Confounding the Medieval Listener: The Role of Complexity in Medieval Rhythm Presented by Timothy Chenette (Indiana University), tchenett@indiana.edu Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society and the Society for Music Theory Indianapolis, IN; Nov. 4-7, 2010 Part I: Complexity of reading and hearing rhythm in ars subtilior music. Example 1. Dissonance and mensuration. For surely a sound is more forceful in its beginning than in its end. And a rule is greatly stretched in such things [syncopations]; and it is this, that in imperfect tempus we place the second semibreve in dissonance more frequently than the first, and in perfect tempus now the middle, now the last, but rarely both, so that the greater part is arranged in consonance. (Johannes Boen, Musica, 68-69; trans. mine) Example 2. Syncopation. A syncopation is the reduction one to another of any figures that are divided one from another by an intervening passage. Syncopation can occur in modus, tempus, and prolation. (The Berkeley Manuscript, 177, trans. Ellsworth) Example 3. 14 th -century syncopation, loosely transcribed into modern notation. 1
Example 4. Anthonello da Caserta s Beauté parfaite, opening of the cantus, in Mod.; facsimile in Le composizioni Francesi di Filippotto e Antonello da Caserta tràdite nel codice Estense α.m.5.24. Example 5. Anthonello da Caserta s Beauté parfaite, opening of the cantus, transcribed three different ways by Willi Apel (1946-47), p. 23. Example 6. Anthonello da Caserta s Beauté parfaite, opening, as transcribed in Le composizioni. 2
Example 7. Cadences in the opening section of Beauté parfaite. Factors that signal an approaching cadence: 1. Counterpoint 2. Hemiola 3. Coordinated attacks one transcribed beat before the cadence 4. Short value (transcribed eighth note) in one voice immediately before the cadence 3
Example 8. Projectively open syncopation. Example 9. The opening of the second section of Beauté parfaite. Example 10. Review of approach. Perspective Concern Performer conceptual complexity (difficulty of reading and understanding) Listener aural metric complexity (difficulty of predicting important events) Theorist facilitating, discussing, and restricting complexity 4
Example 11. Metric complexity in the Tractatus figurarum. Here begins the treatise on noteshapes through which, in various ways, lines are discanted that do not follow the order of the tenor but of another tempus. (Treatise on Noteshapes, 67, trans. Schreur) Example 12. Metric complexity in the Berkeley Manuscript. It must be noted that one may well syncopate in discanting and sing various mensurations that differ from that of the tenor, so long as he knows how to proportion them properly to each other and maintain properly his coequal mensuration; otherwise he should not concern himself with these things. (The Berkeley Manuscript, 133-135, trans. Ellsworth) Example 13. Restricting the conceptual complexity of syncopation. And note that a note ought never to be reduced by syncopation beyond a rest greater than itself. (Johannes de Muris, Libellus cantus mensurabilis, f. 22v, trans. mine) Example 14. Ugolino on the conceptual complexity of syncopating over a larger rest. Nevertheless in our time how many of the more eminent singers and theorists have we seen to practice the opposite in many songs, for a note does cross a larger rest; and as a result, by this crossing, a melody (as if by a certain indenture redeemable only by vast labor) is rendered difficult and, unless the difficulty is removed, transitory; on this account ingenuity works more perspicaciously on the indenture and finds subtle paths by syncopating. (Ugolino of Orvieto, Declaratio musicae discipline, 249, trans. mine) 5
Part II: Uses of complex rhythm in ars subtilior music. Example 15. Repeated rhythms that emphasize an important cadence. a. Anthonello da Caserta, Dame d'onour en qui tout mon cuer maint, end of second section: b. Anthonello da Caserta, Notés pour moi ceste ballade, final cadence: 6
Example 16. Anthonello da Caserta s Beauté parfaite, opening, as transcribed in Le composizioni. Example 17. Phillipus da Caserta s ballade En attendant, first section (continues on next page). 7
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Bibliography Apel, Willi. The French Secular Music of the Late Fourteenth Century. Acta Musicologica 18 (1946-1947), 17-29. Ars cantus mensurabilis per modos iuris, translated by C. Matthew Balensuela. Greek and Latin Music Theory, vol. 10. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994. The Berkeley Manuscript. Edited and translated by Oliver Ellsworth. Greek and Latin Music Theory, vol. 2. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984. Boen, Johannes. Ars (musicae) [treatise on-line], edited by F. Alberto Gallo. Corpus scriptorum de musica, vol. 19. [Rome]: American Institute of Musicology, 1972. Available from http://www.chmtl.indiana.edu/tml/14th/boenmu_text.html; Internet; accessed 20 November 2007.. Musica [treatise on-line]. In Johannes Boens Musica und seine Konsonanzenlehre, edited by Wolf Frobenius, 32-78. Stuttgart: Musikwissenschaftliche Verlags-Gesellschaft, 1971. Available from http://www.chmtl.indiana.edu/tml/14 th /BOENMUS_TEXT.html; Internet; accessed 20 November 2007. Le composizioni Francesi di Filippotto e Antonello da Caserta tràdite nel codice Estense α.m.5.24. Edited and commentary by Carla Vivarelli. Diverse voci, no. 6. Pisa: Edizioni ETS, 2005. Hawkes, Catherine. Syncopation in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries: A Review of Treatments of Syncopation in French and Italian Treatises and a Study of Contemporary Musical Examples that Display the Use of Syncopation in Various Contexts. DMA document, Indiana University, 2009. Johannes de Muris. Libellus cantus mensurabilis [manuscript online]. Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, lat. app. cl. VIII/85 (coll. 3579), ff. 11r-23v, Venice. Available from http://www.chmtl/indiana.edu/14th/murlibv_mvbm8-85.html; Internet; accessed 20 November 2007. Hasty, Christopher. Meter as Rhythm. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. London, Justin. Hearing in Time: Psychological Aspects of Musical Meter. New York: Oxford, 2004. 9
Palmer, Jill. Coussemaker s Anonymous XII: A Text, Translation, and Commentary. MA thesis, Brigham Young University, 1975. Philippe de Vitry, attr. Ars perfecta in musica. Scriptorum de musica medii aevi nova series a Gerbertina altera, 4 vols., edited by Edmond de Coussemaker, vol. 3, 28-35. Paris: Durand, 1864-76. Reprint, Hildesheim, Germany: Olms, 1963. Available from http://www.chmtl.indiana.edu/tml/14th/vitarsp_text.html; Internet; accessed 20 November 2007. Quatuor principalia musicae. Edited, translated, and commentary by Luminita Florea Aluas. Ph.D thesis, Indiana University, 1996. Tractatus figurarum, translated by Philip E. Schreur. Greek and Latin Music Theory. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989. Ugolino of Orvieto. Declaratio musicae discipline [treatise on-line]. In Ugolini Urbevetanis Declaratio musicae disciplinae, ed. Albert Seay, 167-266. Corpus scriptorum de musica, vol. 7/1. [Rome]: American Institute of Musicology, 1959. Available from http://www.chmtl.indiana.edu/tml/15th/ugodec3b_text.html; Internet; accessed 24 October 2010. 10