8.4 - The A Cappella Motet

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From the course by Yale University

Introduction to Classical Music

1447 ratings

Yale University

Introduction to Classical Music

1447 ratings

Using a simple and enjoyable teaching style, this course introduces the novice listener to the wonders of classical music, from Bach fugues to Mozart symphonies to Puccini operas.

From the lesson

Music Back in the Day

We will cover a thousand years in musical evolution during this modules lectures! We'll start with the Middle Ages taking a look at its functional chants and dance music, then we’ll move to the period of the Renaissance, and finish off by listening to the ornate melodies of opera heard throughout the early Baroque period. From this, you’ll begin to see how advances in musical notation allowed compositions to become both more specific and more complex. These advances are ultimately responsible for focus being shifted away from the performers and towards the composers themselves.Along the way, we’ll highlight some of these musical inventors and innovators, such as Hildegard of Bingen and Johann Pachelbel. We’ll also have the unique opportunity to see (and in some cases even hear) many of the instruments that were popular during these different time periods. This will be a real treat, made possible with help from Yale instructor, Grant Herreid. Many thanks are owed to him!

8.1 - Introduction to the Renaissance4:30

8.2 - Humanism in Music5:44

8.3 - Musical Instruments and Dances20:49

8.4 - The A Cappella Motet12:51

8.5 - Reformation and the Counter-Reformation15:22

8.6 - The Madrigal14:18

Meet the Instructors

Craig Wright
Henry L & Lucy G Moses Professor of Music
Department of Music

[FOREIGN] >> Despite

the popularity of instrumental dance music in the Renaissance,

sacred religious music from the Renaissance continued to thrive.

Sacred music for the Roman Catholic Church.

Some of it later for the Protestant Church as we'll soon see.

But for the religious music of the Catholic church in the Renaissance,

we need to go back to Rome.

Here we see obviously, the front of St.

Peter's, with the Pope's quarters and the Sistine Chapel on the right.

Now looking in the opposite direction we see Saint Peter's on the right and

the papal quarters on the left.

Now we're gonna go up on the top of Saint Peter's and

look down at the Sistine Chapel and the papal apartments.

The papal stanzas, rooms, as they are called.

Some of which are beautifully decorated by Frescoes by Raphael.

Here is his School of Athens from around 1500 in which he painted, and

I think I can point this out to you, he painted Leonardo here,

he painted Michelangelo here and he painted himself, Raphael, right here.

But back to the rooftop.

So here's the roof of the Sistine Chapel, now we're gonna go on the other side of

that roof to see Michelangelo's famous creation, the ceiling

of the Sistine Chapel with Creation and the Expulsion of Adam and Eve.

And now we're gonna switch to the high alter end of the Sistine Chapel.

And the Last Judgement by Michelangelo, notice here

on the lower right, the gallery, see if I can point to it right here.

The gallery, this was the or the balcony, this is where the singers came out and

stood during the services, and they still do today at this spot.

They were grouped around a lectern, as we see, not from Italy, but

from France in this period.

But it's a particularly good view of the lectern, all grouped around the music,

up in front of them there, all singing together.

Now I wanna go over to Saint Peter's just for a moment and make a point.

This is a very big church, the largest church in the world.

As you look around here,

there's one thing that's missing that's found in most churches.

It's missing too in the Sistine Chapel and

that's the organ.

The only organ that I could recently find at St.

Peters was this one, a small one tucked away in the Nave of the Basilica.

Organs and instruments generally did not play a role in the religious music here,

and certainly not in the Sistine Chapel.

In the Sistine Chapel there was always, and

is still today, a tradition of singing without instruments.

So we have this term, A Capella Sistina in the Sistine Chapel.

And from it, we derive this term A Capella, A Capella singing.

The music performed here in the Sistine Chapel,

in the Renaissance and ever since is in A Capella style.

But let's hear some of that music and to do so we turn to the music [FOREIGN].

Here is a wood cut of this composure made in the 17th century from a lost painting.

And here is an original manuscript, still in the Vatican collection,

showing a mass by Josquin for four voices.

