The many instrument solution

So what to do when faced with a relatively simple, single line tune, and the intent to perform it instrumentally? This is something we do quite a lot, so here is an attempt to set down some of the thoughts emerging from our experience and research...

[Note that if there is an option to sing, e.g. it is a cantiga with words, rather than an estampie without, this is always worth considering, even if none of the group are 'singers'. Just attempting to sing it will often make clear details of emphasis and phrasing, related to the text, that can help the instrumental performance. But for now I will assume the performance itself will be purely instrumental].

One thing often seen and heard is the 'play every time through on a different instrument' solution. This seems an obvious way to add some variety and contrast (though it can become monotonously predictable if there is always a strict alternation, and the same happens on the next piece, and the next...). It's a good starting point, but in my opinion, has some pitfalls:

• One that is my current bug-bear is when players keep putting down and picking up new instruments - something I think it highly unlikely that medieval instrumentalists ever did, unless in very unusual circumstances. The risk of coming in with an instrument that is out of tune seems reason enough alone to be wary. It is even more annoying when it is a recording and the instruments vary from lutes to shawms with the impossible volume balance being evened out in the editing suite. If you want to show off your multi-instrumentalist skills, save the new instrument for another piece! Similarly, I would like to think we are past the stage where the primary purpose of period concerts was for the audience to goggle at the biggest possible variety of unusual instruments - that's getting dangerously near to the old 'drums and fun' territory.
• For many instruments, it is not necessary to stop and start playing them to produce dynamic or other contrasts which allow the 'lead' to effectively switch from one instrument to another. And learning how to create those contrasts on your instrument is going to be a useful skill. Perhaps most problematic here are instruments such as recorders that have a more limited dynamic range - sometimes stopping and starting may be necessary to allow another instrument to show through. Of course, not using a recorder at all is probably the more medieval solution, which brings me to...
• Using the wrong set of instruments. Recorders or similar fipple pipes may have existed in the middle ages, but recorder consorts are a renaissance phenomenon. The medieval 'ensembles' depicted playing are nearly always instruments with contrasting timbres (e.g. harp and fiddle). Having said that, there are of course the famous pictures of musicians from the cantigas manuscript that show many pairs of players of identical instruments. I wouldn't want to dismiss this as just some artistic conceit, so it deserves consideration as a plausible instrumentation.

So even if you have a nice, small ensemble of instruments, with contrasting timbres, and variable dynamics (but in a similar dynamic range), playing 'just the notes' several times through is not likely to be satisfying for performers or audience. I'll talk about 'what next' in the next post.

Lacking an arrangement

So it has been a while, but as there still seems to be a few people out there viewing the pages, it seems worth trying to revive this blog...

A musical colleague (sadly no longer resident here) is visiting over the holiday season, and  has prompted some discussion of the issue of 'arranging' medieval tunes. More specifically, her experience in forming a new medieval music group in her new (old) home has brought forward a common issue. How do early music instrumental enthusiasts - who are perhaps most often introduced to the genre by playing in recorder consorts - react when faced with a typical monophonic song from the middle ages?

For example, a great medieval resource are the cantigas from the thirteenth century collection of Alfonso the Wise. But the manuscript (or transcription) provides a single vocal line. What should an instrumental ensemble do with this?

Option 1: Play the notes. This tends to be the instinctive reaction of the 'modern' medieval musician with a classical training background. Indeed, they often pride themselves on the ability to play the notes accurately on first sight; and even seem to think it a waste of time to play them again if they have been played accurately the first time. For most cantigas, this provides a rather minimal challenge, and does not take long.

There is little evidence in iconography that medieval instrumentalists ever played from music, so it seems unlikely that this is an authentic approach. But even if learned by ear, would an instrumentalist (or ensemble) simply have played the tune 'as written' (or in unison) perhaps a few times through? If not, what would they have done?

Some options to be discussed in future posts...



 

Roast and boiled

So, we attempted the version of Danse de Cleves suggested by Robert Mullally in his new book, and remain unconvinced. It is not completely implausible for the musicians to speed up and the dancers to slow down enough to make it work; but seemed to significantly reduce the enjoyment of both of this otherwise lovely dance and tune. I'd be very interested to hear other experiences.

Actually, looking more closely at the argument in Sachs, he (unlike Mullally) does not attempt to reconcile his theory that all basse danse (and Italian bassadanza) should be in 12/8 (effectively moving in 4/4) with the Brussels notation for Danse de Cleves, but instead argues that it (and the other dances with mensural notation in the manuscript) are not, in fact, basse danse at all.

This would potentially undercut what I had planned as my next argument that the 6/4 tempo is the more viable interpretation for the basse danse breve. This is based on the Brussels manuscript dance 'Roti boully joyeulx', which appears (from name and instructions) to be related to 'Rostiboli Gioioso' (attributed to the mid-15th century dance master Domenico, though with steps only recorded in the slightly later 'Ebreo' manuscripts) which in turn shares clear structural similarity with 'Gioioso in Tre' (i.e. 'for three') for which Ebreo claims choreographic credit, and which in one Ebreo manuscript has music (reproduced as example 4 in this article by Barbara Sparti). To close the loop, the relationship of the music for 'Gioioso' and 'Roti boully' is pretty clear.

This dance appeared to be a 15th century European-wide hit, also appearing as 'Rostibin' in a German dance instruction manual, and with variants on the name appearing in multiple sources, including a late 15th century poem in Scots as 'Rusty Bully'.

In all versions it appears to be a 'balli', that is, a dance with mixed tempo. The Italian 'Rostiboli' and 'Gioioso' appear to start in bassadanza (although the tempo is not explicitly given, the step sequence is highly typical) and then change to saltarello followed by piva. The Burgundian 'Roti boully' starts in 'pas de braban' (= saltarello?), has a second section that seems faster (=piva?) and then explicitly says "then follows the basse dance" with the notation changing to (mostly) breves, with a step (e.g. 'd' for double) written above each.

So focussing just on this part of the music, there is an almost perfect match of the breve sequence in 'Roti boully' to each bar of the explicitly written out 6 beat rhythm in 'Gioioso'. In fact reference to 'Gioioso' nicely solves some of the oddities in 'Roti boully', such as missing steps above some of the breves, where faster movement through the preceding notes to match 'Gioioso' (as is notated specifically in the final section of 'Roti boully') would have provided the right number of notes to steps. It seems abundantly clear from these (and other) Italian choreographies that a bassadanza double corresponds to a 6/4 bar.

So, in transcribing this section of 'Roti boully' as 4/4 (as he does) Mullally would have to argue that the rhythm of basse danse has changed in this highly similar, and more or less contemporary, dance, or ignore the relationship to 'Rostiboli' and 'Gioioso' altogether. In fact, the latter is what he does. His extensive note on this dance (pp62-65) mentions a whole set of other literary references (such as the Scottish 'Rusty bully') but says nothing at all about the Italian sources. There is a short and somewhat unclear discussion of the general relations between the Burgundian basse dance and Italian bassa danza and ballo on pages 20-21, but the specific relationship between 'Roti boully' and 'Rostiboli' is not mentioned.

So maybe this is a ridiculously obscure point to get hung up on, but as someone who greatly loves the 'queen of tempi' it matters a lot to know if I've been doing it wrong. And (full disclosure) I'll even admit that I have presented a 4/4 basse danse in the past, on our first CD (I'll let the arranger responsible identify himself, if he wants to admit to it). But I'd be really sorry to see that catch on as a result of this recent publication.

How slow for Danse de Cleves?

A dance from the Brussels manuscript that is widely known in current historic dance circles is Danse de Cleves (here's the second and third pages). Many different reconstructions of this dance exist, because it seems that not all the intended steps were recorded in the manuscript. In his new book Mullally (see my previous post) comes up with a rather unique solution - without interpolating additional steps - but is it plausible?

Danse de Cleves is one of the handful of dances in the Brussels manuscript to have more elaborate mensural music, which might seem like a good place to start in deciding how the simplified breve notation of the other dances should be interpreted. Note in the following that I do not think there is any dispute that, in general, 'breve' =  'step', i.e., a double (d), two singles (ss), desmarche (r), or branle (b), as these numbers match up for nearly all the dances.

