecture and painting.
Renaissance composers paid attention to the elaboration of each part of a musical work, paying virtually no attention to the comparison of these parts. Separately, each part could sound excellent, but the harmonious result of the addition was more a matter of chance than of regularity. The appearance of the figured bass indicated a significant change in musical thinking—namely, that harmony, which is "the putting together of parts into one whole," was as important as the melodic parts (polyphony) themselves. More and more, polyphony and harmony looked like two sides of the same idea of ​​composing euphonious music: in composing, harmonic sequences were given the same attention as tritones in creating dissonance. Harmonic thinking also existed among some composers of the previous era, for example, Carlo Gesualdo, but in the Baroque era it became generally accepted.
He labeled those parts of works where modality and tonality cannot be clearly separated as mixed major or mixed minor (later he introduced the terms “monal major” and “monal minor” for these concepts, respectively). The table shows how tonal harmony, already in the early Baroque period, practically supplants the harmony of the previous era.
Italy becomes the center of the new style. The papacy, although caught up in the struggle against the Reformation, but nevertheless possessing enormous financial resources replenished by the military campaigns of the Habsburgs, sought opportunities to spread the Catholic faith through the expansion of cultural influence. With the pomp, grandeur and complexity of architecture, fine arts and music, Catholicism seemed to argue with ascetic Protestantism. The rich Italian republics and principalities also competed actively in the field of fine arts. One of the important centers of musical art was Venice, which at that time was under both secular and church patronage.
A significant figure of the early Baroque period, whose position was on the side of Catholicism, opposing the growing ideological, cultural and social influence of Protestantism, was Giovanni Gabrieli. His works belong to the “High Renaissance” style (the heyday of the Renaissance). However, some of his innovations in the field of instrumentation (assigning his own, specific tasks to a certain instrument) clearly indicate that he was one of the composers who influenced the emergence of a new style
One of the requirements imposed by the church on the composition of sacred music was that the texts in works with vocals be legible. This required a move away from polyphony to musical techniques where words came to the fore. The vocals became more complex and florid compared to the accompaniment. This is how homophony developed.
Monteverde Claudio(1567-1643), Italian composer. Nothing attracted him more than the exposure of the inner, spiritual world of a person in his dramatic collisions and conflicts with the outside world. Monteverdi is the true founder of conflict dramaturgy of a tragic nature. He is a true singer of human souls. He persistently strived for the natural expressiveness of music. “Human speech is the mistress of harmony, and not its servant.”
"Orpheus" (1607) - The music of the opera is focused on revealing the inner world of the tragic hero. His part is unusually multifaceted, merging various emotional and expressive currents and genre lines. He enthusiastically calls out to his native forests and coasts or mourns the loss of his Eurydice in artless folk songs.

Music of the mature Baroque (1654-1707)

The period of centralization of supreme power in Europe is often called Absolutism. Absolutism reached its apogee under the French king Louis XIV. For all of Europe, Louis's court was a role model. Including music performed at court. The increased availability of musical instruments (especially keyboards) gave impetus to the development of chamber music.
Mature baroque differs from the early baroque in the widespread dissemination of the new style and the increased separation of musical forms, especially in opera. As in literature, the ability to stream musical works has led to an expanded audience; exchange between centers of musical culture intensified.
An outstanding representative of the court composers of the court of Louis XIV was Giovanni Battista Lulli (1632-1687). Already at the age of 21, he received the title of “court composer of instrumental music.” Lully's creative work was closely connected with the theater from the very beginning. Following the organization of court chamber music and the composition of “airs de cour”, he began to write ballet music. Louis XIV himself danced in ballets, which were then the favorite entertainment of the court nobility. Lully was an excellent dancer. He had the opportunity to participate in productions, dancing with the king. He is known for his collaboration with Moliere, for whose plays he wrote music. But the main thing in Lully’s work was still writing operas. Surprisingly, Lully created a complete type of French opera; the so-called lyrical tragedy in France (French tragedie lyrique), and reached undoubted creative maturity in the very first years of his work at the opera house. Lully often used the contrast between the majestic sound of the orchestral section and the simple recitatives and arias. Lully's musical language is not very complex, but, of course, new: clarity of harmony, rhythmic energy, clarity of division of form, purity of texture speak of the victory of the principles of homophonic thinking. To a large extent, his success was also facilitated by his ability to select musicians for the orchestra, and his work with them (he conducted rehearsals himself). An integral element of his work was attention to harmony and the solo instrument.
In England, the mature Baroque was marked by the brilliant genius of Henry Purcell (1659-1695). He died young, at the age of 36, having written a large number of works and become widely known during his lifetime. Purcell was familiar with the work of Corelli and other Italian Baroque composers. However, his patrons and customers were people of a different sort than the Italian and French secular and ecclesiastical nobility, so Purcell's writings are very different from the Italian school. Purcell worked in a wide range of genres; from simple religious hymns to marching music, from large format vocal works to staged music. His catalog contains more than 800 works. Purcell became one of the first composers of keyboard music, whose influence extends into modern times.
Unlike the above composers, Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707) was not a court composer. Buxtehude worked as an organist, first in Helsingborg (1657-1658), then in Elsinore (1660-1668), and then, starting in 1668, in the church of St. Mary in Lubeck. He made money not by publishing his works, but by performing them, and he preferred composing music based on church texts and performing his own organ works to the patronage of the nobility. Unfortunately, not all of this composer’s works have survived. Buxtehude's music is largely built on the scale of his ideas, the richness and freedom of imagination, a penchant for pathos, drama, and a somewhat oratorical intonation. His work had a strong influence on composers such as J. S. Bach and Telemann.

