So how will this work?

Over the past eighteen months I’ve sought to establish the most recommended music to widen my understanding and appreciation of all eras of classical music. After a few false starts, I decided to analyse the works recommended by various sources. These include a wide range of media such as classical music radio stations in the US, UK and Australia, books by Swafford and others, academic resources, publications from the US and UK, and internet sources including Gramophone and of course, our very own Talk Classical listings. I tried where I could to avoid one person’s opinion, unless like Swafford, they have a sound reputation. I found that many ignored either early or contemporary music so went to a couple of additional resources for those. In total, I used nearly forty different sources that I judged to be of sufficient quality to justify their inclusion.

Each week I’ll share the most highly recommended listening for the period and we can explore and discuss the top pieces. At more than 100 pieces per week on avearge, we’ll not have the time to listen to everything and how deep into the list you want to delve is entirely up to you. I’ll provide the full listing for your future reference.

I wont be recommending which versions of each piece to listen to. I’ll leave it for others more knowledgeable and experienced than me to share their insights. Where appropriate I’ll mention the version that I have or prefer, but I recognise that tastes differ.

 

A little about me before we begin.

I was a long-time beginner with classical music. I had listened to what you might call popular classics since I was in my late-twenties (I virtually wore out all of The Classic Experience cds for anyone that knows them). I also attended opera including Tosca at the ROH, Turandot in Bordeaux, The Magic Flute in Paris, Aida in Orange, and Lulu, Queen of Spades and Jenůfa at Glyndebourne.

In May 2020, I was challenged by a friend on Facebook to post ten albums that influenced my life, one per day. In deciding which ten to choose I discovered that amongst the Bowie, Dylan, John Martyn, and Florence and the Machine albums, my most played album on iTunes was Mendelssohn’s Piano Trios by Perlman, Ma and Ax. I didn’t even remember buying it, and certainly hadn’t realised that I had listened to it twice as much as any other album I owned. This discovery made me determine to delve deeper into classical music and ultimately brought me to Talk Classical. I’m now, ‘hooked’, and am grateful for many doyens of this site for sharing so much information, guidance and insight in various threads that has supported my learning and listening over the past eighteen months.

I certainly don’t consider myself an expert. Far, far from it. These listings are unlikely to be error-free. All I can say is that I’ve lived and continue to live the, “n00b”, experience and know how challenging it can be for anyone wanting to learn more about classical. This thread is designed to help. You might consider it a ‘sister’ thread to pianozach’s execllent, “Beginner’s Guide to Classical Music”, giving some structure to the task and I’ll link to his excellent commentary on individual pieces as appropriate. I’ll also try to link to some of the resources we have on composers and pieces.

 

A little about me before we begin.

I was a long-time beginner with classical music. I had listened to what you might call popular classics since I was in my late-twenties (I virtually wore out all of The Classic Experience cds for anyone that knows them). I also attended opera including Tosca at the ROH, Turandot in Bordeaux, The Magic Flute in Paris, Aida in Orange, and Lulu, Queen of Spades and Jenůfa at Glyndebourne.

In May 2020, I was challenged by a friend on Facebook to post ten albums that influenced my life, one per day. In deciding which ten to choose I discovered that amongst the Bowie, Dylan, John Martyn, and Florence and the Machine albums, my most played album on iTunes was Mendelssohn's Piano Trios by Perlman, Ma and Axe. I didn't even remember buying it, and certainly hadn't realised that I had listened to it twice as much as any other album I owned. This discovery made me determine to delve deeper into classical music and ultimately brought me to Talk Classical. I'm now, 'hooked', and am grateful for many doyens of this site for sharing so much information, guidance and insight in various threads that has supported my learning and listening over the past eighteen months.

I certainly don't consider myself an expert. Far, far from it. These listings are unlikely to be error-free. All I can say is that I've lived and continue to live the, "n00b", experience and know how challenging it can be for anyone wanting to learn more about classical. This thread is designed to help. You might consider it a 'sister' thread to pianozach's execllent, "Beginner's Guide to Classical Music", giving some structure to the task and I'll link to his excellent commentary on individual pieces as appropriate. I'll also try to link to some of the resources we have on composers and pieces.