It is fairly apparent that there is a pulse of 3 in the music of Danse de Cleves. I'll call a set of 3 minims (the unstemmed open notes in the manuscript notation,  resembling a modern semibreve) a 'bar' for the current discussion. The first repeated phrase in the music is then 8 bars long, then there is a 4 bar repeated phrase, and so on; the whole is 8+8+4+4+8+4+4+8+8=56. So this does not itself clarify if 2 or 4 bars should be taken to correspond to a breve or double step.

It is musically clear that if this tune is an example of diminuation of a sequence of breves (as suggested by Mullally p.23-24), that sequence must be moving every 2 bars. It is not possible to recover a plausible breve sequence from a 4-bar grouping of this tune. But conversely, if one did recover a sequence, it would be very atypical (rather more like a 'ground' than the sequences of breves found in the rest of the manuscript, perhaps one reason why modern audiences find the tune so accessible). So maybe this is not the best criteria.

Mullally says (p74) that "the vertical lines on the stave in the manuscript are an indication that, in transcription, there are four bars to each step". However, he does not comment here on the very striking arrangement of the text under the stave, in which the initial sequence of the dance (Rb ss ddd ss d^r, i.e., 8 steps) is carefully spread over the first 8+8 bars, and then at the strong musical change, the differing instructions for the man and woman (ssd + ssd) are squashed under the 4+4 bar phrases. There's even a little kink in the outline drawn from the stave around the text, to make the relation of text and music clear. It is hard to imagine stronger evidence that each 'ssd' takes 4 bars and not 8 bars, meaning each step (or breve) corresponds to 2x3 beats, not 4x3.

In fact this alignment has already been dismissed by Mullally, first on p15 "in the case of ... Danse de Cleves, the choreographical directions have sometimes been squeezed in wherever the scribe can find space" and then on p26 as "the steps are placed arbitrarily under the music".

So how does he (re-)arrange it (p52-53)? By taking each step to equal 4 bars, he stretches the initial 8 step sequence out to last 32 bars. The ssd+ssd he fits to bars 33-48, and then the final instructions, another ssd (perhaps ambiguous in the instructions if this should repeat, but which in any case appear in the manuscript to again be carefully aligned to the 4+4 musical theme, bars 33-40), he fits to bars 49-56.

Admittedly this has the advantage of not just making up something to fill in what appear to be missing steps under bars 25-32 and 42-56, which is the solution I have seen in all previous reconstructions (including my own). But it does seem the result would be either a very slow and boring dance, or a very frantic pace required by the musicians, or both.

Timing

So - apologies that time indeed got away from me and all went quiet for a while. But now I am inspired to post again by an issue about timing, or rather, tempo.

I've been reading the recent publication The Brussels Basse Danse Book, by Robert Mullally. It contains lots of interesting material about the background to this late 15th century manuscript, but I want to focus on one aspect regarding the interpretation of the music.

For the most part, the notation in the manuscript consists of a sequence of breves, one for each 'movement' (a double, a pair of singles, etc.) of the dance. I thought it was fairly widely accepted that each should be interpreted as a bar of 6/4, i.e., 2 groups of 3 beats. However Mullally argues that each should be 4 groups of 3 beats. This has a very substantial effect on feel of the dance, as it moves the double from being 'undulated' (in 6/4, stepping on 1,3,4) to being 'square' (in 12/4, stepping on each group of 3, to be effectively dancing in 4/4).

The manuscript itself is confusing because it says the tempo is 'major perfect' - which implies a main subdivision of the breve into 3, which does not fit either of the above schemes. Mullally first discusses this (p24) as implying 6/4, then argues for his 12/4 interpretation, naming this as 'major imperfect'. He then goes on, in his transcription, to inaccurately render (or intentionally 'fix'?) the relevant words in the text (p34) as 'maier imparfait' (I've just checked a facsimile, and it is definitely 'maier parfait' in the original).

There are some arguments for the 4x3 interpretation. For example this is very clearly the basse danse tempo given by Arbeau (writing around 1580, when the dance had gone out of fashion). Arena, writing in 1528 (although not actually providing music) says that each 'longa' is made up of four semibreves, where a longa clearly corresponds to a double. Arena also stresses several times that each 'movement' has 4 beats, e.g., a simple takes 2 beats.

The main counterarguments come from the relationship to the Italian bassa danza, which is almost as clear (from the match of music notation to instructions) in indicating a tempo of 6/4. As this is contemporary, and the Burgundian and Italian sources even borrow some dances from each other, it seems like good evidence. Not everyone agrees - I found that the (rather dated) 'World History of the Dance' (Sachs, 1937) contains an argument that "the basse dance is at all times and in all countries in even time". Mullaly does not discuss this anomaly, or clarify if he agrees with Sachs for the Italian bassa danza, despite elsewhere (e.g. p20) talking about a close relationship between the genres.

Other internal evidence comes from the small number of dances in Brussels that actually have mensural notation - e.g. Danse de Cleves - which I will discuss in a future post.

Canons of Rhetoric

Rhetoric was part of the 'standard' education in the middle ages - although whether the 'standard' medieval minstrel would have received such an education is not so clear (maybe material for another post in future). Nevertheless, the ideas would have been in the air, and perhaps familiar in some way to all those associated, even intermittently, with noble courts, universities and the ecclesiastical.

The classical canons of rhetoric, from Aristotle and Cicero, are:

• Invention
• Arrangement
• Style
• Memory
• Delivery

Although rhetoric is technically about how to make speeches, to persuade an audience of some particular case, or in more general terms, about communication of ideas, it seems clear this is also a useful categorisation, or set of guidelines, for a musician to consider when approaching performance. Indeed, poetry and song were not such distinct categories in the middle ages, so the musical was more closely linked to the verbal.

Note that 'invention' here does not necessarily correspond to  'composition' in the sense of coming up with something completely new, but is more about how to select your material, or vary it. Similarly 'arrangement' is both about the most effective order of presentation, but also ways to make an effect through alteration of the order. But over the next few posts I'll try to go through each 'canon' to give examples of the ideas they encompassed in classical and medieval thought, and how these might apply to instrumental music performance in particular.

As always with these posts, this will be mostly a matter of setting myself a task to research an idea, and passing along what I find out in terms that I hope some other contemporary 'medieval musicians' might find useful...

More soon

Between work and travel, I haven't found time to update this blog as often as intended. So this is just a note to say there will be more soon! As writing on this blog is mostly a way to get myself to think and read more about medieval music, and in writing, to organise my thoughts, I won't be giving it up yet. But it would be nice to know if anyone is reading and finds particular topics of interest.

Otherwise, I am intending to follow up some the ideas about the application of  'rhetoric' to instrumental arrangement and performance of medieval tunes. There are many scholarly studies of the connection of rhetoric and music, and it is clear that canons of rhetoric were an important part of medieval learning and thought. But I want to take a more practical approach - are there rhetorical techniques and devices regarding construction and presentation of persuasive verbal arguments that can be directly used to improve the 'persuasiveness' of a musical performance?

Drones and polyphony

My last post discussed a little the idea of adding a drone to a monophonic piece as an effective way to enhance an instrumental performance. It illustrates a more general idea - if you are going to borrow from the vocal repertoire (and as a medieval instrumentalist, you are going to quickly run out of repertoire unless you do) then it is useful, perhaps essential, to think beyond just playing the notes in the vocal score on your instrument. Rather, you need to investigate what your instrument can bring to this tune. Many good musicians do this instinctively but it is useful (especially for those of us who aren't 'instinctive' musicians) to think about it consciously as well.

I should thank a workshop with the fantastic lutenist Crawford Young for making this point explicit (and Chris for reminding me of it). Young complained of students presenting him with a 'note perfect' instrumental rendition of an Ars Nova motet - his comment was "what is the point?". An instrumental version of a vocal piece should not just be a pale reflection of what would be better sung, presenting the notes without the words. It should use the song as the starting point for something else.

But to get back to drones. Clearly if a polyphonic vocal piece is played with at least one drone instrument (such as bagpipe, hurdy-gurdy or (arguably) medieval fiddle) on one of the parts, then a drone will be added to the polyphonic texture. A repertoire we often explore in such a way is the medieval conductus: technically, sacred music but not 'liturgical' in the sense that it is not an essential part of the mass. We have found many examples of two-part conductus that sound great in a two bagpipe performance. In taking this music as a jumping off point for an enjoyable instrumental performance, are we doing something inherently modern, or could this be defended as plausible historical practice?  

