Choral Music in the Middle

Ages
Members:
Irma Pagan 20192030020
• Alisson Calderon 20192030004 Lesnin Maldonado
• Amy Ordonez 20162031131 Leydi Cordon 20202001010
• Ana Aguilar 20192030001 Mayra Arauz Sara 20182003191
• Delmy Gomez 20192030977 Palma 20172000022
20192031174
 GENERAL OBJECTIVE
To expand our audience's knowledge of
choral music during the Middle Ages, to make known
the influence of society and the church on this type of music,
as well as to point out some of the most important
composers of this era and how they became revolutionary
for this type of music, to ensure that our audience understands
the features that characterized this type of music at that specific
time in history.
 SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES
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• Emphasize Guido of Arezzo and the hymn to Saint John the Baptist.
I • To make known the composition styles of this period and present
examples.
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< • Identify the most renowned composers of this period and their works
3) most famous.
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• To make known the importance of Gregorian chant in this period. *b

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Choral Music in the Middle
Ages
Term originally used to designate the monodic
chants that took place in the liturgy of the Western
Church, for example, Gregorian chant being the first
monodic chants performed by the schola and the
second being polyphonic chants performed in the
church.
 "34 7

From the 15th century onwards, the term choral

began to be used to refer to the ecclesiastical hymn
of the Lutheran Church, and in the 18th century, the
songs of the Protestant Church in general were
called chorals; organ pieces that used a choral or a
theme with characteristics similar to those of a
choral as a base also began to be called chorals.
Choirs are formed in churches and monasteries to
accompany the liturgy.
 It was Italian Benedictine monk,
musician and central figure
a theorist and central figure of
1 GUIDO
; music
of
the music of the Middle Ages, AR OF
developed new teaching techniques, such as
the use of the E 3 tetragram (precursor of the
Ipentagram). He noticed the

difficulty of singers to
remember the Gregorian chants and E Figure 1: Portrait of Guido of Arezzo.
He invented a method to teach Source: (blogspot.com, 2012)

- the singers to learn the

chants in a short time. This
' method soon became famous
throughout northern Italy.
 HYMN TO SAINT
JOHN THE BAPTIST
Not original text in Translat
e UtLatin
queant laxis ion servants
So that these
Ut -
Resonare fibris of yours may extol at
Do
Re Mira Gestiónrum the top of their lungs
My Famuli tuorum the wonders, forgive
Fa Solve polluti Labii the fault of our impure
Sun reatum Sancte lips, Saint John.
The
Yeah Ioannes.

Figure 2: Relationship of the musical notes Figure 3: Score of the hymn to Saint John the
with the hymn to Saint John the Baptist Baptist.
Source: (edukec.wixsite.com, 2012) Source: (npm.org, 2014)
 SINGING
rGegoRriaEnoG(llaOmaR
The doIaSo Nen Oho regori
Song g o
Magno) is a monodic and acapella liturgical chant, which
represents a prayer or sung in Latin. In Gregorian chant,
women were not allowed to sing except in the so-called
“ecclesiastical” or “Ambrosian” dialect.
 FEATURES OF THE
GREGORIAN CHANT:
It is the official song of the Catholic
• Church.
It is vocal music without
• instrumental accompaniment.
It is a monodic chant, since even
• though it is performed by a choir of
monks, they all sing the same
melody.
• It is a song in Latin, since that is the
Itsofficial
rhythmlanguage of the Catholic
is free and
uniform.
 I 2 TYPES OF
GREGORIAN
CHANT:
According to the formations of the
singers
• Antiphonal
• Responsorial
• Direct

According to the relationship

between text and notes
• Syllabic
• Tire
• Melismatic (ornate)
STYLES OF
COMPOSITION
Religious or sacred music
This is the one created for the celebration of worship and its main qualities are
holiness and goodness. This was the type of music that could be found in Catholic
churches and congregations, usually sung by monks, church disciples and those
considered sufficiently 'pure'.
Some examples of this type of composition are:
Agnus Dei
• In Unum Adversus Dominum
• Psalm 56
•
 Il V/0
Secular Music
It had no relation to worship or religion. It was performed by two types
of characters: troubadours and minstrels, who received different names
depending on the territory in which they were located.

