We really have no idea.
Or at least little idea, why?
Because the people who created the pop music were illiterate,
couldn't read or write.
In the middle ages,
almost everyone was illiterate, the only people who were literate.
Who could write things down, well they were the clergy, and
they tended to write down religious music.
So pop musicians made, but had no capacity to record their music.
And thus, almost all of it has disappeared.
But, some secular, non-religious music, does survive from the aristocratic courts.
This music was created by the troubadours and trouvères, and sometimes by the same
priests who were composing sacred music for the church, but also appearing in
court from time to time, and in that context, wrote down secular music.
Machaut, for example, worked at the court of several kings around Europe.
The King of Bohemia, the King of [INAUDIBLE] and
The King of France in the course of his long career.
So let's look now at the secular song and dance centered at the courts.
And to do this, we have to call on a true expert, our guest for the day.
So welcome again to another segment of Introduction to Classical Music.
I'm delighted to have with us today, my good friend and
colleague here at Yale, Grant Herreid.
Grant not only teaches music at Yale,
he is a world-renowned professional early music performance specialist.
And indeed, Grant just got off an airplane a day or so ago.
Now, where were you, Austria, something like that?
>> I was in Austria, in Melk, and in another little town in a little mini tour.
>> So he works out of New Haven, he also works as many professional musicians do
these days, out of New York City and travels around the world,
playing in a professional group called Pifero, and one or
two others that we don't have time to go into today.
But what we're gonna do is take you through some of these instruments
that were the primary media of performance in the Middle Ages.
And we're going to look at some slides here, and Grant and
I are going to comment on those slides, and you will be seeing those slides too.
I showed this to Grant a couple of moments ago, and this is entirely unscripted and
unrehearsed, and he recognized it immediately.
So, what is this?
>> It's from the, a large work in Sienna,
called the effects of good government, from the 14th century, right?
>> Yeah.
I remember I actually took this photo,
I remember being way up kind of high on a wall, it occupied an entire wall of that.
And in terms of looking at this,
what do you see by way of performance activity here?
>> It's one of two examples in iconography of, at least, of ladies dancing.
And you can see here, the dancers doing some sort of a circle dance,
which would have been called a Carole,
to the accompaniment of one of the ladies playing a drum.
And since her mouth is open, it is possible that she is also singing.
So a dance song.
>> Yeah, so the whole idea of singing, and our English word Carol,
is probably related to this, in one way or another.
Let's look at another one.
This particular image comes from France.
That much I know for sure, 14th century in the bibliotheque nationale,
in the collection Franc Francais there.
And we have a group of figures to the right, and then another dance there,
but once again, most likely this was being sung.
The text [FOREIGN].
>> Oh, you can read that.
>> Yes.
>> You're a better man that I.
>> [FOREIGN] And in fact, this is from his [FOREIGN],
at a moment where the poet, Machaut himself, encounters his lady.
Much younger than himself, dancing with her friends.
And it says clearly in the text,
that they're dancing without musical instruments.
>> Oh, really?
>> And they're providing all the music themselves with their voices.
And I think at one point, she raises her little finger and
beckons him to join the group.
And it's his turn to sing, and so he sings this song [CROSSTALK].
>> Fascinating.
Well, let's look at, now,
you mentioned that this one would have been danced to simply song.
But people sing and dance, obviously, today.
Let's look at another image here.
And on the right side of the screen,
we actually have one of these dance manuscripts.
This again from the collection at the Biblioteca Nacional.
And then on the left, more importantly, if we've had the full image here,
we would have dancers and the instrument that is accompanying here.
So tell us, Grant, about this particular instrument please.
>> This is known as the vielle.
And it is the, sort of, the work horse of the medieval minstrel we feel.
