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Abstract/Syllabus:

Cuthbert, Michael Scott, 21M.220 Early Music, Spring 2007. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare), http://ocw.mit.edu (Accessed 09 Jul, 2010). License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA

21M.220 Early Music

Spring 2007

Painting of a man playing a wind instrument and a woman playing a drum.
An illustration from a manuscript of the Cantigas de Santa Maria ("Songs to the Virgin Mary"), one of the largest collections of monophonic (solo) songs from the middle ages. (Image courtesy of Wikipedia.)

Course Description

This class covers the history of Western music from antiquity until approximately 1680, about 2000 years worth of music. Rather than cover each topic at the same level of depth, we will focus on four topics in particular and glue them together with a broad overview of other topics. The four topics chosen for this term are (1) chant structure, performance, and development; (2) 14th century music of Italy and France; (3) Elizabethan London; and (4) Venice in the Baroque era.

The class will also introduce many of the tools we use in studying music history such as manuscript study, original notation work (the musical equivalent of foreign language study), and historical performance practice.

Syllabus

 
 
Amazon logo Help support MIT OpenCourseWare by shopping at Amazon.com! MIT OpenCourseWare offers direct links to Amazon.com to purchase the books, and purchase and listen to sample tracks of the music cited in this course. Click on the book or CD titles and purchase the book or CD from Amazon.com, and MIT OpenCourseWare will receive up to 10% of all purchases you make. Your support will enable MIT to continue offering open access to MIT courses.

The calendar below lists topics by session.

Course Requirements

Listening

Listening as much and as well as you can is an essential part of success in this subject. Plan to spend a minimum of six hours outside of class per week reading, listening, and studying. If you cannot find six hours in your schedule you probably do not have time to take this class. The average class meeting will have about 20 minutes of listening assigned, usually in the form of several short works, many of which are too dense to get at in a first hearing. Some of the listening may be passive or familiarity listening - putting on the CDs while finishing a Chem. problem set or organizing your desk - but the majority will need to be active and without distraction. Make sure you have a place where you can do this listening undisturbed. I have tried as much as possible to get good recordings of great pieces; I hope they are enjoyable.

Writing Assignments

This subject is CI-M, requiring at least twenty pages of writing (exclusive of revisions). There will be at least two short response papers (either one page or 2-3 pages) and two major papers, first 8-15 pages, which will be revised and resubmitted, and a final paper of 10-20 pages. The papers serve three main purposes: to stimulate research interests in music before 1680, to improve your academic writing in general, and to improve your writing about music in particular.

A reminder that the MIT writing center does great work in helping improve writing (including making amazing writers even better). And, scheduling an appointment to have someone look over your work a couple of days before it's due is a wonderful incentive to actually writing before the night before.

The first paper is due on Lec #10 (with revisions due on Lec #16). The final paper is due on Lec #24.

Presentations

At least one presentation in class will be required. The length and format will depend on how many of us are in the class (i.e., it may be a shorter individual presentation or longer group presentation)

Exams

There will be two hour examinations in class (exam 1 will be held 5 days after Lec #11 and exam 2 will held 2 days after Lec #22). No assignments will be due during exam period.

Participation

Your participation (including but not limited to attendance) is important. In addition to classroom time, attendance is required at two concerts in which you are not a performer which include at least one piece (longer than 8 minutes) of a repertory is similar to that of this course (i.e., pre-1680). Only one may be a student concert. Turn in the concert program (or a stub if no program existed) and jot a paragraph about something you liked or didn't (5% total). I will announce some concerts of particular interest; Boston is an amazing town for Early Music so we should be able to find a number of great recitals.

Office of Sext

At the start of most sessions, the class will chant the Office of Sext for Tuesday (Feria Secunda ad Sextam), using appropriate chants for Lent, Passiontide, and the post-Easter season.

Office of Sext for Tuesday (Feria Secunda ad Sextam) (PDF)

One Final Requirement

It's great music, so let's enjoy it. Please let me know if you ever have concerns about the course or if you have suggestions for changes or improvements.