The The
troubadours minstrels
They belonged to a high They were itinerant musicians who not only
played instruments and sang songs, but also
social class.
carried out all kinds of activities to entertain the
Troubadours generally people. They were from the lower class and
compose and sing their limited themselves to copying and plagiarizing
own works. the songs of the troubadours because they did
not know how to compose.
Polyphony
It is the art of combining different and simultaneous sounds and melodies,
it was also known as "singing with several voices."

• ORGANUM: It is the most primitive and rudimentary polyphonic

form. It consists of adding a parallel voice to Gregorian chant. This
second voice should be at a distance of 4th or 5th below the main
one.
• DISCANTUS: The two voices no longer move in parallel as in the
organum, but in opposite motion, that is, while the main melody
ascends the organal one descends or vice versa.
 Ars Antiqua
During this period, both musical notation and
technique evolved.
ORGANUM: in this organum the voices are
no longer 2 but 3, now they are going to be
much freer, without having to respect the
parallelism of the primitive organum.
MOTET: It is a polyphonic form consisting
of two or three voices, each of which sings
a different text and also has a different
rhythm.

mm
and Ars Nova
0
— I It is the last period of religious music in
the Middle Ages
1

d • The Motet: continues to develop until

get to the point where each voice can
have a different text.
/
/ • The Canon: composition in which all the
voices sing the same melody, but they
make their entrance progressively.
 CHARACTERISTICS
SPECIFIC TO MUSIC V
AU A T -—T T A A rv -
CORAL IN THE MIDDLE AGES
He had common homophonic scores.
It was composed of mainly diatonic melodies.
Yo
It had a simple rhythm.
Y
Y The homophony of the voices was more important o
o

than the melody.

I L
It was mostly sung by men.
J--dA L•UJ
ILLUSTRIOUS OPPOSERS OF THE MIDDLE
Philippe de Guillaume de Machault
Vitry

Figure 2: He had a powerful influence on Figure 3: His artistic activity was divided
Western music, especially through his musical between musical and lyrical composition,
notation treatise Ars Nova, which gave its and he wrote more than 80,000 verses.
name to the entire musical movement of his Source: (yolandasarmiento.com, 2012)
time.
Source: (wikipedia.org, 2015)

AGES
 Figure 4: His enormous cultural work and his immense literary,
legal and scientific work earned him the nickname of the Wise Man

Alfonso X the
Wise
by which he is identified.
Source: (biografiasyvidas.com, 2018)

Leoninus
Figure 5: He is the first great exponent of the so-called school of
Notre-Dame de Paris and of Ars Antiqua.
Source: (discogs.com, 2016)
 CONCLUSION
Guido of Arezzo is an important figure in the history of music
and developed in medieval times, he was the one who paved the
way for the development of musical notes as we know them
today.

Musical compositions in the Middle Ages could be divided into

monodic or polyphonic, and could also be classified as sacred or
secular depending on how many voices or melodies were involved
and whether they were used inside or outside the church.
A very characteristic type of composition of this period was
Gregorian chant, which consisted of biblical passages or
prayers sung in a single voice during Catholic church
services.

The troubadours and the minstrels were both performers of

secular compositions, but the former liked to be
differentiated from the latter since the latter did have the
ability to compose their own pieces unlike the others, who
were plagiarists.
Instruments used in medieval music
•Crota: bowed string, a type of zither.

Figure 6: Crota
Source: (sites.google.com, 2016) •Bedón: percussion
instrument, similar to the
bass drum
•Bagpipe: double-reed wind
Figure 10: Bedon
instrument. Source: (slideplayer.es, 2016)

Figure 9: Bagpipe Source:

(pinterest.com, 2014)
 Romanesque painting: It is linked to Gothic sculpture: the best sculptors of
architecture. Romanesque buildings the Gothic artistic movement were
are characterized by having large walls employed in the decoration of
or murals suitable for pictorial architectural works, especially the
decoration. facades of cathedrals.

Figure 12: The clearest and most famous examples

Figure 11: The need to obtain a quick religious of Gothic sculpture can be found in the stone
impression on the church visitor Source: sculptures that still remain in the portals of churches
(encicloarte.com, 2013) such as those of Saint-Denis.
Source: (encicloarte.com, 2013)