Thank you for this story!

I can relate very closely. I absolutely continue to live the "n00b" experience. Outside of cinema, which I studied formally, my relationship with the other arts is a lot less informed. And I glibly and happily will say I like a painting or a piece of music because it's pretty. Happy to declare how shallowly I understand all of this.

Maybe one day I'll take a piano lesson and learn some music theory. (I am beginning to watch a series of recorded lectures from Yale's youtube channel on basic music theory, which I am excited about).

On my end, aside from loving the Classical music I'd hear in high school concerts or the stuff that was put into movies (like all of the amazing stuff in 2001 A Space Odyssey and of course in Amadeus), I really had no clue about any of this stuff. I didn't even know that Amadeus was significantly about opera! And I had seen the film a countless number of times in high school and college.

In my late-20s another neophyte and I stumbled into a performance of Satyagraha because we liked his film stuff and Glassworks reminded me of the music in the Civilization games. We also had been exposed to and seriously appreciate modern experimental music (Cage, Riley, Reich, etc). And we had no idea that Glass was really an opera guy! During the intermission some helpful folks in the audience gladly explained to us that this was being sung in Sanskrit, and some super basic opera stuff (people were so nice! And a surprising number of others in their 20's and 30s too!). And man have I been hooked ever since.

I soon watched The Magic Flute and returned to Amadeus, and that movie was kicked up another notch in my estimation. So much opera so deeply interwoven into its plot!

Anyway, count me in for your exploration of this music. Outside of the 16 operas I've seen, plus smatterings of the usual bigwigs like Mozart & Beethoven, I have very limited understanding of classical music. Even if it is the blind leading the blind

EDIT: I'm glad pianozach mentioned his own Beginners Guide. I'm getting through that now. I'm not quite his target audience, but so far it's a fun curation!

 

Join me on a years journey through classical music from medieval to contemporary.

You may be a beginner who, like me a year ago, wants to discover and listen to music that is highly recommended in each period. You might be a fan of one composer, or a lover of one period, and be interested to discover more of other composers or other music. You might be an experienced listener who is interested to share your knowledge with others in an accessible way. Whatever your motivation, I hope you'll find this thread tio be of value.

We'll spend time:

• January - Medieval & Renaissance music
• February - Baroque
• March - Baroque
• April - Classical
• May - Classical
• June - Classical
• July - Early-Romantic
• August - Mid and Late Romantic
• September - Late and Post-Romantic
• October - Modern
• November - Modern
• December - Contemporary

For composers who are known for both standard works and opera, we'll cover their recommended operas as we go. For composers who are almost exlusively known for opera only, we'll group them into weeks 13, 26, 39 and 52.

The journey begins on 1st January 2022. Join me for the full journey or link in when it suits your listening. I hope there'll be plenty of discussion, and only ask that whatever you share remains positive and helpful to those with perhaps less experience and knowledge than you.

This is completely ridiculous. January covers at least 500 years. April, May and June covers probably less than 100 years.

 

I'm sorry you feel that way. I can only share the music that's recommended listening in each period and the spread works pretty much evenly. As I shared, I even added recommendations for early and contemporary music beyond the standard sources. It might work out for the best, but I know it won't delight everyone. Let's, "Suck it and see".

 

Very nice, and not ridiculous. Actually, I think your time schedules for the various periods are good. One can easily spend a month exploring diversities in Medieval & Renaissance music only, and get the big picture, for example - but even if including both the music and performance-wise, differences will be bigger later. The 20th-21st centuries have seen more stylistic diversity than anything else. Also, the earliest music is really tied up with, and dependent upon, the performers and their chosen performance style. You could then explore the various ages and performers in depth later too.

 

Agreed. As one also championing a thread covering music for beginners, I early on discovered that TIME is irrelevant in terms of music history (or just plain old history for that matter).

Medieval music is simply not as plentiful as music from later eras, especially Baroque, Classical, and Romantic. Most of us here that listen to Classical Music generally listen from these three eras, although there certainly exceptions (those who listen to lots of pre-Baroque or post-Romantic instead).

