Late Medieval Ages  the Fourteenth Century

When the Black Death was terrifying the people of Europe, and the Hundred Years  War separated the masses by gratuitous force of political gaming, the music developed further as if nothing happened. Not only music, but also other art brought a glimmer of light into the troubled minds of the Europeans. Described as ars nova, the musical hostelry now served rhythmically shorter notes, which no longer had to be constrained within three equal parts. The large shift towards secular music sparked these and other innovations, sometimes elaborated to the outmost liberty.

 The invention  of the secular motet is often ascribed to a French composer named Phillippe de Vitry. In spite of some similarities with the ars antiqua version, the new motet featured a long-note melody line in tenor, which moved slowly and was therefore not really a melody, but a basis for the faster moving upper voices. In addition, the rhythms were now more complex, and could be written in duple (two equal parts), in contrast to the older triple metric division.

  It is important to mention the widely used concept of isorhythmics. Not only was it used in the 14th century, but actually throughout the ages. What is it? A means of holding a long composition in unity by perceiving a tenor line (or any other base  line) having two basic entities: a set of intervals - color, and the rhythmic pattern - tolea. Both starting at the beginning, they could be of different lengths, but also have the same extension. They could be joined in various ways: tolea could be played in halved note values, a new set of tolea could begin in the middle of an ongoing color etc. In the following example these ideas are exemplified. Here, the color is an ascending line of seconds, followed by a skip up a third and fall down a second. The tolea is a progression of four quarter-notes plus one half-note. Since they are not of the same length, a variation of the first motive emerges at the second half of the second bar. This line can be developed further in many ways. Because the unity is not often obvious to the ear in such types of compositions, the unity is somehow concealed  a mystic musical phenomena.

 Another great French composer was Guillaume de Machaut. While using the ars nova motet form, he also composed rondeaus in AbaAabAB form (capital letters denote refrains). He is most famous however for his ballads. Built on three or four stanzas, the first two lines had the same melody but with different endings; the last lines had different melody, and ended with a refrain. Such form can be therefore described as aabC, each phrase ending with a Landini cadence  containing two leading notes in upper voices (e.g. AC#F# to GDG, compare that with the earlier cadence form). Often, the top voice was ornamented (e.g. AC#F#-E to GDG). Typically, such ballad was sung by a high tenor (main melody) with two lower, slowly moving voices. What is so new about de Machaut and his music is the vast (for its time) usage of thirds and sixths, maybe emerging from the heart of the composer, as he himself claimed the music should be written. De Machaut is also known for his Messe de Notre Dame, a large polyphonic, four voice-composition, probably performed with short instrumental interludes.

  In Italy, back then a land of trouble, no polyphony developed before 14th century, as the musicians followed the tradition of simple structured troubadour music. Soon however, three popular forms of secular polyphony ensued. These were the madrigal, caccia and ballata.

 Madrigal was written in two voices, the upper one more melismatic, and both singing the same text. Structurally, two- or three-line stanzas with the same music were ended with ritarnellos, which were sung in different melody and meter.

 Caccia was a canonic, two-voice composition, using slowly moving instrumental support, and elaborating on a vivid text.

  Lastly, ballata, originally a dance song was composed for two or three voices. Each six-line stanza began and ended with a two-line refrain. The music in the refrain could also used in the last two lines of a stanza. Somehow different form of a ballata was flourishing from the mind of Francesco Landini. He wrote most of his ballads for solo voice with two lower voices as accompaniment. What is so (subjectively speaking) sweet about his music, is the absence of parallell 2nds and 7ths, and but a few parallell 5ths and octaves. Quite revolutionarily, he used lots of triads in his compositions, making the music more familiar for our modern ears.

Chromaticism

 As already mentioned, chromatic notes were used in cadences. Following a pure modal diatonic scale, an ordinary cadence would include a whole-tone step upwards from the seventh note of the mode to the final note, e.g. C to D in E-G-C to D-A-D. Composers now were using altered notes to create single or double leading notes in the upper voices, so the EGC-chord in our example could be altered to EGC# or EG#C# respectively.

  Chromatic notes came also in favour when avoidance of a diminished fifth was necessary, whether in a chord or a melody. Lastly, chromaticism was sometimes used to simply make a melody more beautiful, a procedure that followed no preconceived rules but was a matter of composer s taste.

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