Adding a drone

I thought it might be interesting to look a little more into the use of drones in medieval music (that is, having a consistent sounding of the tonic or home note of the tune throughout the tune). It certainly seems to work well for a lot of tunes, and is a common feature of modal monophonic music in other cultures, but do we know if it was actually a feature of music in Europe in the middle ages?

For some instruments, a drone is more or less built in, with obvious examples being the hurdy-gurdy and bagpipe, although in fact early depictions of bagpipes do not always show a drone; and it is not always evident from descriptions and depictions of early hurdy-gurdies (synfonie or organistrum) that they necessarily included drone strings.

As mentioned in my last post, fiddles with flat bridges lend themselves readily to addition of a drone. Plucked strings such as early lutes etc. can be effectively played with one of the open strings used intermittently to create a drone effect. On the harp, the easiest way to add something with the other hand to a monophonic piece is to pluck a drone, but there is a strong temptation to make it 'movable' (i.e. to go to adjacent notes as the tune moves) which is not strictly a drone.  

So far these are all single instruments producing drones to accompany themselves - would musicians playing together have sometimes done so with one simply playing a drone? I previously discussed the early 'wind band' which seemed to consist of two or more natural trumpets with a shawm - which would seem to point to something more or less drone-like (including the tonic, fifth and octave) in the accompaniment.

However, in terms of direct evidence of use of a drone as a standard way to enhance a monophonic tune, I haven't been able to find very much so far. In fact the only direct description  I have found comes from a text on training singers, the Summa musice (which has been variously dated from the 12th to 14th century). This says that two part music (dyaphonia) includes 'baslicam' and 'organicam'; in 'dyaphonia basilica' one musician holds one note as basis, the other starts on fifth or octave and makes ascending and descending passages, joining with the bass at the cadences ("agreeing in his pauses with the one who holds the foundation for him").

Droning on

One of the first groups to really grab my attention and engage my enthusiasm for medieval music was Sinfonye, with their core sound established by Stevie Wishart's fantastic fiddle and sinfonye playing. In particular, her fiddle style is strongly drone based, an approach that seems well justified by the existing evidence for relatively flat bridges and consonant open string tuning in early fiddles, as well as its general effectiveness for modal tunes. Every so often I have encountered people who really do not enjoy music with drones (they also dislike bagpipes, for example) but more often I find the average listener who knows little about early music finds the sound particularly exciting and enjoyable, often without really knowing why.

So I was very interested when I came across this passage from (yet another) article by Chris Page about the organistrum and symphonia:

How did the lettered musicians of the 13th  and 14th centuries regard drone accompaniments? Had they constructed a hierarchy of string-techniques that distinguished (a) constant drones from (b) proto-polyphonic forms blurring into (c) genuine plurilinear polyphony? If so, were they prejudiced-as most modern Western listeners are-in favour of plurilinear music?2 Can the supposed social fall of hurdy-gurdies be explained by a dependence upon drones?

As I find so often with Page, his impeccable research and beautifully phrased writing seems to have subtext about what is 'ideal'  medieval music (pure vocal polyphony), with everything else some kind of preparation or departure that should be taken less seriously. Why should we expect medieval musicians to put these different approaches in a hierarchy? And isn't the 'prejudice' one of the modern Western classical music listener (or choral scholar), rather than one common to all Western ears?

Frustratingly, however, I haven't been able to find that Page ever answered the questions posed in this introduction. The referenced article (Part 1) makes a good case that the origins of the instrument are most likely to be German, not Arabic as some have claimed; and a following article (Part 2) that 'organistrum' and 'symphonia' (and variant terms) were used fairly interchangeably, rather than the first being always the 2-person instrument as is often suggested. But I can't find trace of a Part 3.

Medieval dance

Some readers (those few of you) may have heard the BBC3 'Early Music Show' on Sunday, featuring 'Medieval Dance' (if not, you should be able to listen via that link, for the next month at least). Though it had some good points - not least a very valiant attempt by the guest dance expert Darren Royston to communicate dance via radio - and the inclusion of our very own recording of Rostibolli - it was a little frustrating as well, particularly in making no attempt at a distinction between 'medieval' and 'renaissance' dance.

For example it included everything from a completely made-up dance to the 13th century song 'Sumer is icumen in', via the 15th century Italian repertoire, to 16th century Arbeau branles, without really explaining the important differences. These include level of the evidence available for reconstruction (from 'make a guess from pictures', to 'choreographies but not explanations of the steps', to 'which foot to move where on each beat of the music'), but also big musical changes. In fact I have just noticed that the BBC website listing of the music played describes 'Dance de Cleves' and 'Washerwoman's Branle' as 'French 14th century' when they date from the late 15th and late 16th century respectively; and the 15th century Italian dances Rostibolli and Gelosia are also listed as '14th century'.

Given it is the 'Early Music' show it was also a pity there was no discussion of what is known about the instrumental ensembles that played for dancing. The programme included discussion of the Gresley manuscript which was nice, but then used as an example the dance 'Rawty' for which there is no actual music in the manuscript (the version played in the programme comes from the recent York Waits disk and was composed by them).

As so often seems to happen with early music, 'medieval' seemed to be shorthand for 'let's have some jolly fun' rather than seriously engaging with what is known about the repertoire.I somehow doubt they would accept such inaccuracies if making a programme about Baroque dance.

Playing for dancing

I've posted before about playing from memory (or 'by heart') and I think it applies more than ever to playing for dancing. The communication with your 'audience', if they are depending on you to support their movements, is absolutely crucial, and hardly possible if your eyes are glued to the music, and you have no idea how the movements and sections of the dance unfold.

I should admit, however, that often when playing I'm not always able to watch the dancing as closely as I would consider ideal, because as a dancer and dance teacher myself, it can be distracting - especially if the dancers are going wrong! Sometimes one needs just enough knowledge but not too much...

Dancing

So it has been a mad week with no time to blog, partly due to the 'day job' but also because we are preparing for a trip to Germany, to play for four days of 15th & 16th century dancing, in a medieval dance hall in a medieval village. Should be lots of fun, but needed a lot of preparation, not least getting mouth muscles strengthened up to be able to play shawm all day and late into the night.

It seems like a good prompt to post some thoughts and experiences about playing for dance. It is one of our favourite things to do, and is a great way to get experience in performing: you are not the centre of attention but it is greatly appreciated; mistakes don't get much noticed, as long as you keep going. The latter is actually fairly true even in concert settings, so it is good practice to be in a situation where stopping is not really an option and thus learn to fake it when things go a bit wrong.

But it is one of the situations where 'modern' expectations can be quite adrift from what they would have been in period. Many, if not most, historic dance groups learn and rehearse (and often perform) to recorded music. As a consequence, they tend to take their cues from quite specific instrumentation or ornamentation on the particular recording they use, to the extent that they find it difficult to dance with any other arrangement - which basically means, any live music, which is unlikely to reproduce a recording exactly, even if it is the same musicians who made the recording.

Of course, dancers in period would have had the opposite experience, having to learn and perform the dance with whatever musicians were available, and therefore experiencing substantial variety at all stages of rehearsal. Indeed, the 15th century dance masters make a point of saying that a good dancer should practice with different instruments, and not only should they not get confused in their steps, but they should be able through their style to express the different character of the music produced, e.g., by lute vs. pipe and tabor.

The new shawm sound

Thinking a bit more about my last post, another possible significant change to shawm playing technique that might date from about 1360 is the use of greater reed control and tonguing. It seems to be generally thought that shawms were (re-)introduced to Europe from the middle east where they were and are still played with reed fully inside the mouth (not in contact with the lips). Most current players agree that the 15th and 16th century shawm was played with lip control, although there is certainly still room for disagreement over how much. This could of course have been a development that came hand-in-hand with a change to the trumpet, each necessitating the adjustment in the other. It also seems the introduction of a larger shawm (or bombarde), played along with the soprano shawm occured around this time. So at least three possibilities for a very noticeable change.

The iconography of shawm players in this period seems to overwhelmingly show mouths that still rested on the pirouette rather than an 'oboe style' where the reed is held between the lips and the pirouette serves no function (or is absent). Unfortunately it is hard to tell from this to what extent, if at all,  they were using lip control - using the pirouette to support the mouth does allow the lips to control the reed enough to help with flexible intonation, tonguing and some dynamics. 'Oboe style' provides greater dynamical control, but with the result that some modern players seem to end up competing as to how just softly they can play these loud winds.