Grading

Grading will be calculated (approximately) as follows:


ACTIVITIES PERCENTAGES
Two papers (20% each) 40%
Two exams (20% each) 40%
Participation 20%

Other smaller assignments will be figured into either the paper grade or the exam grade. Presentations and concerts will come from the participation grade. A failing grade may be assigned for failure of any of the five components of the class.

Required Texts

Amazon logo Wright, Craig, and Bryan R. Simms. "Antiquity through the Baroque." In Music in Western Civilization. Vol. 1. Belmont, CA: Thomson/Schirmer, 2006. ISBN: 9780495008651.

Amazon logo Roden, Timothy J., Craig Wright, and Bryan R. Simms. "Antiquity through the Renaissance." In Anthology for Music in Western Civilization. Vol. A. Belmont, CA: Thomson/Schirmer, 2006. ISBN: 9780495008798. [Book and CD]

Recordings

Many listening assignments are on the CD accompanying the required text Roden, et al. Anthology for Music in Western Civilization. Vol. A.

Other selections will be from various sources placed on library reserve, including individual CDs and the Recordings to Accompany the Norton Anthology of Western Music (NAWM).

Calendar


SES # TOPICS KEY DATES
Unit 1: Introduction, chant, and medieval music
1

Introduction

Music in the medieval western church

Cycles of the day and of the year

Form of the mass and of the office

 
2

Preamble: Music in the Greek and Roman world

Mode and chant

Types of chants

Reading modern chant notation

Practice singing the office of sext

 
3

Types of chants (cont.)

Office review

Chant manuscripts and notation

Syllabic, neumatic, and melismatic chants

Hexachords and the Guidonian hand

 
4

Non-Gregorian chant

Modern chant books

Innovation in the chant repertoire (sequences, tropes)

Liturgical drama and the compositions of Hildegard of Bingham

Other chant traditions in the west and elsewhere

The unending tradition of chant

Assignment 1 due 5 days after Ses #4: Three versions of Viderunt Omnes in chant
Bridge 1: From chant to 1315
5

Secular monophony in the middle ages

Troubadours and trouvères

Court life in the later middle ages

Discussion of previous assignment

Polyphony before the Magnus Liber

Theoretical sources and prehistory

Musica Enchiriadis

Earliest practical sources

Conductus

 
6

Polyphony in Paris (Notre Dame) and in the early 13th century

Anonymous IV

Leonin and Perotin

Organum and Discant

Modal rhythm

Ars antiqua motet: Introduction

 
7

Music in the 13th and early 14th century

Motets become secular

Ars antiqua manuscripts

Instrumental music: Danses reals

Roman de Fauvel

Philippe de Vitry

Isorhythm and hocket

Listening quiz 1

Assignment 2 due: Composition of Perotin style organum
Unit 2: Music in the (mainly Italian) fourteenth century
8

Guillaume de Machaut and music in France before 1370

Machaut, poet and musician

Formes fixes

Motets and mass

Reims vs. court life

Machaut and the Gesamtausgabe

 
9

Trecento music 1

Discussion and performance of Se per dureça

Principles of Italian notation

Jacopo da Bologna and the madrigal

Francesco and the ballata

Assignment 3 due: Transcription of Se per dureça
10

Trecento music 2: New trends in our knowledge of Italian music

Squarcialupi codex

Other sources

Zachara da Teramo and the Parody mass

Johannes Ciconia and the Motet

First paper due
11

Simplicity and complexity

Keyboard music

Cantus Planus Binatim

Ars Subtilior

Assignment 4 due: Transcribe Missus ab arce
  Exam 1  
Bridge 2: The continental renaissance
12

The Renaissance and music 1420-1460

Guillaume Du Fay and his contemporaries

The English sound

Fauxbourdon

Motets and cyclic masses

Ockeghem and the canon

 
13

Vocal music: Josquin, his contemporaries, and his followers

Patronage

Documents and manuscripts

Josquin and his (or someone else's?) innovations; "Ave Maria"

"The pervasive myth of pervasive imitation"

 
14

Other innovations in continental music, 1460-1550

Palestrina and Lasso

Dance and keyboard music

Instrumental forms

French song

Protestantism and music

 
Unit 3: Elizabethan London
15

From Dunstaple to Elizabeth: Tudor England

The Elizabethan Madrigal (Weelkes, Gibbons, etc.) and its Italian predecessors

Music printing

 
16

Chapel Royal

Catholicism and Anglicanism in England (William Byrd)

Music education, instruction, and theory (Thomas Morley)

Revised paper due

Assignment 5 due: Answer a few questions about Morley's Plaine and Easie Introduction

17

Instrumental music and lute song (Doug Freundlich, guest performer/lecturer)

Dowland and lute song

Consort music

Jane Pickering lute book ("Toys;" "Maids in Constrite")

"Can she excuse?"