Late Baroque music (1707-1760)

The precise line between mature and late baroque is a matter of debate; it lies somewhere between 1680 and 1720. To a large extent, the complexity of its definition is due to the fact that in different countries styles changed asynchronously; innovations that were already accepted as a rule in one place were new discoveries in another
The forms discovered by the previous period reached maturity and great variability; concert, suite, sonata, concerto grosso, oratorio, opera and ballet no longer had clearly defined national characteristics. The generally accepted patterns of works are established everywhere: the repeated two-part form (AABB), the simple three-part form (ABC) and the rondo.
Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) - Italian composer, born in Venice. In 1703 he was ordained a Catholic priest. It was to these, at that time still developing instrumental genres (baroque sonata and baroque concerto) that Vivaldi made his most significant contribution. Vivaldi composed more than 500 concertos. He also gave programmatic titles to some of his works, such as the famous "Seasons".
Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) was one of the leading keyboard composers and performers of his time. But perhaps the most famous court composer was George Frideric Handel (1685-1759). He was born in Germany, studied for three years in Italy, but in 1711 he left London, where he began his brilliant and commercially successful career as an independent opera composer, fulfilling orders for the nobility. Possessing tireless energy, Handel reworked the material of other composers, and constantly reworked his own compositions. For example, he is known for reworking the famous oratorio "Messiah" so many times that there is now no version that can be called "authentic."
After his death, he was recognized as a leading European composer, and was studied by musicians of the classical era. Handel mixed the rich traditions of improvisation and counterpoint in his music. The art of musical decoration reached a very high level of development in his works. He traveled throughout Europe to study the music of other composers, and therefore had a very wide circle of acquaintances among composers of other styles.
Johann Sebastian Bach born March 21, 1685 in Eisenach, Germany. During his life, he composed more than 1,000 works in various genres, except opera. But during his lifetime he did not achieve any significant success. Moving many times, Bach replaced one not very high position after another: in Weimar he was a court musician for the Weimar Duke Johann Ernst, then became caretaker of the organ in the Church of St. Boniface in Arnstadt, a few years later accepted the position of organist in the Church of St. Blasius in Mühlhausen, where he worked for only about a year, after which he returned to Weimar, where he took the place of court organist and concert organizer. He stayed in this position for nine years. In 1717, Leopold, Duke of Anhalt-Köthen hired Bach as bandmaster, and Bach began to live and work in Köthen. In 1723 Bach moved to Leipzig, where he remained until his death in 1750. In the last years of his life and after Bach's death, his fame as a composer began to decline: his style was considered old-fashioned in comparison with the burgeoning classicism. He was better known and remembered as a performer, teacher and father of the younger Bachs, especially Carl Philipp Emmanuel, whose music was more famous.
Only the performance of the St. Matthew Passion by Mendelssohn, 79 years after the death of J. S. Bach, revived interest in his work. Now J. S. Bach is one of the most popular composers
Classicism
Classicism is a style and direction in the art of the 17th - early 19th centuries.
This word comes from the Latin classicus - exemplary. Classicism was based on the belief in the rationality of existence, in the fact that human nature is harmonious. The classics saw their ideal in ancient art, which they considered the highest form of perfection.
In the eighteenth century, a new stage in the development of social consciousness began - the Age of Enlightenment. The old social order is being destroyed; the ideas of respect for human dignity, freedom and happiness acquire paramount importance; the individual gains independence and maturity, uses his intelligence and critical thinking. The ideals of the Baroque era with its pomp, pomp and solemnity are being replaced by a new style of life based on naturalness and simplicity. The time is coming for the idealistic views of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, calling for a return to nature, to natural virtue and freedom. Along with nature, Antiquity is idealized, since it was believed that it was during Antiquity that people managed to realize all human aspirations. Ancient art is called classical, it is recognized as exemplary, the most truthful, perfect, harmonious and, unlike the art of the Baroque era, is considered simple and understandable. The focus, along with other important aspects, is education, the position of the common people in the social order, genius as a human property.

Reason reigns in art too. Wanting to emphasize the high purpose of art, its social and civic role, the French enlightenment philosopher Denis Diderot wrote: “Every work of sculpture or painting should express some great rule of life, should teach.”

The theater was at the same time a textbook of life, and life itself. In addition, in the theater the action is highly ordered and measured; it is divided into acts and scenes, which, in turn, are divided into individual replicas of the characters, creating the ideal of art so dear to the 18th century, where everything is in its place and subject to logical laws.
The music of classicism is extremely theatrical; it seems to copy the art of theater, imitate it.
Dividing a classical sonata and symphony into large sections - parts, in each of which there are many musical "events" - is similar to dividing a play into actions and scenes.
In the music of the classical age, a plot is often implied, a certain action that unfolds before the listeners in the same way as a theatrical action unfolds before the audience.
The listener just has to turn on his imagination and recognize the characters of a classic comedy or tragedy in the “musical clothes”.
The art of theater also helps explain the great changes in the performance of music that took place in the 18th century. Previously, the main place where music sounded was the temple: in it, a person was below, in a huge space, where music seemed to help him look up and devote his thoughts to God. Now, in the 18th century, music is heard in an aristocratic salon, in the ballroom of a noble estate or in a city square. The listener of the Age of Enlightenment seems to treat music on a first-name basis and no longer experiences the delight and timidity that it inspired in him when it sounded in church.
The music no longer has the powerful, solemn sound of the organ, and the role of the choir has diminished. Music of the classical style sounds light, it has much less sounds, as if it “weighs less” than the heavy, multi-layered music of the past. The sound of the organ and choir was replaced by the sound of a symphony orchestra; sublime arias gave way to light, rhythmic and danceable music.
Thanks to the boundless faith in the capabilities of the human mind and the power of knowledge, the 18th century began to be called the Age of Reason or the Age of Enlightenment.
The heyday of Classicism began in the 80s of the eighteenth century. In 1781, J. Haydn created several innovative works, including his String Quartet op. 33; The premiere of V.A.’s opera is taking place. Mozart's "The Abduction from the Seraglio"; F. Schiller's drama "The Robbers" and I. Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason" are published.

The brightest representatives of the classical period are the composers of the Vienna Classical School Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven. Their art admires the perfection of compositional technique, the humanistic orientation of creativity and the desire, especially noticeable in the music of W. A. ​​Mozart, to display perfect beauty through the means of music.

The very concept of the Vienna Classical School arose soon after the death of L. Beethoven. Classical art is distinguished by a delicate balance between feelings and reason, form and content. The music of the Renaissance reflected the spirit and breath of its era; in the Baroque era, the subject of display in music was the human condition; the music of the Classical era glorifies the actions and deeds of man, the emotions and feelings he experiences, the attentive and holistic human mind.

Ludwig Van Beethoven(1770–1827)
German composer often considered the greatest composer of all time.
His work is classified as both classicism and romanticism.
Unlike his predecessor Mozart, Beethoven had difficulty composing. Beethoven's notebooks show how gradually, step by step, a grandiose composition emerges from uncertain sketches, marked by a convincing logic of construction and rare beauty. It is logic that is the main source of Beethoven's greatness, his incomparable ability to organize contrasting elements into a monolithic whole. Beethoven erases traditional caesuras between sections of form, avoids symmetry, merges parts of the cycle, and develops extended constructions from thematic and rhythmic motifs, which at first glance do not contain anything interesting. In other words, Beethoven creates musical space with the power of his mind, his own will. He anticipated and created those artistic movements that became decisive for the musical art of the 19th century.