Chilham's set up makes a great deal of sense, especially from a teaching perspective: two months for Baroque, and three each for Classical and Romantic eras.

And, as with my Beginner's Guide thread, I am discovering along the way.

 

We'll spend time:

• January - Medieval & Renaissance music
• February - Baroque
• March - Baroque
• April - Classical
• May - Classical
• June - Classical
• July - Early-Romantic
• August - Mid and Late Romantic
• September - Late and Post-Romantic
• October - Modern
• November - Modern
• December - Contemporary

I could not spend one day listening to music from the Classical period, much less three months. I won't be joining you on this journey.

 

No worries, although you were one of the people I was hoping might add some value for others towards the end of the year.

 

I am for you, Chilham.

 

I highly recommend we take one month off of Classical and add one to Early music (split Medieval and Renaissance).

 

If he wants to do full operas he needs more space for later eras. In the almost three hours of one Mozart opera one can cover samples from all kinds of chant and early (Notre Dame) organum, almost 700 years from ~500-1200

 

This is roughly how they do it on a 6 disc Medieval set I have from harmonia mundi (I think they boosted it to 8 discs later on). Two discs of monodic chant and one with early polyphony; admittedly they all run to 75-77 min each, so closer to 4 hours.

 

Crikey - its a personal journey that we are being invited to join and comment on. Why should any of us have a right to determine which route Chilham chooses to tread.

I will follow with interest.

To quote the OP.
'The journey begins on 1st January 2022. Join me for the full journey or link in when it suits your listening. I hope there'll be plenty of discussion, and only ask that whatever you share remains positive and helpful to those with perhaps less experience and knowledge than you.'

 

Crikey - its a personal journey that we are being invited to join and comment on. Why should any of us have a right to determine which route Chilham chooses to tread.

I know, right? The guy walks in, announces that the next round's on him, and the round after that, and the next thing you know you've got the local cranks griping that he's buying Stouts, and the next guy's kvetching that it should be Lagers and some elbow in the corner is grousing that it's not Ales: "TheRe SHOulD bE tHREe RouNdS oF aLEs!!!"

 

I think that Chilham's lineup is good. In planning his program, he applied an extremely rigorous approach:

"I tried where I could to avoid one person's opinion, unless like Swafford, they have a sound reputation. I found that many ignored either early or contemporary music so went to a couple of additional resources for those. In total, I used nearly forty different sources that I judged to be of sufficient quality to justify their inclusion."

This is just meant to be an introduction, not a formal course on the history of music. Committing effort to a project like this is commendable, especially in volatile times such as the present.

Insofar as my experience of this forum goes, people are often more than willing to shoot down projects like this. I remember quite a few arguing against the TC "favourite and most highly recommended works" project when it started. It was initiated by trout and is currently being run by science. It has endured and proven to be a valuable resource for many members.

 

Chilham: Your proposed project looks wonderful. Obviously, you will decide what works and composers to discuss, and many of us will enjoy the ride including participating in discussion. Some of us will post often in the thread throughout the project, some will post now and then, and others will not participate. If we picked 10 different TC members to run this project, I suspect that we'd get 10 different schedules. Of course, that's fine. TC is about discussing classical music, and this project certainly fits that focus.

Many of the posts in this thread are chiding and/or negative. The OP proposed a thread to explore classical music. If you wish to participate, that's great. If you think the proposal is flawed, find a positive way to make a suggestion or simply ignore the thread.

 

I was pleased just to see Medieval and Renaissance music included at all.

 

Developing a curriculum for any type of chronological study of history (in this case music history) is very difficult because you always need to shortchange something. If you're trying to squeeze a study of American history, for example, into a single semester or even if you split it between two semesters (US History ! & II) even a good instructor will have a hard time getting much past World War II even if an ambitious syllabus indicates otherwise. So now we have a whole generation of young Americans who don't know which side won the Cold War.

Back in the 1980s I took a very interesting course called "Literature in the Bible". The professor was quite good, especially at navigating the treacherous waters of the students, some of whom were sincere Christians and others who were agnostic, as they were often at odds with one another over the interpretations; but because the professor went chronologically from Genesis to Revelations, we never even had time for the New Testament.