In trying to find some more scholarly backup for these changes in shawm playing style I came across this delightful rant from Jeremy Montagu:

There is no point in gripping the reed of a shawm between the lips as though it were an oboe or a bassoon; when one does so, the true shawm tone is lacking

His general point is that medieval instruments are not the same as renaissance and baroque ones:

Players must realize that if they use cornetts and sackbuts, crumhorns, rauschpfeife, gemshorns and viols, all of which date from the end of the 15th century at the earliest, and recorders, which are only a century at the most earlier, in 12th to 14th century music, they might just as well use oboes, clarinets and violins

Too many people are mixing them up, he suggests, due to unwillingness to put in the hard work to learn how to play the right instruments (or with the right technique):

...the moment that one plays before the public one has a responsibility to the public; either one says 'we are playing early music on fake instruments with fake techniques for our own enjoyment' or one does the job properly. It may mean making one's own instruments; it may mean persuading better craftsmen than oneself to make them well; it may mean a lot of work and a lot of practice, but at the moment the vast majority of early musicians are taking money under false pretences because they are not making authentic sounds.

This was written in 1975. It would be nice to think things had improved since then...

New music

I have referenced before the Limburg chronicle, as discussed in this article by Wegman. He notes that the chronicler, Wolfhagen, seems particularly excited some musical innovation in 1360:

Things changed also with regard to trumpet and shawm playing, and music progressed[lit. ascended], and had never been as good as it has now started to become. For he who was known, five or six years ago, as a good shawm player throughout the whole country  is not worth a fly now...

Wegman leaves it as something of a mystery as to what was the significant change that occurred. However in looking at the evidence for early trumpet and shawm ensemble, including a controversy I was previously unaware of, about the existence or otherwise of the slide trumpet as a precursor to the sackbutt/trombone, it seems very plausible that it was exactly the invention and spread of the slide trumpet that Wolfhagen experienced first in 1360. An article by Keith Polk notes that there is an explosion of town and household accounts recording payments to shawm and trumpet groups in Germany from about 1350 on, and specifically the term 'posaune' starts to be used in 1360 and (at least in later references) seems clearly distinguished from the standard signalling trumpet, as the instrument used to play along with shawms.

As an aside, my favourite account book reference mentioned in the article is a payment from town records in Hildesheim in 1427 "dem nigen basuner unde dem bumbarde te dranckgelde" - to the new (slide?) trumpet player and bombarde player for drink money.

As yet I don't know if anyone else has made this connection to Wolfhagen's innovation, but it seems plausible that a shawm player who previously had played in ensemble with a natural trumpet, but was now accompanied by a slide trumpet, would have a much greater flexibility in the music they could play, with a consequent noticeable jump in apparent virtuosity. There also seems to be evidence that one of the causes or consequences of this development was the ability to play instrumentally the latest Ars Nova chansons.

 

Minstrel vs. musician III

Konrad of Megenberg (c.1350) continues his discussion of music in the noble household (translation from this article):

One cultivates the beauties of music either for freedom of the spirit alone - and thus [the beauties of music] win praiseworthy masters and may be called gentlemanly and becoming - or for the sake of reward as the municipal minstrels exploit [the beauties of music] who are thus vulgar having cheap and lowly status... All ability exercised for gain is beggarly and of a maidservant's condition, because to practice it is to play the beggar. But the begging artist perverts precious arts, making a handmaid of the mistress and a slave of the freewoman.

It does seem a bit unfair of Konrad to say that anyone practicing or playing music out of the necessity or hope of making some money is thereby debasing the art. Although it is a recognised trope, going back to Aristotle, to divide "cultured amateurs from vulgar professionals" in the arts (Page, p.196); and is still seen as somewhat suspect today to practice any art with the intention of making money from it ("selling out").

Chris Page, in discussing this passage, emphasises that Konrad is making a distinction between 'musicians' [musicus] who are servant-entertainers [servi delectabilibus] in the household, and 'minstrels' [ioculatores] who practice music as their profession (and expect to be paid for it). Page suggests the former are amateurs, in the sense that they principally held some other role in the household (e.g. herald, messenger, groom of the chamber) and only incidentally provided music, perhaps being rewarded with a gift for 'practicing their minstrelsy' on some occasion, but not paid a regular wage for providing music per se.

As usual with these things, it is probably not such a sharp divide, with some of those attached to the household employed specifically as musicians but sometimes carrying out other duties (taking messages seems to be particularly common) and others employed in non-entertainer roles but able to perform music (or entertain in other ways) when requested. Perhaps it is notable in this context that Konrad does not appear to use the term menestrellus.

Banish the sober fiddles

Konrad of Megenberg observed in about 1350:

Indeed, in modern times the shawms and loud trumpets generally banish the sober fiddles from
the feasts, and the young girls dance eagerly to the loud noise, like hinds, shaking their buttocks womanishly and rudely.

(N.B., this translation and those that follow are based on the transcription and translation of the manuscript presented by Chris Page in this article).

Apart from conjuring up a fascinating image of what 14th century dance may have been like - very different from the image we get from actual dance manuals when they arrive in the 15th century - it is interesting confirmation of shawm+trumpet becoming the standard loud combination in this period. Moreover Konrad gives a more detailed insight into the categories of players of loud winds, which he calls the 'macrofistulus'. He describes four types. First:

The burduna player is the one who sounds a certain elephantine cry on the burduna or on the oliphant. [Burdunicen esc qui in burduna aut in barritona quodam barrito elephantino sonoral] 

I've been looking at a few beautiful carved oliphants recently (see picture), but essentially they are a hunting horn, likely to be used for signalling rather than music per se. However, a nice aside is to find out that Latin has a specific word, 'barritus', for 'the cry of an elephant'.







Second:

The musicen is the one who plays the  musa [pipe] which is also called bombina from its sound. For it buzzes with a great trumpet blast or din of sound, and on this account it differs from the oliphant. The large pipe in some instruments is joined with minor pipes, as in the case of organs, or with the tibia as in the bagpipe. 

The context here seems to be suggesting a single reed pipe, as in a bagpipe drone (although the drone also seems a possible intepretation of the 'burdana' above). The emphasis on volume seems a bit odd, as single reeds are usually substantially softer than double reeds.Also, their use as  a single instrument seems to be much more a 'folk' tradition (e.g. the hornpipe) than something to be found in the courtly scene that Konrad is discussing.

Third and fourth:

The tubicen is the one who makes music with the masculine tuba [trumpet] (it is called 'masculine' because of the moderate coarseness of its sound) . The tibicen is the one who makes music on the feminine tibia [shawm] (called 'feminine' from the thinness and harshness of its sound).

 He can't resist a misogynist dig:

The tuba and tibia do not differ save by the largeness and smallness of their respective sounds, just as the masculine voice—as with many things—is greater by nature than the female voice.

 But then he observes:

These two instruments sound well together according to due proportions in 4ths, 5ths and octaves just as the character of the melody requires.

It seems clear then that the shawm and trumpet combination were playing some form of polyphony, and it becomes interesting then to speculate how the limited notes available on the natural trumpet might have worked in such a context. There also seems to be a close association of this combination with the drum (more so than for later loud wind bands). For example, Konrad notes (admittedly for a different performance context):

Wherefore these three concordant instruments [shawm, trumpet and drum] are most fit to be set and often employed in the first attack of battle to terrify the enemy and encourage allies.

Noisy feasts

I mentioned a few posts ago that trumpets and drums at feasts seemed to be commonly referred to in the medieval period, and just recently saw this lovely ivory from a 14th century Italian chest, with three trumpeters and a nakers player entertaining some feasting nobles.

However it does make me wonder what they played. Obviously the instruments are suitable for fanfares at key moments, such as entrances of important people, serving of food, and so on. But did they play more extended pieces as general entertainment? Did they provide 'background music' in the sense of relatively continuous performance that was not the main focus of attention? It is hard to imagine trumpets being suitable for this, partly due to being tiring to play at length, and also for volume, but then why not at a noisy feast? Did they play for dancing - are these the 'minstrels' described in the French romances who played as the nobles danced after feasting, and then stopped (tired out!) while the nobles continued to sing and dance?

And does the picture above actually show two trumpets and a shawm (the shorter instrument on the left, which now I look again, seems to be being held in a different way)? Could literary descriptions of 'trumpets' at feasts potentially refer to such mixed ensembles?