Romanticism.
covers roughly the years 1800-1910
Romantic composers tried to express the depth and richness of a person’s inner world with the help of musical means. The music becomes more prominent and individual. Song genres are being developed, including ballads.
The main representatives of romanticism in music are: Austria - Franz Schubert ; in Germany - Ernest Theodor Hoffmann, Carl Maria Weber, Richard Wagner, Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, Ludwig Spohr; V
etc.............

The musical art of the Middle Ages developed over more than 1000 years. This is a tense and contradictory stage in the evolution of musical thinking - from monody (one-voice) to the most complex polyphony. During the Middle Ages, many European musical instruments were improved, genres of both church and secular music were formed, and famous European music schools emerged: Dutch, French, German, Italian, Spanish, etc.

In the Middle Ages there were two main directions in the development of music: sacred music and secular, entertainment. At the same time, secular music was condemned by religion and was considered a “devilish obsession.”

Music was one of the instruments of religion, an “improvised” means that served the purposes of the church, as well as one of the exact sciences. Music was placed along with mathematics, rhetoric, logic, geometry, astronomy and grammar. The Church developed singing and composing schools with an emphasis on numerical musical aesthetics (for scientists of that era, music was the projection of numbers onto sound matter). This was also influenced by late Hellenism, the ideas of Pythagoras and Plato. With this approach, music had no independent meaning; it was an allegory of higher, divine music.

So, music was divided into 3 types:

  • World music is the music of the spheres and planets. According to the musical-numerical aesthetics of the Middle Ages, each planet of the solar system was endowed with its own sound, tone, and the movement of the planets created celestial music. In addition to the planets, the seasons were also given their own tone.
  • Human music - every organ, part of the body, the soul of a person was endowed with its own sound, which formed a harmonious consonance.
  • Instrumental music is the art of playing instruments, music for entertainment, the lowest type of hierarchy.

Sacred music was vocal, choral, and secular music was instrumental-vocal. Instrumental music was considered light, frivolous, and music theorists of that era did not take it seriously. Although the minstrel craft required great performing skills from the musicians.

The period of transition from the Middle Ages to the modern era in Europe, which lasted almost two and a half centuries. During this period, significant changes occurred in many areas of life; Science and art experienced rapid flourishing. The Renaissance period is divided into many components and phases of development. Various superstitions are also associated with it, which are so firmly rooted that even today it takes considerable effort to refute them.

  • The first and, probably, main misconception is to consider (like many ideologists of the Renaissance) the Renaissance as precisely a revival, a resurrection of culture and civilization, which came after a long period of barbaric “Middle Ages”, a dark time, a period of rupture in the development of culture. This prejudice is based on complete ignorance of the Middle Ages and the close connection between it and the Renaissance; As an example, it will suffice to name two completely different areas - poetry and economic life. Dante lived in the 13th century, i.e. at the culmination of the Middle Ages, Petrarch - in the XIV. As for economic life, its true renaissance also occurred in the 13th century, a time of rapid development of trade and banking. They say that we owe the Renaissance to the rediscovery of ancient authors, but this is also a superstition. It is known that during this period only two ancient Greek manuscripts were discovered, the rest were already in the West (mainly in France), because Western Europe experienced a return to antiquity associated with an interest in man and nature in the 12th and 13th centuries.
  • The second superstition is associated with the confusion of two components of the Renaissance, opposite to each other, namely the so-called humanism and the new natural science. Humanism is hostile to all logic, all reason, all natural science, which it considers “mechanical” work, unworthy of a cultured person called to be a writer, rhetorician, politician. The figure of the Renaissance man, who combines both Erasmus of Rotterdam and Galileo, is mythical, and belief in a single image of the world inherent in the Renaissance is nothing more than superstition.
  • The third prejudice is the praise of Renaissance philosophy as “great” in comparison with the scholasticism that preceded it.

In fact, with the exception of Nicholas of Cusa (far from the spirit of the Renaissance) and Galileo (who lived at the end of the Renaissance), the philosophers of the Renaissance, according to Kristeller, were neither good nor bad - they were not philosophers at all. Many of them were outstanding writers, scientists, experts on ancient texts, famous for their mocking and sharp mind, and literary skill. But they had almost nothing to do with philosophy. Thus, to contrast them with the thinkers of the Middle Ages is pure superstition.

    • Another misconception is to consider the Renaissance a violent revolution, a complete break with the past. Indeed, profound changes take place during this period, but they are all organically connected with the past, and in any case their origins can be found in the Middle Ages. These changes have such deep roots in the past that one of the greatest specialists on the Renaissance, Huizinga, had every reason to call this era the “autumn of the Middle Ages.”

Finally, the opinion that people who lived during the Renaissance, at least most of them, were Protestants, monists, atheists or rationalists in spirit is also a superstition. In fact, the vast majority of famous representatives of the Renaissance, and in the field of philosophy almost everyone, from Leonardo and Ficino to Galileo and Campanella, were Catholics, often ardent supporters and defenders of the Catholic faith. Thus, Marsilio Ficino, at the age of 40, accepted the Christian faith and created Catholic apologetics of the New Age.

The medieval music theorist Guido Aretinsky (late 10th century) gives the following definition of music:

“Music is the movement of vocal sounds.”

In this definition, the medieval music theorist expressed the attitude towards the music of the entire European musical culture of that era.

Musical genres of church and secular music.

The source of sacred music of the Middle Ages was the monastic environment. The chants were learned by ear in singing schools and disseminated among the church community. In view of the emergence of a wide variety of chants, the Catholic Church decided to canonize and regulate chants that reflect the unity of Christian doctrine.

Thus, a chorale appeared, which became the personification of the church musical tradition. On its basis, other genres emerged, created specifically for certain holidays and services.