So I think Chilham's curriculum is reasonable.

 

I remember studying American History in school, and how disjointed it was. There was some awkward historical moments that were completely ignored, but overall I generally break it all down into several logical (to me) sections.

Pre-Columbus
Colonization
The Road to Independence
War with Britain and establishing a new government
Westward expansion
Civil War
Reconstruction
Gilded Age
The Great War
The Roaring Twenties
The Great Depression and The New Deal
WWII
Postwar America
Decades of Change
Toward the 21st Century
The 21st Century: The Loss of Innocence (WTC attacks, Boston Marathon bombing, and gun massacres), the Decline of Prosperity, Class Wars, Systemic Racism, Conspiracy Culture, Bully Culture

Of course, there is some very dark subtext to each of these eras, including slavery, suppression of women, imperialism, military/police worship and other even darker threads that involve politics, capitalism, and religion.

Did I sum it up OK?

 

Hardly the grand entrance I'd envisioned. Today has got away from me. Let me just put this here and revisit later.

In week one we're exploring the early medieval and ars antiqua period. As several have said, it's a big time span to cover off in one week. My research revealed only 23 recommended pieces for the time period. Further sources added another 49 pieces so we have a total of 72 for the week.

There are two pieces that lead the way with nine recommendations each. To choose a piece of the week, I've selected the one of those two that sits highest in Science's "Talk Classical Community's Favorite and Most Highly Recommend Works". That piece is:

Pérotin: Viderunt omnes

You'll find some great discussion on the piece and some opinion on the best versions here. Viderunt Omnes is #88 in pianozach's listing.

I'll be relistening to this version a little later:

Pérotin: Viderunt omnes

Tonus Peregrinus

I'll reveal more recommendations as we go through the week.

 

Viderunt Omnes is chock full of tritones, must be trying to summon the devil or something

(The Medieval tritone ban is a recent myth - they used it all the time, as a dissonance it created challenges but was not associated with Satan)

 

My favorite work from the Medieval period is the Messe de Nostre Dame by Guillaume de Machaut.

My comments about this work can be found in an article I posted on my blog, Machaut's Messe de Nostre Dame : an overview, which despite having been written in 2015 is still fairly current. However, for some reason I did not include what is my favorite recording of it, this one:

Taverner Consort & Taverner Choir - Andrew Parrott, dir.
Angel S 38 044 [LP]; EMI (also VSM & HMV) Reflexe 1C 067 (also ASD) 1 43576-1 (or -4) [LP or Cassette]
Rec.: 1983

At the bottom of the article there is a link to a complete discography, at least complete at the time I posted the article.

 

Ars Nova to come next week. I should have been more specific in my description.

 

Could you perhaps give us a bit more on what to expect each day or week? You mentioned there would be about 100 works per week. You listed 1 work today. How often will you list works and how many works will you list each time? Or will it vary?

Do you hope to have others list and discuss works they enjoy from the period in discussion, or would you prefer people respond to the works you list after you list them?

 

For today, the piece to narrowly miss out on work of the week:

Hildegard von Bingen: Symphonia Harmoniae Celestium Revelatorium

And our final "Level 4" work (7-10 recommendations) this week:

Hildegard von Bingen: Ordo Virtutum

You'll find some interesting discussion on Hildegard's work here.

For me, I'll be listening to these later today:

Hildegard von Bingen: Symphonia Harmoniae Celestium Revelatorium

Jeremy Summerly, Oxford Camerata

Hildegard von Bingen: Ordo Virtutum

Vox Animae

If you are able to download it, there's what I found to be an excellent BBC Radio 3 Composer of the Week podcast called, "The Birth of Polyphony" that covers much of what I'm sharing this week.

 

I'll re-post this from here with some small changes:

In 2019, the world rightly regarded the fire at Notre Dame de Paris as a tragedy. Most people's first associations with that cathedral will be from Victor Hugo's novel, and in fact the romantic tradition of Gothic novels affects how almost anyone in our time thinks or feels about any Gothic cathedral or anything medieval. Victor Hugo wrote a very good story, and I heartily recommend it! I also love the 1923 film based on it.