Sacred music for the loud band

I've just got back from a concert at the Juilliard School in New York, by their newly-formed loud band. Apart from the problem that it wasn't at all loud (all pieces were performed by mixed shawms and dulcians, with the shawms played oboe style to balance with the dulcians; which to my mind is a complete waste of shawms) one interesting point was made about repertoire. This was a mention of the fact that the Philidor manuscript, a collection of reed instrument music from the late 17th century, includes a 'Symphonie du Misereres' which is from a (16th century) mass of Orlando de Lassus. Some solid justification then, that vocal sacred music was recycled by instrumentalists, including loud bands.

Perhaps still a stretch to justify our shawm and bagpipe versions of (13th century) Notre Dame polyphony, however.

Nakers

Including a comment on an earlier post about drums, I have had a recent coincidence  of references drums and trumpets at medieval events. As mentioned in that comment, Gawayne and the Green Knight describes trumpets, nakers and pipes at a feast. Then I saw a small exhibition at the Met in New York (my present location) about 'bazm & razm' ('feast & fight' in Persian medieval kingship) which noted particularly the frequent conjunction of trumpets and naqqara in illustrations of hunting and battle. And then ran across the book by Frank D'Accone 'The civic muse', about music in Sienna in the middle ages and renaissance, which describes frequent reference in the 14th century town council accounts to trumpets and nakers, e.g.

A decree from 11 August 1379 mentions eight tenured musicians and says that henceforth the six trumpeters, the shawm player and the drummer [often specified as the nakers player] were each to have two new uniforms every year but they would not receive a salary for the months in which clothing was issued.

Chaucer's harpist

In Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, there is this description of a harpist (Book II lines 1030-1036):

For though the beste harpour upon lyve 
Wolde on the beste souned Ioly harpe
That ever was, with alle his fingres fyve,
Touche ay o streng, or ay o werbul harpe,
Were his nayles poynted never so sharpe,
It shulde maken every wight to dulle,
To here his glee, and of his strokes fulle.

The context is Troilus being advised not to be too repetitive in writing a love letter: touching always one string or always harping the same tune would dull the listeners' wits. no matter how good the harp or harpist.

But the details are interesting. Using "all fingers five" is almost never done in any current style of harp playing (the only exception I have encountered is damping with the little finger in one of the Robert ap Huw motifs). Was it more common in the 14th century, or is Chaucer just not a very close observer of harp players? This could explain confusion over four vs. five fingers, but the "nayles pointed" is unlikely to be pure invention. Pointed nails are needed for nail plucking technique, which these days particularly associated with the wire-strung clarsach, but sometimes used on gut or other strings. Was nail technique more standard then, or could Chaucer in England have seen the Irish/Scottish clarsach played enough to have that impression of how the 'best harper' would play?

Further inventions

Another (in)famous case of 'discovery' of early music from Scotland hidden in the architecture is the 'Rosslyn Motet', based on stone carvings in Rosslyn chapel. As for the Stirling heads, a irregularly repeating pattern was taken to indicate music, this time by a claimed analogy to 'Chladni' vibration patterns. This was used as the basis of a 'reconstruction' widely hailed in the media as a rediscovery of a 15th century piece of music.

I can recommend reading the debunks posted here and here.

Note I have no problem with any musician or composer taking any route they like from the inspiration of some existing medieval art and architecture to the development of a new musical piece or performance. But the general (or even the musically educated) public's understanding of medieval music is fuzzy enough, without muddying the waters with these kinds of inflated claims of 'discovery'.

Musical reconstructions

It is likely that one reason behind the somewhat uncritical embrace of claims for medieval origins for some 'traditional' Scottish songs is that there is not much else available. There are no surviving sources for secular song; and only a handful of manuscript sources for religious music, which tend to largely overlap in content and/or style with sources for church music in other countries. Good evidence that Scotland was not a backwater but rather participated in a Europe-wide musical culture; but not so helpful if trying to programme a concert of 'medieval Scottish music'.

Another consequence seems to be the fad for 'discovering' early music from Scotland that has been preserved in some less obvious form than musical notation. A recent example that attracted substantial attention was the 'Music of the Stirling Heads' (a reasonably clear, if uncritical, summary of the 'discovery' is given by harpist Bill Taylor here). An apparently arbitrary pattern of O, I, II marks around the edge of a ceiling roundel carved in 1540 has been interpreted as equivalent to the binary sequences (0s and 1s) found in the Robert ap Huw manuscript of harp music , where they represent patterns of musical tension and resolution in the compositions it contains. So at best this is the barest outline of music, on the basis of which anything like a 'reconstruction' of a tune, let alone an instrumental arrangement (or a dance!) is wild speculation.

But far more likely, I think, just a bit of random decoration.

To learn his craft

A nice little bit of late evidence that musicians were paid by their patrons to travel to study music. Purser quotes the 1474 household accounts for James III of Scotland:

Item, gevin at the kingis command the third of September to John Broun, lutare, at his passage our sey [over sea] to lere [learn] his craft - five pounds

and shortly after

a barrell of salmond that was send to a lutare to Bruges, at the kingis command 

Why "Hey, tutti taitie" (the tune to "Scots wha hae") Doesn't Sound Medieval

I've actually found a news article from 1913 which, from my limited understanding of French, looks like a fairly thorough debunk of the 'Chateau de Blois' evidence for an early origin of the tune. But as with so many things, it seems the legend is more powerful. Meanwhile Chris offers this commentary based on the tune itself:

As Cait has mentioned there is a curiously widespread notion that "Hey,tutti taitie" (the tune used by Robert Burns for his song "Scots wha hae") is a medieval melody, played at Bannockburn in 1314 and/or by the Scots at the Siege of Orleans in 1429. To most people who see the clear differences (see 'Pre-Early Music') between medieval music (roughly up to 15th C) and Renaissance and later music  this notion is obviously tosh - the melody in no way sounds medieval and seems post-Renaissance (at a guess 18th C). But how can we say that?

I am not a Comparative Musicologist but I have played an awful lot of medieval music. So here is my view of why the tune (at least as found in most editions of Burns' songs, e.g., here) doesn't sound medieval.

1. The rather clear feel of harmony. In each set of two bars the melody concentrates on notes of a triad. It is very rare to see such a rigid structure throughout a medieval melody, though it occasionally happens for short section - but no more than two or three 'bars'.
2. The repeated notes, that occur in many of the two-bar phrases, are rare in medieval melodies, which usually have much more melodic movement.
3. The insistantly dotted rhythm [note from Cait: Emmerson even tries to use this to argue we have here evidence for early origins of the strathspey!]. This is not at all common in medieval music; it is common in the Baroque. It is vaguely possible that the rhythm has been applied later to a melody that originally had a 6/8 sort of rhythm  but it doesn't sound that way.
4. The importance of the sixth in the mid-part of the melody (e.g. bars 5-6 and 9-10). Medieval music rarely has the 6th degree in a structural position.
5. The repeated note of the final before the stress (the 'f' at the end of bars 7 & 15). Medieval music usually resolves on the stress, not before.
6. The awful predictability. It has the four-square blockiness of Renaissance and later music.

For most instances of the word 'Medieval' here you could substitute 'Modal' and use the argument to differentiate western 'Harmonic' music from non-Western 'Modal' music. But that is not a bad guide.

Scots wha?

So after yesterday's post I got interested in following up what evidence had been brought forward to support the claim that the tune of 'Scots wha hae', also known as 'Hey tutti taiti' dated back to the early 14th century (Bannockburn) or at least early 15th century (Jean d'Arc's entry into Orleans). For example we have no less a source than the official 'Education Scotland' website saying:

"But there is, we are told, a document in the French Château Royal de Blois that says the tune was played as a march by Joan of Arc's Scottish soldiers when she entered the city of Orleans on 29 April 1429"

Unfortunately they do not divulge who told them  - but more of this mysterious French connection later.

As far as I can see there are three main lines of evidence that get discussed. The first is based on the fact that Robert Burns himself averred:

" I have met the tradition universally over Scotland, and particularly about Stirling, in the neighbourhood of the scene, that this air was Robert the Bruce's March at the battle of Bannockburn, which was fought in 1314".

