Famous composers and their works, Vol. 1 — John Shaqi
Famous composers and their works, Vol. 1
History
Famous composers and their works, Vol. 1
Music -- History and criticism; Musicians
Three-part compositions were of four kinds: fauxbourdon, motet, rondeau
and conduit, the last three being written also in four parts. Fauxbourdon
was simply a three-voiced chant, the parts having similar motion, the
upper and lower being parallel sixths and the middle in fourths with
the discant. In the motet each voice had a text of its own. The rondo
was secular and was developed from the folk-music of the day. The
conduit was uncertain in form, secular in character, and, like the
rondo, was written for either voices or instruments. The early French
masters made extensive use of the parallel movement of voices, yet had
plainly no conception of harmony founded on chords. They show a much
clearer purpose in their contrapuntal writings wherein the imitations
are plainly devised according to rules. But the entire musical product
of France between 1100 and 1250 was the cold, mathematical work of
academicians, who nevertheless served the cause of the tone art by
laying down indispensable laws. The last great master of this school,
William of Machaut, who wrote the celebrated Coronation Mass for the
crowning of Charles V., flourished between 1284 and 1369. Naturally
enough the teachings of the French spread into the provinces of Belgium,
and there grew up a school from which the Netherland masters rose.
The most prominent early Belgian composer was Dufay (1350-1432). This
writer introduced secular melodies into his masses, forbade the use of
consecutive fifths, and freely used interrupted canonic part writing,
in which the imitation appears only at occasional effective places. His
works show evidences of a vague groping after euphonic beauty. Antoine
de Busnois, who died in 1482, was the last of these early masters. His
works abound in clever use of the devices of imitation and inversion. His
canonic writing is more finished and his harmony bolder than Dufay's. The
character of the music produced at this time has been well described by
Mr. Rockstro. He says: "At this period, representing the infancy of art,
the subject, or canto fermo, was almost invariably placed in the tenor
and sung in long sustained notes, while two or more supplementary voices
accompanied it with an elaborate counterpoint, written like the canto
fermo itself in one or other of the ancient ecclesiastical modes, and
consisting of fugal passages, points of imitation, or even canons, all
suggested by the primary idea, and all working together for a common end."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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