However, Hugo and the romantics completely misunderstood or misrepresented the nature of Gothic architecture. They represent Gothic as essentially dark, mysterious, haunted by horrific gargoyles. That was not at all how medieval people felt about it.

Let's deal with the gargoyles first, because our thoughts on that are the least relevant to Pérotin. All over the world, wherever you visit traditional temples or palaces or even just villages, you'll see on their exterior boundaries art that is meant to represent something frightening: lions, dragons, warriors, demons, gargoyles, masks of evil spirits, and so on. Why would people do that?

To a world that no longer fears darkness, that regards sickness as a physical phenomenon, a mere technological challenge, and that takes a 70-year lifespan almost for granted, it's just cute art.

But in a world that feared the powers of darkness and knew that death could strike anyone at any moment - because it did - the scarier those guardians are, the safer the people feel. Those are not meant primarily as evil spirits to frighten the residents of the temples, palaces, or villages - they were already scared, and they wanted scary guardian allies to frighten away evil spirits. Or even to frighten away evil people....

Anyway, let's try to view the Gothic tradition not from the point of view of a post-Enlightenment society suffering from the ennui of excessive rationality, needing a little superstition for titillation, but from the point of view of people who'd only known Romanesque architecture.

Deserving the reputation that Gothic architecture has, Romanesque churches were relatively short structures, often actually designed to be defensive. You could take shelter in them when someone raided your village. With tiny windows, they really were dark and cold.

In the 12th century, however, the cathedrals began to grow higher, and windows grew much larger. This became Gothic architecture. For people at the time, these were not at all dark, scary places! They were filled with amazing light, delightfully colored by the stained glass windows. Their vaults and arches pointed proudly to heaven. Built to represent and celebrate prosperity, security, and learning, this could be called the first architecture of enlightenment in Europe since the fall of Rome.

As the interior space expanded, the acoustics changed. The traditional monophonic Gregorian chant sounded and felt different in these high, brightly lit spaces. And soon, a new tradition of music was invented to take advantage of the acoustic properties of the Gothic churches: the Notre Dame School, named for its association with Notre Dame de Paris.

This was still before artists were thought of as idiosyncratic geniuses with privileged access to the muses; they were craftsmen, so their names were usually not recorded. The names of Léonin and Pérotin, the only two members of the Notre Dame school of composers whose names we know, have come down to us almost by accident, recorded by travelers who marveled at the music they made.

What the Notre Dame school invented was the organum - the first step of western music's long exploration of harmony. Pérotin's Viderunt Omnes is one of the two earliest examples of four-part harmony.

We know almost nothing of Pérotin's life, but there is evidence to suggest that Viderunt Omnes was written for Christmas 1198, and it might have been sung in Notre Dame de Paris, though it was still not complete.

Earlier I asked us to imagine how a Gothic cathedral would feel to someone in the twelfth century. Now I hope you'll join me in trying to imagine how Viderunt Omnes would sound -- not to someone modern, in a world saturated with musical noise blasting from speakers at every gas pump, over every aisle of every artificially lit shopping center; a world of radios and earphones and ubiquitous advertising jingles, a world of rock and roll and hip hop and industrial techno and K-pop and orchestras with hundreds of instruments --

No, throw all that away and imagine that you lived in a world where you and your family yourselves made most of the music you heard - lullabies, folk songs, usually without instruments. A world where, if you were lucky, you might be able to hear a skilled troubadour now and then. A world where Gregorian chant in your village's dark old Romanesque cathedral would have been the most beautiful music you'd ever heard in your life -- so much that you looked forward to church.

So for some reason you set off down the "road" - what we today would call a path - from your village, perhaps you had the very great fortune of attending a university somewhere, and road led on to road, and you somehow found yourself in Paris for Christmas in 1198. What would Viderunt Omnes sound like to you then?