This seems to be sufficient for several authors (e.g. John Purser, perhaps following Stenhouse?) to note that a verse reported in Fabyan (1516) and Caxton (1415–1492) as a satirical song about the English from 1328 (the marriage of Robert the Bruce's son) fits the tune neatly, and therefore:

"there can scarcely be a doubt that it was adapted to this very air, which must,  of course, have been quite a common tune over all Scotland long before this period" [Stenhouse]

Stenhouse also seems to be the main source of the second theory, which is that the tune known in the 18th century as 'Hey tutti taiti' was in fact the same as  " Hey, now the Day daws", a song mentioned at least as early as the start of the 16th century in several sources, including by the Scots poet Dunbar. The actual basis for this association seems slim - Emmerson mentions that another 18th century song set to the same tune as 'Hey tutti tatti' was 'Bridekirks Hunting' which has a 'now the day dawns' line. On the other hand, the early 17th century Strachloch lute book contains a setting of  'The Day Dawes' which is a completely different tune.

The third argument is stated thus by Purser:

"We know from French records that the Scottish archers brought this tune to France and that it was heard when Joan of Arc entered Orleans..." (p.63)

And indeed it does seem the tune is known in France today as the 'Marche des Soldats de R. Bruce', and is played at the annual celebrations in Orleans of Jean of Arc's victory. So what are these mysterious 'French records'? Purser cites Leonce Chomel, who in 1911 published a piano score, as part of a series of 'Vieux Airs Militaires Francais', entitled  "MARCHE DES SOLDATS DE
ROBERT BRUCE + MARCHE QUI A ESTE JOUIEE POUR L'ENTREE TRIUMPHALE DE JEHANNE LA PUCELLE, A ORLEANS". I haven't been able to track down an actual copy, but it seems that Chomel claimed the march was "taken from a manuscript in the Archives of the Chateau Royal de Blois" (Purser). Chomel also seems to have been behind the performance of the march at a military event in 1910, for which the programme made the same claim for provenance (this is mentioned by Emmerson). But here the trail seems to go cold, apart from a few sceptical comments (both in 1910 and more recently) about Chomel's musical scholarship.

Traditional tunes

So I am back home in Scotland, and in trying to think of a suitable Scottish subject was reminded of the claim occasionally encountered that the song 'Scots Wha Hae' dates from the battle of Bannockburn (1314), suggesting it would be highly suitable for us to include in our repertoire.

In fact, it is reasonably well known that the words were written by Robert Burns in 1793, imagining the words of a rousing speech by Robert the Bruce before the battle. But you can find everywhere claim that the tune "according to tradition, was played by Bruce's army at the Battle of Bannockburn, and by the Franco-Scots army at the Siege of Orleans" (Wikipedia).

However, the tune is stylistically so different from anything surviving from the middle ages that this seems vanishingly improbable; indeed it seems most likely to date from not long before the earliest known versions which have Jacobite words (i.e., early 18th century). I've never quite understood why people sometimes seem to think that 'traditional' means there was no origin, or at least, that this designation is sufficient to justify including a tune (or some other traditional activity) in a medieval event.

The #1 hit in Germany (in 1350)

If yesterday's post did not whet your appetite to read the referenced article by Wegman, perhaps this will. He suggests that the tradition of musicians travelling once a year to the minstrel's schools (particularly given the purpose of this journey, in at least some accounts, is to learn new songs), could be behind the regular reports by a Limburg chronicler in the second half of the 14th century that such-and-such a song had suddenly become popular in a particular year:

"Item, around... [1350] ...one sang a new song in the German lands, which was played on shawms and trumpets everywhere, and made everyone joyful: Wysset wer den synen y vurkoys . . . ."

That is, perhaps the date of the new song was memorable because it was each year at Easter that the musicians would return from the minstrel school with something new - in the same way we now tend to associate the 'Christmas #1' with its year and vice versa. 

Also notable is that it seems these 'songs' were equally well known and propagated in instrumental arrangements, for loud bands. 

 

 

 

 

Travelling minstrels

I've argued that minstrels did not 'wander' but that does not mean they did not travel. One documented reason for travelling was to attend a 'minstrel school'. This article by Rob C. Wegman provides an excellent summary (as well as an extensive appendix of the documentary evidence) of these events which seemed to take place at least every other year, from the 1310s to the 1440s, in France or the Low Countries, during Lent. Musicians seem to have come from far and wide: Froissart describes the 1366 event in Brussels as attracting musicians from Denmark, Navarra, Aragon, Lancaster, Bavaria, and Brunswick.

Sadly, the evidence is very scant and it is hard to know what actually happened on these occasions. But relevant to my running theme, the main form the evidence takes seems to consist of notes in account books saying that the minstrels in question are being released from their usual duties, or even sponsored, to travel to the school. This is hardly the travel of 'itinerants' or  'outsiders'.


  

Well paid minstrels

Another little glimpse into medieval minstrels in Germany comes from the 'Chronicle of Hainaut', describing a feast given by the Emperor Frederic I in 1184, when his sons were knighted: "in their honour many presents were given by them and by all the princes and many nobles to knights, prisoners and crusaders as well as to ioculatores and ioculatrices [i.e., male and female minstrels]... horses, precious clothes, gold and silver".

As well as providing additional evidence of female minstrels, it shows a good standard of payment!

Medieval minstrel(s) in Germany

One reason the posting has become a little sporadic is that I am currently in Germany. So I thought I should perhaps look for some information about the medieval minstrel in Germany - what do we know about their status, for example? A chapter by Maria Dobozy in the book "The stranger in medieval society" looks interesting, but seems to assume from the outset that minstrels were wandering. Within the first paragraph she argues: minstrels are itinerant; this leads to them having only temporary social ties; and hence outsider status. But what is the evidence for this?

Dobozy quotes German law code that "Hired fighters and their children, minstrels [spellude] and all those illegitimate born...are without rights" but notes this does not mean they have no legal protection, rather that they cannot serve as witnesses or similar in a court of law. She links this to the idea that they lack social ties, hence no-one knows them well enough to trust them in this kind of legal capacity. But a minstrel who serves a regular patron, or who joins a guild to protect their business within one town, does not seem likely to have had 'pariah status'.

Even those who did perhaps find themselves performing quite often in different places seem more likely to have established a regular 'round' of the towns or castles, where they would soon be known, and hopefully welcomed back. I'm basing this judgement partly on modern experience. Nearly all musicians trying to make a living know that they do better to establish regular gigs where they are sure of a welcome than to 'wander' hopefully to somewhere they are completely unknown. I doubt the experience of the medieval musician was so different.

Singing and playing

This time I am reading a nice article by Sylvia Huot, Voices and Instruments in Medieval French Secular Music.  As the title suggests, the article is partly a response to Chris Page (whose view can be crudely summarised as 'singing and playing didn't happen in period for troubadour song'). Huot's article contains many interesting points based on careful literary analysis.

As one example, she notes how the ambiguity of the (reasonably common) literary description of someone 'singing and playing' ("chanter et sonner") could be taken (and at least sometimes is by Page) to imply a temporal sequence - first they sang, then played - but could equally well be intended to mean simultaneous activities. She admits that many descriptions of nobles performing high-art songs describe purely vocal performance, but notes this could be as much a result of the literary context in which the descriptions occur - e.g., the protagonist of a romance is alone and complaining of their unsuccessful love affair.

Should we then conclude that it is poor performance practice to sing a troubadour song in front of an audience?

She also comes to this logical conclusion regarding vocal polyphony:

"...perhaps all descriptions of combined vocal and instrumental music refer to monody. Still, if a monophonic ballade or other chanson can be sung to fiddle or psaltery, must we assume that the combination of vocal and instrumental music would necessarily be dropped for a polyphonic piece of the same genre?"

It does indeed seem very odd to think that instrumentalists who were used to accompanying songs would for some reason never consider playing one part of a polyphonic piece while another part was sung.

Costume vs. clothing

I suppose one reason that I find it hard to understand the anti-period costume view for 'serious' period music performances is that I personally feel quite at home in medieval costume, to the extent I'd rather call it medieval clothing.

After all, one has to wear something in a performance, and wearing something completely everyday - e.g. scruffy trousers and pullover -  does not seem right. But then if I am going to wear something 'good' (if not necessarily evening dress) or something studiedly 'neutral' (such as the all black that is favoured by many current classical musicians as the alternative to evening dress), I will be wearing something that is deliberately making some statement to the audience. 

So why not make that statement consistent with the music I am about to present?

Unfortunately, the reality is, that if I want to make the statement 'I am a serious medieval musician', then in the current climate it is almost obligatory that I don't wear medieval clothing.

