Crossing vocal lines?

[Dave2002]

And of course in the 15th century not much distinction was made between vocal and instrumental parts.

Wouldn't that have depended on who was doing the singing/playing and also whether there was any element of story telling. Unless obvious imitative sounds are used - (musical onomatopoeia - is there a specific term in music?) or some form of musical leitmotivs or an assoication of instruments with characters (Peter and the Wolf - though in that work the characters also have their own themes) then storytelling will probably use words, which will have to be sung rather than played on an instrument. Not all music would have been story telling though, but would still have required words - other obvious examples being church music - settings of prayers etc. Other music may have been for dance or processions, and not require words.

Perhaps singing allows greater projection of voices - so would have been useful in churches and religious buildings. We don't know all the factors in using music for different purposes - though we have some awareness of the way religious music was used and developed over the centuries. It doesn't seem likely that there wasn't also a substantial use of secular music - songs - such as work songs, and some rather bawdy songs used for entertainment, but many of those would probably not have been written down, but rather passed on orally. Since churches and religious communities appear to have had a geater proportion of educated people who could both write down words and some of whom could also notate music, we may have a better picture of what music was used in churches than in other settings.

Apparently organs were used in churches around 900 AD (see https://viscountorgans.net/pipe-orga...n-church-life/), though it may have taken several centuries before this became the norm. By 1400AD many monasteries and churches had organs. Other instruments were also used, and we have some ideas of what they were and how they were used in the Renaissance period (approx 1300-1600) but perhaps rather less insight into instruments in use before that or how they were used.

We are aware of the use of music by minstrels and troubadours at least from the time of the Norman conquest - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minstrel
and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubadour but the role of music and also how it was to be performed has to be imagined, and many interpretations of music from the early periods must surely be speculative.

[cloughie]

In C15th would this piece have beeb sung by an all male or a mixed group?

[Richard Barrett]

In C15th would this piece have beeb sung by an all male or a mixed group?

Yes.

[cloughie]

Yes.

All right you pedant - which? Watch out for barbed wire on the fence!

[Richard Barrett]

All right you pedant - which?

Sorry... what I meant to imply is that it could be either. There's a recording by Hespèrion XX which uses mixed voices and instruments including percussion. As a harmonisation of a folk tune (at least I assume that's what it is) I imagine it could have been open to all kinds of realisations depending on who or what was available.

[Mandryka]

So were there mixed choirs in the 16th century? (I’m annoyed because I can’t find my copy of Andrew Parrott’s book about this, I remember he said that women were very much resisted in the 15th century . . .)

[Dave2002]

If, as seems to have been the case, it was a folk tune, perhaps it might have been sung by anybody. Though were written out copies the prerogative of pieces deemed - by someone capable of writing them down - to be worthy of further performances? Was there any view of trying to build up a body of knowledge and music practices by written texts in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries? Any attempt at dissemination?

Music publishing seems to have originated in the fifteenth century - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histor...sic_publishing
with music printing following early in the sixteenth -

https://musicprintinghistory.org/

http://www.parlorsongs.com/insearch/printing/printing.php

[Richard Barrett]

I can’t find my copy of Andrew Parrott’s book about this, I remember he said that women were very much resisted in the 15th century

He was talking about church music specifically I believe.