Sacred music of the Middle Ages is represented by the following genres: Chorale, Gregorian chant - a single-voice religious chant in Latin, clearly regulated, performed by a choir, some sections by a soloist

      • The Mass is the main divine service of the Catholic Church, consisting of 5 stable parts (ordinary) - I. Kyrie eleison (Lord, have mercy), II. Gloria (glory), III. Credo (I believe), IV. Sanctus (holy), V. Agnus Dei (lamb of God).
      • Liturgy, liturgical drama - an Easter or Christmas service, where Gregorian chants alternated with non-canonized melodies-tropes, the liturgies were performed by the choir, the parts of the characters (Mary, the Evangelist) were performed by soloists, sometimes some semblance of costumes appeared
      • Mystery - liturgical drama with extensive stage action and costumes
      • Rondel (rondo, ru) - a polyphonic genre of the mature and late Middle Ages, relied on the author's melody (as opposed to the canonized chorale), which was performed in an improvisational manner by soloists who took turns (early form of canon)
      • Proprium - part of the genre of the mass, changing depending on the church calendar (in contrast to the unchanged part of the mass - the ordinarium)
      • Antiphon is the most ancient genre of choral church music, based on the alternation of parts by two choral groups

Samples of church music:

1) Chant by kyrie eleyson

2) Sequence victimae Pashali

The secular music of the Middle Ages was mainly the music of traveling musicians and was characterized by freedom, individuality and emotionality. Also, secular music was part of the courtly, knightly culture of the feudal lords. Since the code prescribed the knight refined manners, generosity, magnanimity, and duties to serve the Beautiful Lady, these aspects could not help but be reflected in the songs of the troubadours and minnesingers.

Secular music was performed by mimes, jugglers, troubadours or trouvères, minstrels (in France), minnesingers, shpilmans (in German countries), hoglars (in Spain), buffoons (in Rus'). These artists had to not only be able to sing, act and dance, but also be able to perform circus performances, magic tricks, theatrical scenes, and had to entertain the audience in other ways.
Due to the fact that music was one of the sciences and was taught at Universities, feudal lords and noble people who received an education could apply their knowledge in art.
Thus, music also developed in the court environment. In contrast to Christian asceticism, knightly music glorified sensual love and the ideal of the Beautiful Lady. Among the nobility, the following were known as musicians: Guillaume VII, Count of Poitiers, Duke of Aquitaine, Jean of Brienne - King of Jerusalem, Pierre Moclair - Duke of Brittany, Thibault of Champagne - King of Navarre.

The main features and characteristics of secular music of the Middle Ages:

      • is based on folklore, performed not in Latin, but in native languages, dialects,
      • Notation is not used among traveling artists; music is an oral tradition (later, musical writing developed in the court environment)
      • the main theme is the image of man in all the diversity of his earthly life, idealized sensual love
      • monophony - as a way of expressing individual feelings in poetic and song form
      • vocal-instrumental performance, the role of instruments is not yet very high, mainly introductions, interludes and codas were instrumental
      • the melody was varied, but the rhythm was canonized - this was influenced by church music; there were only 6 varieties of rhythm (rhythmic modes), and each of them had a strictly figurative content

Trouvères, troubadours and minnesingers, playing courtly knightly music, created their own original genres:

      • “Weaving” and “May” songs
      • Rondo - a form based on a repeated refrain
      • Ballad - text-musical song form
      • Virele - an old French poetic form with a three-line stanza (the third line is shortened), the same rhyme and chorus
      • Heroic epic (“The Song of Roland”, “The Song of the Nibelungs”)
      • Songs of the Crusaders (songs of Palestine)
      • Canzona (the Minnesingers called it alba) - a love, lyrical song

Thanks to the development of urban culture in the X - XI centuries. secular art began to develop more actively. Traveling musicians are increasingly choosing a sedentary lifestyle and populating entire city blocks.

It is interesting that wandering musicians by the 12th - 13th centuries. return to spiritual themes. The transition from Latin to local languages ​​and the enormous popularity of these performers allowed them to take part in spiritual performances in the cathedrals of Strasbourg, Rouen, and Reims. Cambrai. Over time, some traveling musicians received the right to organize performances in the castles of the nobility and at the courts of France, England, Sicily and other countries.

By the 12th - 13th centuries, fugitive monks, wandering students, people from the lower strata of the clergy - vagantes and goliards - appeared among the wandering musicians.

Sedentary musicians formed entire musical guilds in medieval cities - the Brotherhood of Saint Julien (Paris, 1321), the Brotherhood of Saint Nicholas (Vienna, 1288). The goals of these associations were to protect the rights of musicians, preserve and transmit professional traditions.

In the XIII - XVI centuries. New genres are formed, which further develop in the era of Ars Nova:

      • Motet (from French - “word”) is a polyphonic genre, distinguished by the melodic dissimilarity of voices that simultaneously intoned different texts, sometimes even in different languages; it could have both secular and spiritual content
      • Madrigal (from Italian - “song in the native language”, i.e. Italian) - love-lyrical, pastoral songs,
      • Caccia (from Italian - “hunting”) is a vocal piece on the theme of hunting.

Secular music of troubadours and professional composers.

Additional information:

In our information age, the age of high technology, we often forget about enduring spiritual values. One of these values ​​is classical music - the spiritual heritage of our ancestors. What is classical music, why does modern man need it? Why do many people think this is very boring? Let's try to understand these difficult issues. You can often hear the opinion that classical music is supposedly music that was written a long time ago. This is not so, since this concept means all the best that has been created in the world of music over the entire existence of human civilization. Beethoven's sonata, created in the 18th century, and Sviridov's romance, written 40 years ago, are all classics! The main thing is that this music has stood the test of time. Both in Beethoven’s time and now there are art dealers producing low-grade musical products. This product deteriorates very quickly, but true art becomes more and more beautiful every day.

Appearance of notes

Writing, the great invention of mankind, made it possible to accumulate and transmit thoughts, ideas and impressions to future generations. Another invention, no less great, musical notation, made it possible to transmit sounds and music to descendants. Before notes, European music used special signs - neumes.

The inventor of the modern system of musical notation is the Benedictine monk Guido Aretino (Guido d'Arezzo) (990-1050). Arezzo is a small town in Tuscany, not far from Florence. In the local monastery, Brother Guido taught singers to perform church chants. This was not an easy and long task. All knowledge and skills were transmitted orally in direct communication. The singers, under the guidance of the teacher and in his voice, sequentially learned each hymn and each hymn of the Catholic Mass. Therefore, the full “course of training” took about 10 years.

Guido Arettini began to mark sounds with notes (from the Latin word nota - sign). The notes, shaded squares, were placed on a staff consisting of four parallel lines. Now there are five of these lines, and notes are represented by circles, but the principle introduced by Guido has remained unchanged. Higher notes are represented on a higher ruler. There are seven notes, they form an octave.

Guido gave a name to each of the seven notes of the octave: ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si. These are the first syllables of the hymn of St. John. Each line of this hymn is sung a tone higher than the previous one.