"Woods so Wild?" (William Byrd setting no. 30)

"Fitzwilliam virginal book"

Assignment 6 due: Maids in Constrite worksheet
18

Music in society: The cries of London

More secular music in England

More keyboard music

In Nomine music

Listening quiz 2

 
Bridge 3: Missed traditions in the late renaissance
19

Chromaticism in the late 16th-century Italian mad-rigal

The dances and writings of Michael Praetorius

Second paper assignment out
Topic 4: Music in Venice 1570-1660
20

Maestri di cappella Venice: (Rore), Williaert

(Andrea and) Giovanni Gabrieli and music in the Basilica of S. Marco

Cori spezzati. Gabrieli's music for brass

Preamble to the Baroque and the rise of a new style: Florentine Camerata; Peri, Cavalieri, etc. (early monody)

Basso Continuo

 
21 Monteverdi (1567-1642) before and in Venice  
22

Opera in Venice after Monteverdi

Barbara Strozzi

Venice's influence: Heinrich Schütz

Instrumental music in Venice

 
  Exam 2  
Conclusion: Other baroque music / music towards the end of the seventeenth century
23

Non-Venetian developments: Oratorio: Carissimi, Jephte

Jewish music published in Venice

Church music towards the end of the century

 
24 Music in the 1680s Second paper due

Readings

 
 
Amazon logo Help support MIT OpenCourseWare by shopping at Amazon.com! MIT OpenCourseWare offers direct links to Amazon.com to purchase the books cited in this course. Click on the book titles and purchase the book from Amazon.com, and MIT OpenCourseWare will receive up to 10% of all purchases you make. Your support will enable MIT to continue offering open access to MIT courses.

Required Texts

Amazon logo Wright, Craig, and Bryan R. Simms. "Antiquity through the Baroque." In Music in Western Civilization. Vol. 1. Belmont, CA: Thomson/Schirmer, 2006. ISBN: 9780495008651.

Amazon logo Roden, Timothy J., Craig Wright, and Bryan R. Simms. "Antiquity through the Renaissance." In Anthology for Music in Western Civilization. Vol. A. Belmont, CA: Thomson/Schirmer, 2006. ISBN: 9780495008798. [Book and CD]

Amazon logo Weiss, Piero, and Richard Taruskin. Music in the Western World: A History in Documents. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 1984. ISBN: 9780028729008.

Other References

Amazon logo Barker, Andrew, ed. Greek Musical Writings. Vol. 1. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1984. ISBN: 9780521235938.

Amazon logo Christensen, Thomas, ed. The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780521623711.

Amazon logo Ledger, Philip, ed. Oxford Book of English Madrigals. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1978. ISBN: 9780193436640.

Readings by Session


SES # TOPICS READINGS
Unit 1: Introduction, chant, and medieval music
1

Introduction

Music in the medieval western church

Cycles of the day and of the year

Form of the mass and of the office

 
2

Preamble: Music in the Greek and Roman world

Mode and chant

Types of chants

Reading modern chant notation

Practice singing the office of sext

Wright and Simms, pp. 0-28, esp. 6-7, 14-15, and 18-24.

Weiss and Taruskin. Plato, "Plato's Musical Idealism," pp. 6-10.

3

Types of chants (cont.)