Performing in costume

This may need more than one post to discuss, but it is clear that 'serious' performers of medieval music rather look down on anyone who plays in costume. For example in the essay by Benjamin Bagby that I have discussed before, he starts out by characterising the expectations of a modern concert audience in terms of atmosphere, duration, programme notes, etc., as potentially problematic, because it influences performances in ways that have nothing to do with the medieval. I agree that performances can indeed be over-tailored to avoid any risk of audience confusion or alienation, to the detriment of authenticity. But he goes on:

 "This fear of alienation is a slippery slope descending towards the ridiculous, as any ensemble which has tried dressing up in pointy shoes and pretending to be ‘medieval’ can attest."

I should admit a bias here as someone extremely fond of the medieval pointy shoe (and so much more comfortable than the modern high heel that a female performer might otherwise be expected to wear!). But why does he think it so obviously ridiculous and pandering to the audience to dress as they did in the middle ages when performing medieval music? Why, indeed, isn't this 'odd' clothing potentially seen as more alienating  to an audience, more risky, than standard concert dress?

There are at least two issues here, I think. One is that the medieval costume is seen as all part of the 'drums and fun' attitude, which prevents the music from being taken seriously. The other, as hinted at in the quote, is that by wearing a costume, the performer is 'pretending' to be someone they are not, some character from the middle ages; rather than being themselves, playing music from the middle ages. I don't think either is a good reason to suggest the practice is inherently ridiculous.

Down or up?

One of the messages that comes across clearly from reading Berger's book on memory and medieval music is that musical instruction in the middle ages (at least for church music, for which instruction manuals survive) was heavily dependent on memorising many mnay examples of 'standard' forms, or musical formulas. In a natural relationship, the music itself can be recognised as often consisting in the re-usage and re-composition of these forms, rather than 'original' composition as we might conceive of it now.

A flip-side to this is that certain alternative 'forms', although they might seem equally conceivable and reasonably interchangeable to the modern musician, were simply not part of the vocabulary.

For example, many medieval tunes end with a sub-final to final progression (e.g. if in D-dorian, ending with F-E-D-C-D). But many instruments, particularly drone instruments such as the hurdy-gurdy, have a tuning set up such that their lowest note is the final, making this progression impossible. Modern players then tend to substitute the tone above the final, e.g. F-E-D-E-D. But this is not an ornament found in medieval music (to our knowledge), and probably would have stood out like a sore thumb to musicians at the time. Much less obviously wrong would be to play, for example, F-E-E-E-D, as a simplified form of the melody, particularly if other instruments or singers are simultaneously providing the correct progression.

Probably the best way to absorb such 'principles' is just to play lots of the (correct) melodies, so that the forms become second nature.

Medieval sophistry

Regular readers may have detected that though I often disagree with his conclusions, I find it is always illuminating to read Christopher Page, particularly for the wealth of sources he introduces. In The Owl and the Nightingale, he looks at how a famous dictum of St Jerome that "giving money to entertainers [histrionibus, which can mean minstrels] is like sacrificing to devils", often quoted as an illustration of the complete outsider status of the medieval minstrel, gets gradually softened by 12th and 13th century writers.

William of Auxerre notes that as minstrels are still men (in the image of god), and it is right to give alms to men, then it can be permissible to give alms to minstrels, that is, St Jerome's ban cannot logically be held to be absolute. Peter the Chanter says that 'some people' argue that giving money that allows someone to become a minstrel is sacrificing to demons but not if the man is already a minstrel (a rather fine distinction?)  "providing he does not give to provide any wantoness". He first appears to disagree with this view by saying that if the money is given because the man is a minstrel, it is giving to demons; but then later allows that those artisans who should be tolerated by the church include "players of musical instruments...necessary so that boredom and depression can be relieved by them, and so that devotion, and not wantonness, may be inspired by them".

However still beyond the pale are those 'histriones' who "contort and distort their bodies with shameless jumps or shameless gestures" or who flatter their current audience and say shameful things about those absent (although one writer prevaricates that it might be permissable to give money to a minstrel to stop him from saying bad things about you to others). Thomas Chobham makes finer distinctions amongst these actors, flatterers and two kinds of musical instrument players, the first who "go to public drinking houses and wanton gatherings" and incite lust, and should be shunned as St Jerome suggests, and the acceptable musicians who "sing the deeds of princes and the lives of saints" thus providing comfort to the troubled.

Problems in recovering a musical style

In an earlier post I mentioned the common assumption that, as medieval instrumental music was primarily an oral tradition, and little written notation survives, therefore most of the repertoire and performance style is simply unknown. In that post, I was moderately optimistic that we might still be able to make educated guesses to get somewhere close. However, at other times I am not so sure.

In particular I have been thinking about comparable situations where an oral musical tradition exists; has then been notated using a convention not invented for this style; and then others have 'learnt' the music from the notation without having heard the original.

Specifically I am thinking of Bulgarian music, which is quite popular for UK folk musicians to dabble in, probably because of the interesting rhythms which present an interesting challenge (and a welcome relief from dum-de-dum). But many of them seem to learn it from the page without (noticeable) effort to listen to or imitate original recordings. And if you are familiar with the original, it is clear that these 'reconstructions' are often missing all essentials of the style, so much so that it is obviously not 'Bulgarian'. For example, a Bulgarian '7/8' is not just '7/8', and it makes all the difference to the flow of the tune. Also, despite heroic efforts by some annotators, the ornamentation really cannot be captured, but is again key to an authentic sound. The problem can be increased if the music is also being played on different instruments: fiddle instead of gadulka, tin whistle instead of kaval, etc. In addition to different timbres, these will naturally lend themselves to different ways of ornamenting.

Of course, as with medieval music, it might not be a particular concern of current musicians to be authentic, and they just want to use the tune for their own musical purposes. But my point here is that it is only because we can listen to the original that we know how far the performance has deviated. Barring the invention of a time machine, we can never know for the middle ages. Maybe there is an essential lilt to the first or second rhythmic mode that we are totally missing. Maybe there was a form of ornament (similar to the constant 'vibrato', which is not exactly that and comes in several varieties, in Bulgarian music) that was absolutely ubiquitous and obvious to the medieval instrumentalist, and the absence of which in our attempted authentic performances would have them shaking their heads.

I guess this is not going to stop us playing. At least one lesson we might take is that using instruments that are as close to correct as possible might avoid some pitfalls. But we are still very probably getting it wrong...

Who played bagpipes in the middle ages?

In an earlier post I discussed medieval women playing shawms - there are illustrations; but possibly they are only being shown in an allegorical context. I just found this nice illustration of a woman playing the bagpipes, in what looks like an everyday setting. Although it is worth noting that it is still an illustration from a romance, so could reflect a poetic conceit.

One does need to be careful. After all, there are also many illustrations of pigs playing the bagpipes. In fact there are probably many more illustrations of pig bagpipers than women bagpipers in period. Iconography is not a completely safe guide to the authentic!

Knowing by heart

A striking quote from Guido of Arezzo (written around 1030):

"Because it is very much different to know something by heart than to sing it from memory, since only the wise may do the former, but fools often do the latter.”

 Today we generally take 'knowing by heart' and 'singing/playing from memory' to be synonyms, but for Guido it was the difference between fully understanding the music, and simply acquiring the ability to reproduce it by enough rote repetition. Something I have experienced both sides of myself, and that is sometime echoed (if not quite so succinctly) in current advice to musicians.

How did the renaissance influence medieval music?

I have had a blog post with this title in mind for a while, intending to discuss how modern musicians (especially if classically trained 'early music' specialists) tend to come at medieval music from renaissance music, or even from baroque. Although some are very adept (or very conscientious) at swapping styles, others seem unaware of the baggage of theory and technique they are, anachronistically,  transferring backwards.

As it turns out, the title is also very appropriate to describe the argument in Berger's first chapter (see yesterday's post) about the musicology of Friedrich Ludwig. Ludwig was in many ways an ideal scholar, compiling, cataloguing and accurately transcribing vast amounts of medieval music, arguably the first to decipher modal rhythmic notation in early polyphony (at least  the first to provide a clear written account of it, although unfortunately guilty of then insisting all early monophonic song should comply). However, as Berger explains:

"Ludwig saw medieval polyphony as the first step on an evolutionary ladder leading up to the great master Palestrina. We read in [his] 1929 text: “In the Middle Ages the lead was taken nevertheless by representatives of the polyphonic ideal, which found its highest and purest embodiment in the pure vocal music of Palestrina.”