The notes of the next octave are called the same, but are sung in a higher or lower voice. When moving from one octave to another, the frequency of the sound denoted by the same note increases or decreases by half. For example, musical instruments are tuned to the note A of the first octave. This note has a frequency of 440 Hz. The note A of the next, second, octave will correspond to a frequency of 880 Hz.

The names of all notes, except the first one, end with a vowel sound, making them easy to sing. The syllable ut is closed and it is impossible to sing it like the others. Therefore, the name of the first note of the octave, ut, was replaced in the sixteenth century by do (most likely from the Latin word Dominus - Lord). The last note of the octave, si, is an abbreviation of the two words of the last line of the hymn, Sancte Ioannes. In English-speaking countries, the name of the note “B” was replaced by “Ti” to avoid confusion with the letter C, also used in musical notation.

Having invented notes, Guido taught the singers this unique alphabet, and also taught them to sing from notes. That is, what is called solfeggio in modern music schools. Now it was enough to write down the entire mass in notes, and the singers could sing the desired melody themselves. There was no longer a need to teach everyone every song personally. Guido only had to control the process. The training time for singers has been reduced by five times. Instead of ten years - two years!

Memorial plaque in Arezzo on Via Ricasolli on the house where Guido was born. It depicts square notes.

It must be said that the monk Guido from Arezzo was not the first to come up with the idea of ​​recording music using signs. Before him, in Western Europe there already existed a system of neumes (from the Greek word “pneumo” - breath), icons placed above the text of the psalms to indicate the rise or fall of the tone of the song. In Rus', for the same purpose, they used their own system of “hooks” or “banners”.

Guido Aretinsky's square notes, placed on four lines of the staff, turned out to be the simplest and most convenient system for recording music. Thanks to her, musical notation spread throughout the world. Music left the confines of the church and went first to the palaces of rulers and nobles, and then to theaters, concert halls and city squares, becoming the property of all.

What is fret?

Modes are one of the central terms in music theory. Understanding how they are built and skillfully using them open up unlimited possibilities for the musician. And it is often impossible to explain exactly how an interesting transition is created in a particular composition - if a person does not understand what a mode is. But there’s a catch: the term “mode” is used by the musicians themselves, often meaning not the same thing. Why is this so? And what is okay anyway? The confusion resulted from the fact that this word had very different meanings in different eras.

We do not realize how much our perception is educated and tied to classical music. (Whereas the concept of “modern music” is a departure from classical principles). The era of classicism is a great historical break in the human perception of the world. After the Middle Ages, people discovered ancient art and became fascinated by it. Any work of classicism is built on strict canons, thereby revealing the harmony and logic of the universe itself. Classicism created structural order - a clear hierarchy of higher and lower, main and secondary, central and subordinate. Therefore, for example, starting with Viennese classics and romantic music, we think in the “major-minor” system. What is it and how does it affect our perception?

Major and minor are tonal modes. A tonal mode is a certain system of relationships between tones. What does it mean? What is tone? Let's try to figure it out. Suppose you have a piano in front of you: look at the keyboard: the usual do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-si, 7 white keys and between them 5 more black ones, 12 in total. The distance between each two of them is a semitone. Between the adjacent black and white there is always a halftone. Between adjacent whites there is a tone (there are exceptions of mi-fa, and si-do are semitones).

Any set of tones and semitones is a scale. In the era of classicism, they began to build it with strict subordination of all tones to the tonic - the main tone. This is a major or minor mode. All tonal music (all classical music) is built precisely on the relationship between the main and subordinate harmonies. By ear, we intuitively distinguish between major and minor by the way they are colored - “joyful” or “sad.” An alternating mode is when one piece simultaneously contains both major and minor features. But they have a common principle - tonal.

However, this principle is not the only possible one. Before the era of classicism, when everything was finally ordered into a harmonious system of tonalities, musical thinking was different. Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, Locrian... These are the octave modes of the Greeks. There were also church modes of Gregorian music. All these are modal modes. They composed music in antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the modal eastern musical tradition (Indian ragas or Arabic maqam, for example). In the music of Renaissance Europe, modality also prevailed.

What is the main difference from the tonal look we are used to? In tonal modes there is a strict distinction between the functions of the main harmonies and chords, but in modal music they are much more blurred. For the modal mode, the scale itself as a whole is important - and the meanings and colors that it can bring to music. That is why we easily distinguish Indian music from medieval chorales by ear - by certain harmonies and musical moves.

By the 20th century, composers seemed to have tried every sound option within tonal music. “I’m bored, demon!” they said, and in search of new colors they turned to the old - modal turns and moves. Thus a new modality arose. New modes have appeared in modern music - for example, blues. Moreover, a special genre arose - modal jazz. Miles Davis, for example, called modal music “a deviation from the normal seven-note scale, with each note seemingly out of focus.” And he said that “by going in this direction, you are going to infinity.” The point is that tonal and modal principles are not mutually exclusive. In one play their characteristics may be mixed. Modality is like another layer that is superimposed on the “major/minor” we are used to. And the use of different modal modes changes the color of the music: for example, the turns of the Phrygian mode are gloomy, because its scale is mainly composed of lower degrees. Knowing these modal features can help you achieve an interesting sound if you write music.

Color, mood, character - these are the signs of harmony that we hear, but often do not realize it. Often in songs it is modal phrases that catch our attention - because they are unusual. An ear trained on classical music recognizes this departure from everyday life. All this and much more opens up when you understand the language of music.

The professional musical culture of the Middle Ages in Europe was associated primarily with the church, that is, with the area of ​​cult music. Full of religiosity, art is canonical and dogmatic, but, nevertheless, it is not frozen; it is turned from worldly vanity to the detached world of serving the Lord. However, along with such “higher” music, there was folklore, the work of wandering musicians, as well as a noble knightly culture.

Sacred musical culture of the early Middle Ages

In the early Middle Ages, professional music was heard only in cathedrals and the singing schools that were attached to them. The center of the musical culture of the Middle Ages in Western Europe was the capital of Italy - Rome - the very city where the “supreme church authorities” were located.

In 590-604, Pope Gregory I carried out a reform of religious singing. He organized and collected various chants in the collection “Gregorian Antiphonary”. Thanks to Gregory I, a direction called Gregorian chant was formed in Western European sacred music.