Office review

Chant manuscripts and notation

Syllabic, neumatic, and melismatic chants

Hexachords and the Guidonian hand

Wright and Simms, pp. 28-34.
4

Non-Gregorian chant

Modern chant books

Innovation in the chant repertoire (sequences, tropes)

Liturgical drama and the compositions of Hildegard of Bingham

Other chant traditions in the west and elsewhere

The unending tradition of chant

Wright and Simms, p. 34.
Bridge 1: From chant to 1315
5

Secular monophony in the middle ages

Troubadours and trouvères

Court life in the later middle ages

Discussion of previous assignment

Polyphony before the Magnus Liber

Theoretical sources and prehistory

Musica Enchiriadis

Earliest practical sources

Conductus

Wright and Simms, pp. 41-52.
6

Polyphony in Paris (Notre Dame) and in the early 13th century

Anonymous IV

Leonin and Perotin

Organum and Discant

Modal rhythm

Ars antiqua motet: Introduction

Wright and Simms, pp. 52-70.

7

Music in the 13th and early 14th century

Motets become secular

Ars antiqua manuscripts

Instrumental music: Danses reals

Roman de Fauvel

Philippe de Vitry

Isorhythm and hocket

Listening quiz 1

Wright and Simms, chapters 10-11.
Unit 2: Music in the (mainly Italian) fourteenth century
8

Guillaume de Machaut and music in France before 1370

Machaut, poet and musician

Formes fixes

Motets and mass

Reims vs. court life

Machaut and the Gesamtausgabe

Wright and Simms, chapter 12.
9

Trecento music 1

Discussion and performance of Se per dureça

Principles of Italian notation

Jacopo da Bologna and the madrigal

Francesco and the ballata

Wright and Simms:

"Musical Interlude 1: From Medieval Manuscript to Modern Performance," pp. 95-101.

Chapter 14, pp. 102-110.

Amazon logo Long, Michael. "Trecento Italy." In Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Edited by James McKinnon. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1991, pp. 241-268. ISBN: 9780130361615.

10

Trecento music 2: New trends in our knowledge of Italian music

Squarcialupi codex

Other sources

Zachara da Teramo and the Parody mass

Johannes Ciconia and the Motet

 
11

Simplicity and complexity

Keyboard music

Cantus Planus Binatim

Ars Subtilior

Wright and Simms, chapter 13, pp. 89-95.

Amazon logo Gallo, F. Alberto. "The Practice of cantus planus binatim in Italy From the Beginning of the 14th to the Beginning of the 16th Century." In Le Polifonie primitive in Friuli e in Europa. Atti del congresso internazionale Cividale del Friuli, 22-24 agosto 1980. Edited by Cesare Corsi and Pierluigi Petrobelli. Rome, Italy: Torre d'Orfeo, 1989, pp. 13-30. ISBN: 9788885147201. (Skim)

Cuthbert, Michael Scott. "Counting our losses." From Trecento Fragments. PhD Thesis, Harvard University, 2006. (PDF) (Skim)
[The full dissertation is at Trecento Fragments and Polyphony Beyond the Codex]

  Exam 1  
Bridge 2: The continental renaissance
12

The Renaissance and music 1420-1460

Guillaume Du Fay and his contemporaries

The English sound

Fauxbourdon

Motets and cyclic masses

Ockeghem and the canon

Wright and Simms:

Chapter 15, "Music in Renaissance Florence" (cf. Craig Wright's work on Nuper rosarum flores), pp. 110-115.

Chapter 16, "English Music," "Fauxbourdon," pp. 118-119, and "Dunstaple," pp. 121-123.

Chapter 17, "Music in Burgundy" (on Du Fay and Binchois), pp. 123-131.

Chapter 18, "Ockeghem," pp. 132-135.

13

Vocal music: Josquin, his contemporaries, and his followers

Patronage

Documents and manuscripts

Josquin and his (or someone else's?) innovations; "Ave Maria"

"The pervasive myth of pervasive imitation"

Wright and Simms:

Chapter 19, "Jacob Obrecht and the Multiple Cantus Firmus Mass."

Chapter 21, "Josquin des Prez and Music in Ferrara."

Chapter 20, "Popular Music in Florence 1475-1540," "The Carnival Song and the Lauda," and "The Frottola."

14

Other innovations in continental music, 1460-1550

Palestrina and Lasso

Dance and keyboard music

Instrumental forms

French song

Protestantism and music

Wright and Simms:

"Musical Instruments," and "The Basse Danse," pp. 142-144.