And this has direct consequences because it means the 'importance' of medieval pieces is judged relative to their detectable conformance to the Palestrina ideal, which includes:

"sacred text, the same in all parts, purely vocal texture, consonant counterpoint producing fully triadic vertical harmonies, slowly moving parts, imitation and canons, or at least independent voice leading in all parts. When any of these are present, the pieces become more important and better for Ludwig." 

Whether as a direct influence of Ludwig, or independently motivated, I think this "seeking for the Renaissance" in the medieval is still common.

Memory and malign influence

Just stumbled upon an interesting book, Medieval Music and the Art of Memory, by Anna Maria Busse Berger (as an aside, one motivation for starting this blog was to encourage myself to spend more time in reading and research; and as I read things they motivate me to blog, in what is hopefully a virtuous circle...). Though I've still only read the introduction, I think this book is likely to form the basis of several posts in future.

The introduction makes the interesting point that plenty of evidence suggests that Notre Dame polyphony was an oral tradition. In particular:

"no manuscript of polyphonic music ever appears in the lists of choirbooks or the inventories of the library, the treasury, the bishop's chapel or the chapterhouse of Notre Dame. In short, there is every reason to investigate the possibility that this repertory was orally transmitted and that memory played a role in its composition" (p.2)

But to link this back to some previous posts, Berger also interestingly argues that one reason her topic has received little consideration hitherto, and that instead "musicologists have been applying Beethovenian art concepts to Notre Dame polyphony" is due to the influence of the early musicologist Friedrich Ludwig, who seems to have been a classic case of a music scholar who loved Renaissance music (specifically Palestrina) and never really tried to understand 'pre-early' music on its own terms.

Quiet musician

Apologies for the short gap in blogging: real life was busy the last few days. In particular doing one of the kinds of performance I most enjoy - playing for dancing. I'll be trying to resume the daily schedule from tomorrow.

Instruments and troubadour song

Along with arguing against instruments in polyphonic motets, Chris Page is known for arguing that the 'high poetic' style of troubadour song was also unaccompanied. Joel Cohen discusses some counter evidence in this essay, but I was also interested to find this passage in Page's 'The Owl and the Nightingale' from the 1235 poem Guiron le courtois:

[the court ladies, the queen and some knights are in a loggia by the riverbank] "In their company was a harpist who was harping for them a song that had just been composed by a knight from north Wales. The girl who was called Orgayne sang the song while the man harped."

This seems very clear, and Page himself comments that it shows "the important place of women in performing the songs of the trouveres" (i.e., he accepts that 'just composed by a knight' is intended to indicate a 'high poetic' style song). Perhaps one could quibble over 'troubadour' vs. 'trouvere', but surely it also shows the importance of instrumentalists in both accompanying and passing on these songs to new audiences?

Pre-Early Music

Today we have a guest post from Chris:

For most of the 'revival' period of medieval music from the early 1970's it has been classed as a branch of classical music. For a brief period at the beginning it had a larger overlap with folk music in Britain. Then the 'Early Music' brand was invented, driven by a much needed rethink about performance practice of Baroque music with period instruments, and a general consideration of what the music was like at the time of writing. And so medieval music, being obviously 'early' was included.

But do 'Early Music' enthusiasts even like medieval music? In my experience the crossover is actually very small.

I believe that the greatest watershed in music occurred somewhere between say 1470 and 1525 - rather arbitrary dates - when Western music moved from essentially modal to essentially harmonic. (A recent comment by a well informed practitioner of medieval music I believe said it was all Dufay's fault.)

The modal nature of medieval music seems to have prompted many of our first-time listeners to say to us "it sounds 'Eastern' " and there does seem a much larger overlap with people interested in medieval music and the 'World Music' brand, particularly Balkan and Middle Eastern. This has probably done a lot to influence the performance of medieval music, perhaps often not for the best results. But the recognition of the modal style seems to be there.

Most people who like Renaissance music associate it with, and appreciate, its harmonic structure; whereas they find modal music difficult to fathom.

But given this watershed around 1500 can Medieval music be lumped together with Renaissance & Baroque?  I think not. I have often been involved in 'Early Music' projects and groups but found that it is overwhelmingly about the post-1500 music with pre-1500 music included to 'make the set' (often with us providing the first 500 years of the '1000 Years of Music'). If we are involved with 'Early Music' people the assumption is we also play post-1500 music Early Music.

So because I am getting a bit fed up with saying, 'no, we don't play harpsichords, and if we see or hear a crumhorn we want to scream', I now say we are not 'Early Music', we are Pre-Early Music.  

Fun without drums?

'Boy band' medieval is perhaps an extreme example, but there can be a general impression that drums were a fairly ubiquitous part of the medieval sound world, at least for the fun and/or loud instrumental genres. So it can be surprising to see that iconographic evidence does not strongly support this.

For example I have rarely seen pictures of drums played with bagpipes, and the standard loud ensembles of shawms (with or without sackbuts) pictured so often entertaining feasts or dances does not include a drummer.

Probably the most common form of drum depicted is the pipe-and-tabor player, usually on their own, although frame drum and fiddle also seems quite a common combination. It would be interesting to know if the term 'taborer' mentioned in written records implies pipe and tabor - this seems particularly plausible when they are employed alone.

Drums and fun II

Yesterday I linked to Benjamin Bagby's essay on medieval music performance, quoting his list of diverse approaches to medieval concerts. Although not clearly included in Bagby's list  (perhaps beneath his notice?) I would say the dominant 'drums and fun' approach around today is exemplified by the many German 'medieval boy bands', such as Corvax Corax. I first saw Corvax Corax at a medieval fair in Germany about 20 years ago, when they were still more medieval than 'neo-medieval', e.g., the costumes had rather less fantasy (and leather), the performance was unamplified, with a relatively authentic ensemble of bagpipes, shawms and drums. And I have to say they made a very positive impression. The energy, communication with the crowd, ensemble playing, the feeling that they 'owned' the music (playing from memory, improvising) seemed to bring something much closer to a medieval experience than many supposedly 'historically informed' concerts I had seen, in which instrumentalists (performing the very same medieval dance tunes) had never raised their eyes from their music stands.

I agree with the general thrust of Bagby's essay that medieval music should be taken seriously, on its own terms, and deserves the same kind of in depth study as music of any other period. But treating it (for performance purposes) like classical music may sometimes be just as damaging to authenticity as 'drums and fun'.

Drums and fun

Some interesting points about medieval music performance, from a leading performer, Benjamin Bagby, can be found in this essay: "What is the sound of medieval music?". He writes:

"...in today’s world of medieval music one can also encounter the concert experience as pretentious pseudo-liturgy; as ironic, edgy cabaret; as ponderous mystery play or cute, costumed courtly entertainment; as ecstatic ethnic percussion session ; as extravagantly-orchestrated symphonic poem; as dutiful list of dry musical examples; as SCA free-for-all, etc....There are many reasons for this situation, but one reason is obvious: the trivialisation of the Middle Ages (and hence medieval music) in our own popular culture has obscured the reality of medieval musical life, and has had consequences for the perceptions and expectations of medieval music performance in our own time (Carl Orff’s ‚Carmina Burana’ certainly contributed to this situation, already in 1937). We still suffer from a syndrome which is collectively known as ‚drums and fun.’ "

I do recommend reading the whole thing (not that I agree with it all, but much food for thought).

Is something missing?

One of my favourite British medieval music groups is the Dufay Collective. They were formed in 1987, by which time the 'a cappella' movement was well entrenched in Britain. As a primarily instrumental group it is not surprising that they focussed in their earliest recordings and concert programmes on performing that part of the repertoire which no-one (as far as I know!) disputes is instrumental - the estampies, instampittas, salterellos and so on. I just looked back at their CD notes to see whether any comment relevant to the 'a cappella' debate was made, and found that they lamented (like many others have done) that, as medieval instrumental music was mostly an oral and improvised tradition, the large majority of it is lost to us.

I think this is in one sense true: for example, there were probably many more dance tunes existing than those that were written down and have survived; and probably also approaches to performance (such as instrumentation, ornamentation and improvisation) that were not captured even where there is musical notation.

However, in another sense I am not so sure. Is it likely there were whole categories of instrumental music that existed but of which there is no record at all? Complete performance styles that we can never begin to reconstruct, however speculatively? And is the surviving vocal music not some clue to what instrumental polyphony - if it existed - might have been?