Chorale- This is, as a rule, a one-voice chant, which reflects the centuries-old traditions of European and Middle Eastern peoples. It was this smooth monophonic melody that was intended to guide parishioners to comprehend the foundations of Catholicism and accept a single will. The chorale was mainly performed by a choir, and only some parts by soloists.

The basis of the Gregorian chant was a progressive movement along the sounds of diatonic modes, but sometimes in the same chant there were also slow, severe psalmodies and melismatic chants of individual syllables.

The performance of such melodies was not trusted to just anyone, as it required professional vocal skills from the singers. Just like the music, the text of the chants, in a Latin language incomprehensible to many parishioners, evokes humility, detachment from reality, and contemplation. Often, the dependence on following the text also determined the rhythmic design of the music. Gregorian chant cannot be taken as ideal music; it is rather a chant of a prayer text.

Mass- the main genre of composer music of the Middle Ages

Catholic mass - the main worship service of the church. It combines such types of Gregorian chant as:

  • antiphonal (when two choirs sing alternately);
  • responsor (alternately singing soloists and choir).

The community took part only in the singing of common prayers.
Later, in the 12th century. hymns (psalms), sequences, and paths appeared in the mass. They were additional texts that had a rhyme (as opposed to the main chorale) and a special tune. These religious rhyming texts were much better remembered by parishioners. Singing along with the monks, they varied the melody, and folk elements began to seep into sacred music and served as an occasion for original creativity (Notker Zaika and Tokelon monk - St. Golen monastery). Later, these tunes completely replaced the psalmodic parts and significantly enriched the sound of Gregorian chant.

The first examples of polyphony came from the monasteries, such as organum - movement in parallel fourths or fifths, gimel, faubourdon - movement in sixth chords, conduction. Representatives of such music are composers Leonin and Perotin (Notre Dame Cathedral - XII-XIII centuries).

Secular musical culture of the Middle Ages

The secular side of the musical culture of the Middle Ages was represented by: in France - jugglers, mimes, minstrels , in Germany – stilettos, in Spain – hoglars, in Rus' - buffoons. All of them were traveling artists and combined in their work playing instruments, singing, dancing, magic, puppet theater, and circus art.

Another component of secular music was knightly music, the so-called courtly culture . The formed special knightly code stated that each of the knights must have not only courage and bravery, but also refined manners, education and be devoted to the Beautiful Lady. All these aspects of the life of knights are reflected in the works troubadours(southern France - Provence), Trouvères(northern France), Minnesingers(Germany).

Their work is presented mainly in love lyrics, the most common genre of which was the canzona (albs - “Morning Songs” among the Minnesingers). Widely using the experience of troubadours, trouvères created their own genres: “May songs”, “weaving songs”.

The most important area of ​​musical genres of representatives of courtly culture were song and dance genres, such as rondo, virele, ballad, and heroic epic. The role of instruments was very insignificant; it was reduced to framing vocal melodies with an introduction, interlude, and postlude.

Mature Middle Ages XI-XIII centuries.

A characteristic feature of the mature Middle Ages is the development burgher culture . Its orientation was anti-churchism, free-thinking, and connection with humorous and carnival folklore. New genres of polyphony are appearing: the motet, which is characterized by melodic dissimilarity of voices; moreover, in the motet different texts are sung simultaneously and even in different languages; madrigal is a song in the native language (Italian), caccia is a vocal piece with text describing a hunt.

From the 12th century, vagantes and goliards joined folk art, who, unlike the others, were literate. Universities became carriers of the musical culture of the Middle Ages. Since the mode system of the Middle Ages was developed by representatives of sacred music, they began to be called church modes (Ionian mode, Aeolian mode).

The doctrine of hexachords was also put forward - only 6 steps were used in modes. Monk Guido Aretinsky made a more advanced system of notating notes, which consisted of the presence of 4 lines, between which there was a third ratio and a key sign or coloring of the lines. He also introduced a syllabic name for the steps, that is, the height of the steps began to be indicated by alphabetic signs.

Ars Nova XIII-XV centuries.

The transition period between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance was the 14th century. This period in France and Italy was called Ars Nova, that is, “new art.” The time has come for new experiments in art. Composers began to compose works whose rhythm became much more complex than the previous ones (Philippe de Vitry).

Also, unlike sacred music, semitones were introduced here, as a result of which random increases and decreases in tones began to occur, but this is not yet modulation. As a result of such experiments, interesting works were obtained, but not always harmonious. The most brilliant experimental musician of that time was Solazh. The musical culture of the Middle Ages was more developed in comparison with the culture of the Ancient world, despite the limitations of means, and contained the prerequisites for the flourishing of music during the Renaissance.

Abstract on the subject “Music”, grade 7

During the Middle Ages, a new type of musical culture emerged in Europe - feudal, combining professional art, amateur music-making and folklore. Since the church dominates in all areas of spiritual life, the basis of professional musical art is the activity of musicians in churches and monasteries. Secular professional art was initially represented only by singers who created and performed epic tales at court, in the houses of the nobility, among warriors, etc. (bards, skalds, etc.). Over time, amateur and semi-professional forms of music-making of chivalry developed: in France - the art of troubadours and trouvères (Adam de la Halle, XIII century), in Germany - minnesingers (Wolfram von Eschenbach, Walter von der Vogelweide, XII-XIII centuries), as well as urban artisans. In feudal castles and cities, all kinds of genres, genres and forms of songs are cultivated (epic, “dawn”, rondo, ballads, etc.).

New musical instruments are coming into everyday life, including those that came from the East (viol, lute, etc.), and ensembles (of unstable composition) are emerging. Folklore flourishes among peasants. There are also “folk professionals”: ​​storytellers, traveling artists (jugglers, mimes, minstrels, shpilmans, buffoons). Music performs mainly applied and spiritual-practical functions. Creativity appears in unity with performance (usually in one person) and with perception. Collectivity dominates both in the content of music and in its form; the individual principle is subordinate to the general one, without standing out from it (a master musician is the best representative of the community). Strict tradition and canonicity reign in everything. The consolidation, preservation and spread of traditions and standards (but also their gradual updating) was facilitated by the transition from neumas, which only approximately indicated the nature of the melodic movement, to linear notation (Guido d'Arezzo, XI century), which made it possible to accurately record the pitch of tones, and then their duration.

