Transcription
Hello everyone, and welcome to Keep It Classical. Today, we are going to talk about the Ars Nova movement and the Roman Catholic Mass. The term Ars Nova means "new art," in contrast with Ars Antiqua, or "antique art," referring to the Notre Dame polyphony we heard in the previous video. I have to be very careful about how I say that word, otherwise it sounds like "Arsenova," which means something very different altogether. I'll be honest, I accidentally typed in "Arsenova" into my script dozens of times while writing this episode. Also, I am well aware of my tendency to over-pronounce words and phrases from different languages, and how much that makes me sound like Alex Trebek reading clues on Jeopardy.
In Bruges, Belgium, old theme, new genre. Name the genre: Prego, Rego, Agent Court, or "Azer Cool." Improper use of hoi polloi. Liberté.
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You'll learn from if you visit Madame. 17th century, one of these gatherings. Yan, what is the salon? Salon? You, in my mind, it's better than the alternative of butchering the pronunciation altogether. Anyway, let's jump into this minefield of mispronunciation already and get started.
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Before we get into it, I have some news associated with this channel. I just started a Patreon page. Patreon is a membership platform that makes it easy for subscribers and fans to share financial support with artists and creators. So, I have sheepishly started a page, and I'm working on different perks to provide you at different levels of support. Let me know what you'd like to see, and I'll see what I can do to deliver it. Your support on Patreon helps me to keep making these high-quality educational videos and keeping them free and available to as wide an audience as possible. Please go check it out and consider becoming a patron.
In the 14th century, Europe starts to go through some tumultuous times. Bubonic plague is wiping out between an estimated 33 to 50 percent of the population. The world is entering a tiny ice age, which makes food production a challenge, and different kingdoms continue to war with each other, causing significant unrest. This doesn't sound like a time ripe for new and progressive art, and yet, for all the general instability, interest in science, writing, visual arts, and music begin to grow in a new and exciting way that set it on course for an eminent rebirth. More on that in the next video.
Part of this is what composers and theorists of the time call the Ars Nova. The Ars Nova movement is basically the music of the 14th century and embodies the development of rhythmic notation in music, which is a great leap forward for the art form. Unlike paintings, sculptures, or poetry, music is a linear art form, meaning that it's an art form in time. You can't experience the entire work of art at a glance. It is completely dependent on being played out over a given duration. Plays and films are other examples of linear art forms. How that time is divided is incredibly important, and in some cases, more important than pitch. Without rhythm, melodies and harmonies lose their definitions. I'll show you what I mean. Here is a very famous melody, but with a completely different rhythm. See if you can tell what it is. Have you figured it out? Now, here's the same melody with its original rhythms. Much easier to tell what it is, right? That's why rhythmic development is so important, and composers of the Ars Nova are finding new ways to dictate rhythm in their scores by using mensuration signs and minims, which will later become time signatures and note values. This allows composers to dictate more clearly and begins to inspire them to think as much about their vertical harmonies as they do about their horizontal melodies.
Foremost on the cutting edge is the French composer Philippe de Vitry. De Vitry was a composer, poet, and a church canon who eventually became the Bishop of Meaux. Here's an example by Philippe de Vitry. He called it "Vos qui admiramini," "Ramini gratissima virginis." And you can hear how this music takes on a new character from the Notre Dame polyphony that we heard in the previous video.
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How was this music received? Well, the reviews of the time are mixed. Of interest is a passage written by Belgian author Jacques de Liège. "I do not deny that the moderns have composed much good and beautiful music, but this is no reason why the ancients should be maligned and banished from the fellowship of singers, for one good thing does not oppose another. In a certain company, in which some able singers and judicious laymen were assembled, and who knew motets in the modern manner and some old ones were sung, I observed that even the laymen were better pleased with the ancient motets and the ancient manner than the new. And even if the new manner pleased when it was a novelty, it does so no longer, but begins to displease many." In other words, look, I got no problem with the music, but don't throw out the old stuff quite yet. And I'm not the only one who feels this way. Other people like the old stuff better, too. It just goes to show that there's always some guy around who says music was way better back in the day.
By the way, this music is really progressive for its time, and there's a lot more involved in this music that we really don't have the time to discuss. I'm not even getting into the idea of isorhythms, *punctus contra punctum*, or the fact that this piece is polytextual, because they all take more time to explain than I typically have in a regular video. And maybe that's why it wasn't received as well. Maybe contemporary audiences thought it sounded more contrived compared to the music of the past. Lots of audiences have felt this way when presented with new music.
Also important during this time is the development of music used during the Roman Catholic Mass. We talked briefly about music of the church in a previous video, but at this point, we need to go into more detail about the music used in the church's religious ceremonies. There's going to be a lot of nitty-gritty details, but bear with me. There is a reason the word "liturgy" can be defined as the order of worship. When you go to a religious ceremony or rite, what is said and the order that it is said in is defined by the liturgy of that specific religion. Every religion has a liturgy of some kind. Sometimes it's very detailed and prescribed, and other times more free and extemporaneous.
One of the ceremonies used of the Roman Catholic Church is the Mass, where the Last Supper is reenacted, and the congregation is given bread and wine called the Eucharist or Communion. Here is a basic outline of the Mass. It's divided into Introductory Rites, the Liturgy of the Word, and the Liturgy of the Eucharist. There are several parts that are either spoken, intoned, or sung. Some of these parts are different depending on what day it is or where you are in the liturgical calendar, and other parts are the same no matter what day it is. These are called the Proper, or changing parts, and the Ordinary, or the parts that don't change. In the Ordinary, there are five movements which are sung by the choir: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei.
Now, up to this point, composers have set some of these words to music and given them to the choir to sing during the service. Church choirs will sing different movements by different composers, depending on score availability and the music director's taste. Along comes Guillaume de Machaut, another French composer and clergyman, who is attributed with composing over 140 pieces of music. He becomes the first composer to write an entire setting of the five movements of the Mass Ordinary that is meant to be performed together. This work is called *Messe de Nostre Dame*. This is important because up to this point, the Mass has always been sung with a patchwork of mass movements from different composers, but now a composer has written a complete mass setting that is intended to be performed together in the same service and can be sung again, no matter what time of year it is.
Let's listen to a portion of *Messe de Nostre Dame* and listen to how the Ars Nova movement inspires Machaut's writing in setting this sacred text.
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This music might not seem that groundbreaking, but this idea of a composer writing multiple movements meant to be sung together will later inspire other composers to do the same with the Mass and inspire future multi-movement forms like cantatas, oratorios, symphonies, and string quartets. Machaut also bucked the trend of most of his contemporaries and made certain to claim authorship on almost everything he wrote. It can't be overstated how much Machaut's composition influenced future composers, including composers today, even if they don't realize it.
That's all for now. Next time, we'll talk about the beginning of the rebirth, or Renaissance. And remember, keep it classical.