Medieval Songwriting Introduction

The history of song is obviously as old as the history of mankind, but unfortunately we have to depend on musical notation to decipher the oldest known songs. It is not quite so obvious a fact that musical notation only occurs where civilization and culture are highly developed. What this means is that, apart from a few fragments in Greek notation, European music is represented only by the notation which developed from about the seventh century A.D. Moreover, our earliest musical sources are not earlier than the ninth century.

Another factor which particularly interests the subject in question is that clerics were the main propagators of musical notation; hence most of the earliest preserved western music is church music. A few very early songs have been preserved of secular origin, but for the most part the notation is too rudimentary for a transcription to be possible. This is particularly disappointing, since the dates attributable to these compositions show that they go back to the seventh century in some cases. These are naturally enough in Latin and consist of only one part.

Indeed part-music of a secular character is not notated till the thirteenth century, though it is clear that early secular song in general had an improvised accompaniment. Of the existing very early Latin songs, there are six odes by Horace, some fragments of the Aeneid, some poems by Boethius and a number of laments for such personages as the Visigothic king Chindasvinthus (d. 652) and queen Reciberga (d.c. 657), duke Eric of Friuli (d. 799), Charlemagne (d. 814) and his son Hugo of St. Quentin (d. 844). In addition, there is a piece about the battle of Fontenoy (841), another concerning the destruction of the monastery of Glonnes near Saumur and other historical compositions.

By sheer coincidence Horace's ode to Phyllis happens to have the same melody as the famous hymn Ut queant laxis, which Guido of Arezzo (d.c. 1050) used to instill the sol-fa syllables into his pupils. Another piece, a pilgrim's song O Roma nobilis, has been preserved in one source in alphabetical notation on staves. The piece has a rugged dignity of its own, though it appears that the original text was a love-song entitled O admirabile Veneris ydolum. Most of these early pieces seem to sound best in duple rhythms, though there is little indication of the correct type of measure to use in the music. Another popular composition addressed to the nightingale bears out this hypothesis by its heavy accents on the first and third beat of a 4-4 bar. This song Aurea personet lyra seems to suggest in its text that the organ was used in its performance. Another interpretation of the word 'organica' would be doubling the melody at the fourth or fifth below. Anyhow, the work is a vigorous one and deserved its celebrity.

These pieces already lead us into the tenth and eleventh century. Between this period and the thirteenth century comes the era of the Goliards, the wandering scholars, students and clerics in minor orders who left behind a body of secular Latin songs of all kinds best represented by the Carmina Burana, an invaluable collection which originated in the library of the monastery of Benediktbeuren. There are even a few German texts among these songs, which are unfortunately all notated without staves, so that a transcription into modern notation is only possible from other musical sources, if these exist. Although drinking songs exist among these works, others, with their moral content, come into the category of religious music. Satirical and love-songs are not easy to classify, but all these pieces, even when they border on the sacred, may be considered here because they are Latin songs of un-doubted musical value. Duets and trios will not be included in this assessment, but the essential fluidity of medieval performance practice means that a piece which is monodic in one source may have a second part in another manuscript and a third one in still other sources.

Nevertheless, there are many such works, usually called conductus, which are essentially monodies, and these might well have been accompanied solos, a simple accompaniment being improvised on the monastery organ or some other instrument. However this may be, it is certainly true that a long monodic conductus like Veritas, equitas has the melody of a Provencal lay, and it is clear that Troubadour songs usually had an improvised accompaniment on harp or viol.

A piece like this already brings us up against another problem, that of rhythm. By the thirteenth century the use of the staff had become general, and so there is no question about what the actual notes of a composition may be. But a measured notation of Troubadour and Trouvère songs or monodic or polyphonic conductus is the exception rather than the rule. A few late sources prove that triple time was general, especially in the form of the six rhythmic modes. One of these usually governs the form of a composition rhythmically, so that a piece falls into a basic pattern which is repeated strictly throughout the work. Stops are generally made at the end of a line of verse, though with short lines two or three often form a rhythmic group. In modern terms the rhythmic patterns are:

These fit into 3-8 or 6-8 bars. The lay just mentioned may well be used as an example because, chameleon-like, its melody was used for the Provencal lay Gent menais, the French lay Flour ne glais by Gautier de Coincy and the Latin conductus Veritas, equitas, whose text is by Chancellor Philippe (d. 1236) of Paris. The fourth stanza exemplifies the second mode but Gent menais is long and changes mode.

More typical is a cheerful first mode melody like Fas et nefas ambulant, which is taken from the Carmina Burana. The sequence was mainly a religious form of poetry and music characterized by metrically paired stanzas set to identical music, but there are secular examples. A fine one is Axe Phebus aureo, also from the Carmina Burana. The melody has a lot of repeated notes which give it a fine swing, and the C major tonality could hardly be more pronounced. For beauty and breadth of phrasing, the conductus cannot be beaten as a form of medieval song, though obviously not every piece is on the same high level.

We are hampered too by the lack of modern editions of these remarkable compositions, which are as varied in form as in melody and subject-matter. There are strophic conductus and through-composed conductus, others have sequence form, and again others have an initial or concluding coloratura passage. The subject-matter of many conductus is moralizing in character, like O mens, cogita, whose melody is of a jewel-like perfection in its balance of ascending and descending movement. Historical compositions come into the same category, carrying on the tradition of the early laments already mentioned. The death of king Philip Augustus of France in 1223 is lamented in Alabaus-trum frangitur and O mors que mordes, while the coronation of his son at Reims in the same year is celebrated in Beata nobis gaudia. Turmas arment christicolas bewails the assassination of Albert of Louvain, bishop of Liege, and In rama sonat gemitus the exile of Thomas à Becket (d. 1170).