Gradually, although slowly, the content of music, its genres, forms, and means of expression are enriched. In Western Europe from the 6th-7th centuries. A strictly regulated system of one-voice (monodic) church music based on diatonic modes (Gregorian chant) was emerging, combining recitation (psalmody) and singing (hymns). At the turn of the 1st and 2nd millennia, polyphony began to emerge. New vocal (choral) and vocal-instrumental (choir and organ) genres are being formed: organum, motet, conduction, then mass. In France, in the 12th century, the first composer (creative) school was formed at Notre Dame Cathedral (Leonin, Perotin). At the turn of the Renaissance (ars nova style in France and Italy, XIV century) in professional music, monophony is replaced by polyphony, music begins to gradually free itself from purely practical functions (service of church rites), the importance of secular genres, including songs, increases in it (Guillaume de Masho). Many musicologists (including Pierre Aubry) devoted their works to medieval music in Europe.

From the 12th century in art, the antithesis characteristic of the aesthetics of the Middle Ages is reflected, when sacred music - the “new song” - is contrasted with “old”, that is, pagan music. At the same time, instrumental music in both the Western and Eastern Christian traditions was considered a less worthy phenomenon than singing.

"Maastricht Book of Hours", Maastricht rite. First quarter of the 14th century. Netherlands, Liege. British Library. Stowe MS 17, f.160r / Detail of a miniature from the Maastricht Hours, Netherlands (Liège), 1st quarter of the 14th century, Stowe MS 17, f.160r.

Music is inseparable from the holidays. Traveling actors—professional entertainers and entertainers—were associated with holidays in medieval society. People of this craft, who gained popular love, were called differently in written monuments. Church authors traditionally used classical ancient Roman names: mime / mimus, pantomime / pantomimus, histrion / histrio. The Latin term joculator was generally accepted - joker, joker, joker. Representatives of the entertainment class were called dancers /saltator; jesters /balatro, scurra; musicians /musicus. Musicians were distinguished by types of instruments: citharista, cymbalista, etc. The French name “jongler” /jongleur became especially widespread; in Spain it corresponded to the word “huglar” /junglar; in Germany - “Spielmann”, in Rus' - “buffoon”. All these names are practically synonymous.

About medieval musicians and music - briefly and fragmentarily.


2.

Maastricht Book of Hours, BL Stowe MS 17, f.269v

Illustrations - from a Dutch manuscript of the first quarter of the 14th century - "Maastricht Book of Hours" in the British Library. Images of marginal borders allow us to judge the structure of musical instruments and the place of music in life.

Since the 13th century, wandering musicians have increasingly flocked to castles and cities. Together with knights and representatives of the clergy, court minstrels surround their crowned patrons. Musicians and singers are indispensable participants in the amusements of the inhabitants of knightly castles, companions of gentlemen and ladies in love.

3.

f.192v

There the trumpets and trombones roared like thunder,
And the flutes and pipes rang like silver,
The sound of harps and violins accompanied the singing,
And the singers received many new dresses for their zeal.

[Kudruna, German epic poem of the 13th century]

4.

f.61v

Theoretical and practical music was included in the training program of the ideal knight; it was considered a noble, refined pastime. They especially loved the melodious viol with its delicate chords and the melodic harp. The vocal solo was accompanied by playing the viol and harp not only by professional jugglers, but also by famous poets and singers:

“Tristram was a very capable student and soon mastered the seven major arts and many languages ​​to perfection. Then he studied seven types of music and became famous as a famous musician who had no equal."

["The Saga of Tristram and Ysonda", 1226]

5.


f.173v

In all literary versions of the legend, Tristan and Isolde are skilled harpers:

When he sang, she played,
Then she replaced him...
And if one sang, the other
He hit the harp with his hand.
And singing, full of melancholy,
And the sounds of strings from under your hand
They converged in the air and there
They took off to the skies together.

[Gottfried of Strasbourg. Tristan. First quarter of the 13th century]

6.


f.134r

From the “biographies” of Provençal troubadours it is known that some of them improvised on instruments and were then called “violar”.

7.


f.46r

Holy Roman Emperor of the German Nation Frederick II Staufen (1194-1250) “played various instruments and was trained in singing”

8.

f.103r

Women also played harps, viols and other instruments, usually jugglers, and occasionally girls from noble families and even high-ranking persons.

Thus, the French court poet of the 12th century. sang the vielist queen: “The queen sings sweetly, her song merges with the instrument. The songs are good, the hands are beautiful, the voice is gentle, the sounds are quiet.”

9.


f.169v

Musical instruments were varied and gradually improved. Related instruments of the same family formed many varieties. There was no strict unification: their shapes and sizes largely depended on the wishes of the master manufacturer. In written sources, identical instruments often had different names or, conversely, different types were hidden under the same names.

The images of musical instruments are not related to the text - I am not an expert in this matter.

10.


f.178v

The group of stringed instruments was divided into families of bowed, lute and harp instruments. The strings were made from twisted sheep intestines, horsehair or silk threads. From the 13th century they were increasingly made from copper, steel and even silver.

Stringed instruments, which had the advantage of a sliding sound with all semitones, were best suited to accompany the voice.

The Parisian master of music of the 13th century, John de Grocheo/Grocheio, put the viol in first place among strings: on it “all musical forms” are conveyed more subtly, including dance ones

11.

f.172r

Depicting the court celebration in the epic “Wilhelm von Wenden” (1290), the German poet Ulrich von Eschenbach especially highlighted the viela:

Of all the things I've heard so far,
The viela is worthy only of praise;
It's good for everyone to listen to it.
If your heart is wounded,
Then this torment will be healed
From the gentle sweetness of the sound.

Music Encyclopedia [M.: Soviet Encyclopedia, Soviet composer. Ed. Yu. V. Keldysh. 1973-1982] reports that viela is one of the common names for medieval stringed bowed instruments. I don’t know what Ulrich von Eschenbach meant.

12.

f.219v. Click on the picture for a larger tool

14.

f.216v

In the ideas of people of the Middle Ages, instrumental music was multi-meaningful, had polar qualities and evoked directly opposite emotions.

“It moves some to empty gaiety, others to pure, tender joy, and often to holy tears.” [Petrarch].

15.

f.211v

It was believed that well-behaved and restrained music, softening morals, introduces souls to divine harmony and makes it easier to comprehend the mysteries of faith.

16.


f.236v

On the contrary, exciting orgiastic melodies serve to corrupt the human race, leading to the violation of Christ's commandments and ultimate condemnation. Through unbridled music many vices penetrate the heart.

17.


f.144v

Church hierarchs followed the teachings of Plato and Boethius, who clearly distinguished between the ideal, sublime “harmony of heaven” and vulgar, obscene music.