Here at the top with the red arrow, you can see Jousquinous Desprez.

Four voice mass, soprano and

tenor on the left side of the page alto and bass on the right.

Music in the Renaissance was rarely arranged

vertically in score as we have it today.

But here is a modern vertical score of a Monnet by Jacque.

A motet is a genre of sacred music.

Usually setting a Latin text intended to be sung in church or

possibly in a devotional context at home.

In the Renaissance the motet was almost always written in polyphonic texture and

involved imitation.

Here you can see the numbers on the score, I've labeled them obviously one,

two, three, and four and

these represent little themes or motifs that are sung in imitation.

So we've mentioned a number of terms here.

Let's review these terms by means of the next slide.

A Capella means of course singing without instrumental accompaniment.

Motet, a genre of religious music.

Usually setting a Latin text,

virtually anything other than devotional music besides a mass.

Polyphony, obviously more than one voice at a time.

Imitation, voices repeating for

a short period of time what a preceding voice had done.

And voice pairing, well,

two voices could play off against another set of two voices.

We'll see that in just a minute.

All right, now let's see how this works in a motet by Josquin.

Here is his Ave Maria.

We'll start with just the Latin text that Josquin is setting here.

It tells the story of the virgin as recorded in the Bible and

expanded on during the Middle Ages.

Josquin structured his music around the existing structure

of this particular chant, Ave Maria.

He doesn't borrow the chant, just the text.

But he emphasizes the structure of the text through the music he creates.

In a particular way.

Each starts with a tune line salutation as you can see here.

Ave Maria grazia playing hail Mary we will be with you serene virgin and so on.

Then follow a succession of five stanzas.

You won't see them all here, but five stanzas each with four lines

that run the various events in the life of the virgin,

conception, her birth, enunciation, and so on.

And finally it ends with another two line petition,

petition peroration if you will.

Petition to the virgin to intercede on behalf of the petitioner, the listener.

At the hour of our death.

Josquin sets this text as we have seen in a particular way.

It has a particular structure that gives it humanistic clarity.

Okay, so let's listen to this piece now.

[MUSIC] >> [FOREIGN]

>> Opening salutation.

Soprano and alto, tenor and bass.

Soprano, alto,

tenor and bass.

The lord be with you, again,

soprano, alto, tenor.

Bass.

>> [FOREIGN]

>> Soprano with virgo.

>> [FOREIGN] >> First stanza.

[MUSIC]

Soprano and alto together.

Entered by tenor and bass together.

[MUSIC]

Now we're talking about fully singing, everybody rejoicing together.

[INAUDIBLE]

[MUSIC]

Building up to a climax, watch what the tenor does.

[MUSIC]

Leaping up.

[MUSIC]

Second stanza.

[MUSIC]

Let's sing, gambit, soprano, alto, tenor and bass is pursued.

[MUSIC]

It's coming down soprano,

alto, tenor, bass

[MUSIC]

Third stanza, altos and sopranos.

[MUSIC]

And there's some bass respond.

[MUSIC]

Annunciation was our salvation.

[MUSIC]

Now completely different meter.

[MUSIC]

Triple. In homo-phony, not polyphony.

[MUSIC]

Triple meter.

[MUSIC]

[FOREIGN]

[MUSIC]

Now onto the final full stanza and back to imitation.

[MUSIC]

In duple

meter and the

arrangement

soprano,

alto,

tenor and

bass.

[MUSIC]

And added pairation or mother of God have mercy for me.

[MUSIC]

Remembering.

[MUSIC]

Well, no matter what your religion is, that's gorgeous.

It's also a fine example of form in a Renaissance.

Two lines, plus five times four lines, plus two lines.

24 lines in all.

It's balanced and it's symmetrical.

More humanistic rhetoric designed to persuade.

Balanced and symmetrical.

And let's remember, balance and

symmetry were very important in the architecture of the renaissance.

Here we see the symmetrical structure in Palladio's Villa Rotunda.

And it was important in painting.

In paintings by Rafael and Leonardo.

The renaissance was very much a balanced classical age.

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