Really Early Music

[doversoul1]

This was posted by Roehre on the Early Music on TTN thread (#125) but I thought it deserves its own thread, as it isn’t very often we hear ‘really "early" music’ for nearly two hours.

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?4476-Early-music-on-TTN&p=457364#post457364

I found Hildegard von Bingen’s instrumental piece very interesting. I wonder how it was reconstructed. I also wonder if a monk was borrowed to take part for the male part. There were some very ‘modern’ sounding pieces toward the end. Are they part of the ‘original’ works?

At one point, Jonathan Swain said, lightly but with no hint of flippancy, ‘to pronounce the names of troubadours, you need a degree in medieval French, so please excuse me for not trying (to the effect)’. I know I do go on rather but this is a kind of presentation that means a lot to me as a listener.

That beside, do listen. It is very calming if nothing else (though it can’t be just that).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04vdkqw

[ardcarp]

Thanks Dovers and Roehre. I began the Beguinage a while ago and am enjoying a relaxing NY Eve by the fire with feet up. As far as Hildegard's Mss are concerned, I am fairly sure nothing exists beyond monody, so I am not sure calling it 'an instrumental piece' is quite kosher. I stand to be corrected of course. But these pieces can be realised in many different and interesting ways ways, and here it was with some heterophonic doubling and with the addition of drones.

[jean]

Thanks for the reminder!

(PS What is a Beguinage?)

[french frank]

Thanks for the reminder!

(PS What is a Beguinage?)

Isn't it a convent of Béguine nuns?

[ardcarp]

Yes. There is a short explanation of this by JS at the beginning of the programme.

[Roehre]

... As far as Hildegard's Mss are concerned, I am fairly sure nothing exists beyond monody, so I am not sure calling it 'an instrumental piece' is quite kosher. I stand to be corrected of course. But these pieces can be realised in many different and interesting ways ways, and here it was with some heterophonic doubling and with the addition of drones.

There are very reasonable grounds to assume that the music (including Hildegard's) before the Notre Dame School - which some half a century later explicitly codified heterophony in manuscript- though written as just a melody, was accompanied by other parts, either just doubling a third or a fifth or a sixth below or above (drones) or by canonic devices.

The monodies treated in this way, in combination with the harmonic and structural devices as found in e.g. Leoninus and certainly Perotinus[listen to both' Viderunt omnes-settings e.g.], lead to in our ears "modern" harmonic clashes [which development found their zenith during the Ars subtilior, creating rhythmic and harmonic clashes which weren't heard again before the 20C].

Some of the music is not carried by texts [or the other way around ], and can be performed as an "instrumental" piece.

The one thing which IMVHO is less than supported by convincing evidence is the use of a low male voice in the lowest parts,
but -I have to admit- it works well.

[Richard Barrett]

Hildegard's Mss

Some of them can be downloaded at IMSLP - there are transcriptions into stave notation of some pieces, and also a facsimile of the entire Symphonia et ordo virtutum manuscript. As Roehre says, there's plenty of circumstantial evidence to suggest that this notation would have served as a mnemonic to be filled out by sustained tones, parallel intervals (though not thirds/sixths in the 12th century surely!?) and other improvisable devices, including no doubt the use of instruments (although every piece in the aforementioned MS does have a textual underlay).

[Roehre]

Some of them can be downloaded at IMSLP - there are transcriptions into stave notation of some pieces, and also a facsimile of the entire Symphonia et ordo virtutum manuscript. As Roehre says, there's plenty of circumstantial evidence to suggest that this notation would have served as a mnemonic to be filled out by sustained tones, parallel intervals (though not thirds/sixths in the 12th century surely!?) and other improvisable devices, including no doubt the use of instruments (although every piece in the aforementioned MS does have a textual underlay).

The paralle intervals and bourdons which definitely were NOT used were the fourths and (obviously?) the seconds and sevenths. There is evidence that the "usual" fifth was the prevalent one for bourdons (and even for parallel intervals - before the "classic" harmony forbidding these parallel fifths ), but thirds/sixths bourdons are far from a remote possibliity either.