18.


f.58r

The monstrous musicians that abound in the fields of Gothic manuscripts, including the Maastricht Book of Hours, are the embodiment of the sinfulness of the craft of histrions, who were at the same time musicians, dancers, singers, animal trainers, storytellers, etc. The Histrions were declared “servants of Satan.”

19.


f.116r

Grotesque creatures play real or grotesque instruments. The irrational world of enthusiastically playing music hybrids is terrifying and funny at the same time. “Surreal” evil spirits, taking on countless guises, captivate and deceive with deceptive music.

20.


f.208v

At the beginning of the 11th century. Notker Gubasty, following Aristotle and Boethius, pointed out three qualities of a person: a rational being, a mortal being, who knows how to laugh. Notker considered a person both capable of laughter and causing laughter.

21.


f.241r

At the holidays, spectators and listeners, among others, were entertained by musical eccentrics who parodied and thereby set off the “serious” numbers.

In the hands of laughter stand-ins in the “inside-out world,” where habitual relationships are turned upside down, the most seemingly unsuitable objects for playing music began to “sound” as instruments.

22.


f.92v. The body of a dragon peeks out from under the clothes of a musician playing a rooster.

The use of objects in a role that is unusual for them is one of the techniques of slapstick comedy.

23.


f.145v

Fantastic music-making corresponded to the worldview of square festivals, when the usual boundaries between objects were erased, everything became unstable and relative.

24.

f.105v

In the views of intellectuals from the XII-XIII centuries. a certain harmony arose between the disembodied sacred spirit and the uninhibited cheerfulness. Serene, enlightened “spiritual joy”, the commandment of unceasing “rejoicing in Christ” are characteristic of the followers of Francis of Assisi. Francis believed that constant sadness pleases not God, but the devil. In Old Provençal poetry, joy is one of the highest courtly virtues. Her cult was generated by the life-affirming worldview of the troubadours. “In a multi-toned culture, serious tones sound differently: they are affected by reflexes of laughter tones, they lose their exclusivity and uniqueness, they are supplemented with a laughter aspect.”

25.

f.124v

The need to legalize laughter and jokes did not exclude the fight against them. Zealots of the faith branded jugglers as “members of the devilish community.” At the same time, they recognized that although juggling is a sad craft, since everyone needs to live, it will do, provided that decency is observed.

26.

f.220r

“Music has great power and influence on the passions of soul and body; in accordance with this, tunes or musical modes are distinguished. After all, some of them are such that by their regularity they encourage those listening to live an honest, blameless, humble and pious life.”

[Nikolai Orem. Treatise on the configuration of qualities. XIV century]

27.


f.249v

"Timpans, lutes, harps and citharas
They were heated, and couples intertwined
In a sinful dance.
It's been a game all night
Eating and drinking until the morning.
This is how they entertained mammon in the form of a swine
And they rode in the temple of Satan.”

[Chaucer. Canterbury Tales]

28.


f.245v

Secular melodies that “tickle the ear and deceive the mind, lead us away from goodness” [John Chrysostom], was regarded as a product of sinful physicality, a cunning creation of the devil. Their corrupting influence must be combated with the help of strict restrictions and prohibitions. The chaotic chaotic music of the hellish elements is part of the world’s “inside-out liturgy,” “idol worship.”

29.


f.209r

Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin (1878-1939) testifies to the tenacity of such views when he recalls the cathedral archpriest of Khlynovsk, a small town in the Saratov province.

“To us, graduates, he made an excursion into the field of art, in particular into music: “But when it starts playing, the demons will begin to stir under your feet... And if you start singing songs, then the tails of demons will come out of your throats and they will climb and climb.”

30.


f.129r

And at the other pole. Originating from the Holy Spirit, the exciting music of a high ideal, the music of the spheres was thought of as the embodiment of the unearthly harmony of the universe created by the Creator - hence the eight tones of the Gregorian chant, and as an image of harmony in the Christian church. A reasonable and proportionate combination of various sounds testified to the unity of the well-ordered city of God. The harmonious coherence of consonances symbolized the harmonious relationships of elements, seasons, etc.

The right melody delights and improves the spirit, it is “a call to an exalted way of life, instructing those who are devoted to virtue not to allow anything unmusical, discordant, discordant in their morals.” [Gregory of Nyssa, IV century]

Footnotes/Literature:
Kudruna / Ed. prepared R.V. Frenkel. M., 1983. P. 12.
The Legend of Tristan and Isolde / Ed. prepared A. D. Mikhailov. M., 1976. P. 223; P.197, 217.
Song of the Nibelungs / Transl. Yu. B. Korneeva. L., 1972. P. 212. “The sweetest tunes” of minstrels sounded in the gardens and castle halls.
Musical aesthetics of the Western European Middle Ages and Renaissance / Comp. texts by V. P. Shestakov. M., 1966. P. 242
Struve B. A. The process of formation of viols and violins. M., 1959, p. 48.
CülkeP. Mönche, Bürger, Minnesänger. Leipzig, 1975. S. 131
Darkevich V.P. Folk culture of the Middle Ages: secular festive life in the art of the 9th-16th centuries. - M.: Nauka, 1988. P. 217; 218; 223.
Aesthetics of the Renaissance / Comp. V. P. Shestakov. M., 1981. T. 1. P. 28.
Gurevich A. Ya. Problems of medieval folk culture. P. 281.
Bakhtin M. Aesthetics of verbal creativity. M., 1979. P. 339.
Petrov-Vodkin K. S. Khlynovsk. Euclidean space. Samarkand. L., 1970. P. 41.
Averintsev S.S. Poetics of early Byzantine literature. M., 1977. S. 24, 25.

Sources for the text:
Darkevich Vladislav Petrovich. Secular festive life of the Middle Ages IX-XVI centuries. Second edition, expanded; M.: Publishing house "Indrik", 2006.
Darkevich Vladislav Petrovich. Folk culture of the Middle Ages: secular festive life in the art of the 9th-16th centuries. - M.: Nauka, 1988.
V. P. Darkevich. Parody musicians in miniatures of Gothic manuscripts // “The Artistic Language of the Middle Ages”, M., “Science”, 1982.
Boethius. Instructions for music (excerpts) // "Musical aesthetics of the Western European Middle Ages and the Renaissance" M.: "Music", 1966
+ links inside the text

Other entries with illustrations from the Maastricht Book of Hours:



P.S. Marginalia - drawings in the margins. It would probably be more accurate to call some illustrations part-page miniatures.