MUSIC IN THE CATHEDRAL

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CHAPTER 9

• MUSIC IN THE CATHEDRAL
• CLOSE AND UNIVERSITY
• CONDUCTUS AND MOTET

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• The thirteenth century witnessed the advent of
  polyphony not tied exclusively to the church. At
  Paris polyphony spread from the confines of the
  cathedral and the liturgy to the close (a
  residential precinct next to the church), the
  fledgling university, and ultimately to purely
  worldly environments.

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Île de la Cité

• The Île de la Cité (an island in the middle of
  the Seine River) and the close of Notre Dame of
  Paris as they appear in the earliest map of
  Paris. The area of the close is to the north
  (left) of the cathedral.

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The Latin Quarter

• In the twelfth century the various schools
  located in the close and elsewhere near the
  cathedral of Notre Dame began to move across the
  Seine River to the Left Bank (south bank).
  Because the one language known universally by the
  students was Latin, the area came to be called
  the Latin Quarter.
• In 1215 the pope gave formal recognition to a new
  Universitas in Parisa unified collection of all
  the schools and colleges under a single
  administrative head called the chancellor.

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Phillip the Chancellor

• The most famous chancellor in the thirteenth
  century was Philip of Nemours, called Philip the
  Chancellor (c1160-1236). Some seventy musical
  settings with religious or moralistic texts are
  attributed to Philip. Most of these belong to
  the genre of medieval music called conductus.

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CONDUCTUS

• The term conductus derives from the Latin
  infinitive ducere, to lead.
• As the name suggests, the conductus was sung as
  the clergy moved from place to place or was
  engaged in some other type of kinetic activity,
  such as dance.
• Conducti appear as processional pieces, as
  insertions into liturgical dramas, as
  accompaniments to dances, and as songs to
  celebrate Easter and Christmas, much as Christmas
  carols do today.
• Conducti for one, two, three, or occasionally
  even four voices survive. Unlike organum and the
  later motet, all voices of a conductus are newly
  composed, even the tenor.

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Orientis partibus

• Orientis partibus is a semi-humorous conductus
  associated with the Feast of Fools, a day coming
  soon after Christmas when the lower (and
  generally younger) clergy took over the service
  of the church.
• The ass in Orientis partibus is the humble beast
  that carried Mary and the Christ child to
  Bethlehem, and a legacy of this melody (the
  lowest voice) and text survives today in the
  Christmas carol The Friendly Beast.

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Orientis partibus
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Dic, Christi veritas

• Philip the Chancellors conductus Dic, Christi
  veritas (Speak Christian Truth) is longer, more
  serious, and even vindictive in tone.
• In it Philip delivers a blistering sermon railing
  against those, including the pope, who seek to
  curtail his authority at the University.
• His is a highly learned text that makes frequent
  illusion to ancient and biblical history.
• The music is periodically punctuated by caudae,
  passages of florid, melismatic singing.

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Motet

• The motet first appeared in Paris around 1200.
• Originally the term (diminutive of the French mot
  meaning word) signaled a discant clausula to
  which sacred and eventually vernacular words had
  been added. (By the fifteenth century the motet
  had come to connote almost any vocal work setting
  a sacred Latin text.)
• The purpose of the added words (mots) was to
  expand upon the religious theme presented in the
  tenor voice (a Gregorian chant).
• Sometimes the vernacular texts of the upper
  voices were very worldly, but even the most
  profane text could be interpreted as a spiritual
  message by means of an allegorical reading.

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• Examples 9-2A, 9-2B and 9-2C demonstrate how
  first Latin and then French texts were added
  successively to the upper voices of what was
  originally a two-voice discant clausula.

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Parisian Motet

• Eventually the motet spread beyond the cathedral,
  close, and university to the streets of Paris.
  Even the sacred tenor, which up to now had been a
  portion of a Gregorian chant, might be replaced
  by a secular tune. The three voice motet On
  parole de batre/A Paris/Frese nouvele extols the
  pleasures of urban living in medieval Paris.
  Here the tenor is a street cry of the sort a
  fruit vendor used to advertise his produce.
• The late thirteenth-century Parisian motet On
  parole de batre/A Paris/Frese nouvele in which
  all voices are in French.