Chapters 22-24, pp 168-202. (186-190 are optional)

Chapter 25, "Rome and Music of the Counter-Reformation."

Unit 3: Elizabethan London
15

From Dunstaple to Elizabeth: Tudor England

The Elizabethan Madrigal (Weelkes, Gibbons, etc.) and its Italian predecessors

Music printing

Wright and Simms:

Chapter 20, "The Early Madrigal in Florence," pp. 155-58.

Chapters 26 and 27, music in Elizabethan England, pp. 210-222.

16

Chapel Royal

Catholicism and Anglicanism in England (William Byrd)

Music education, instruction, and theory (Thomas Morley)

Amazon logo Atlas, Allan W. "Elizabethan England." In Anthology of Renaissance Music. New York, NY: W.W. Norton and Sons, 1998, pp. 661-75. ISBN: 9780393971699.

Morley, Thomas. A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke. London, UK, 1597 (1771 printing), pp. 1-9 and 74. (PDF - 1.0 MB)

17

Instrumental music and lute song (Doug Freundlich, guest performer/lecturer)

Dowland and lute song

Consort music

Jane Pickering lute book ("Toys;" "Maids in Constrite")

"Can she excuse?"

"Woods so Wild?" (William Byrd setting no. 30)

"Fitzwilliam virginal book"

Amazon logo Atlas, Allan W. "Elizabethan England." In Anthology of Renaissance Music. New York, NY: W.W. Norton and Sons, 1998, pp. 675-97. ISBN: 9780393971699.

Lute Tablature: Maids in Constrite (PDF)

18

Music in society: The cries of London

More secular music in England

More keyboard music

In Nomine music

Listening quiz #2

 
Bridge 3: Missed traditions in the late renaissance
19

Chromaticism in the late 16th-century Italian mad-rigal

The dances and writings of Michael Praetorius

Wright and Simms. Chapter 28, "The Later Madrigal in Ferrara and Mantua," pp. 222-31.

Topic 4: Music in Venice 1570-1660
20

Maestri di cappella Venice: (Rore), Williaert

(Andrea and) Giovanni Gabrieli and music in the Basilica of S. Marco

Cori spezzati. Gabrieli's music for brass

Preamble to the Baroque and the rise of a new style: Florentine Camerata; Peri, Cavalieri, etc. (early monody)

Basso Continuo

Wright and Simms:

Chapter 23, "Renaissance Instruments: Instrumental Genres" (on Merulo), pp. 182-185.

Chapter 29, "Early Baroque Music," pp. 234-40.

Chapter 30, "Birth of Opera: Early Opera in Florence," pp. 240-44.

Chapter 31, "The Concerted Style in Venice and Dresden: Giovanni Gabrieli and the Concerted Motet," p. 254.

21 Monteverdi (1567-1642) before and in Venice

Wright and Simms. "Early Opera in Mantua and Venice," pp. 244-50; and "Claudio Monteverdi and the Concerted Madrigal," pp. 254-56.

Amazon logo Rosand, Ellen. "Venice, 1580-1680." In The Early Baroque Era. Edited by Curtis Price. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1993. ISBN: 9780132237932.

Weiss and Taruskin. "From the Letters of Monteverdi," pp. 180-84; and "Castrato Singers," pp. 225-229.

22

Opera in Venice after Monteverdi

Barbara Strozzi

Venice's influence: Heinrich Schütz

Instrumental music in Venice

Wright and Simms. Chapter 31, "Strozzi and Schütz," pp. 256-61.

Weiss and Taruskin. "Schütz Recounts his Career," pp. 184-86.

  Exam 2  
Conclusion: Other baroque music / music towards the end of the seventeenth century
23

Non-Venetian developments: Oratorio: Carissimi, Jephte

Jewish music published in Venice

Church music towards the end of the century

Optional Reading

Wright and Simms. Chapter 32, "Religious Music in Baroque Rome," pp. 262-74.

24 Music in the 1680s

Optional Reading

Wright and Simms. Chapter 33, "Instrumental Music in Italy," pp. 274-84; and Chapters 35-37, "Music in Paris and London," pp. 301-30.




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