You might not have liked it! After all, we have conservative ears! But it would have impressed you mightily, as it did (for example) John of Salisbury, who taught at the University of Paris during these years and often heard the new organum tradition:

The very service of the Church is defiled, in that before the face of the Lord, in the very sanctuary of sanctuaries, they, showing off as it were, strive with the effeminate dalliance of wanton tones and musical phrasing to astound, enervate, and dwarf simple souls. When one hears the excessively caressing melodies of voices beginning, chiming in, carrying the air, dying away, rising again, and dominating, he may well believe that it is the song of the sirens and not the sound of men's voices; he may marvel at the flexibility of tone which neither the nightingale, the parrot, or any bird with greater range than these can rival. Such indeed is the ease of running up or down the scale, such the dividing or doubling of the notes and the repetitions of the phrases and their incorporation one by one; the high and very high notes are so tempered with low or somewhat low that one's very ears lose the ability to discriminate, and the mind, soothed by such sweetness, no longer has power to pass judgment upon what it hears. When this type of music is carried to the extreme it is more likely to stir lascivious sensations in the loins than devotion in the heart. But if it be kept within reasonable limits it frees the mind from care, banishes worry about things temporal, and by imparting joy and peace and by inspiring a deep love for God draws souls to association with the angels.

So sometimes even the conservatives loved it.

Viderunt Omnes celebrates salvation - another concept that means almost nothing today, when even the most ferocious believers shrink from threatening their neighbors with hellfire, which seems to have truly frightened people in the past. People willingly endured the cruelest forms of torture rather than, as they saw it, risk their souls.

But on Christmas, they could celebrate. Here comes Jesus to save us!

Here are the words of Viderunt Omnes, translated by someone at wikipedia:

All the ends of the earth have seen
the salvation of our God.
Rejoice in the Lord, all lands.
The Lord has made known his salvation;
in the sight of the nations
he has revealed his righteousness.

Pérotin's organum illuminated this text to fill the amazingly bright space of a brand-spanking-new Gothic cathedral.

Because they loved it so much, they took their time with it. The first syllable, "vi" goes on for so many beats that you'll probably lose track if you try to count them while listening. When it was over, they'd go back to the folk music of their ordinary life, but while they had these well-trained singers in this amazing space, they wanted to enjoy it.

And sure, some old conservatives like John of Salisbury could huff about how inappropriate it was for such sweet, lascivious music to be sung in God's house. But aesthetic conservatives never win - not for long, anyway. And eventually the music that so delights and offends becomes, to later generations, old-fashioned, then strange, and finally almost intolerable.

I had the privilege of visiting Notre Dame de Paris when it was whole, and to tell the truth, it didn't transport me into some sublime ecstasy. It was just pretty nice. It's no Notre Dame de Chartres, for example. And even Chartres is no Versailles, no Angkor Wat, no Empire State Building. To me, it's not even the most impressive Gothic Cathedral in Paris - Sainte-Chappelle rivals it, at least.

But it should hold an unrivaled place in the heart of every classical music lover because of its role in the birth of our tradition, and maybe an appreciation for that will outweigh the boredom or disgust we feel walking around in what we take for its cold darkness.

 

I listened to Viderunt omnes by Leonin and Perotin as well as the latters Sederunt principes from the "Music of the Gothic Era" on Archiv (Munrow cond. Early Music Consort of London, rec. 1975) and while I can appreciate the "shock value" of additional voices, I think the unaccompanied "base chant" sounds more beautiful, and I am not a huge fan of chant. I should probably listen to the chant disc from my Harmonia mundi anthology to get some notion of the difference of the chant types and maybe also listen to the version of Viderunt omnes (Peres) included there.

 

The comparisons of the Viderunt omnes by Leonin and Perotin are interesting. I generally prefer fuller polyphony, but I actually agree that the Leonin is more enjoyable than the Perotin. The Leonin also has a much more active melodic line which I usually enjoy less.

 

In Perotin, I listened to the whole of Vellard/Ensemble Gilles Binchois, and yes, at 17:09 with no instruments, versus Deller's 10:48, there's a big difference between the two versions, illustrating how the state of the sources of early music often also create an extremely wide playground for ideas from the performers.

I think both versions have qualities; Vellard obviously makes the musical ongoings much, much clearer, but the differences in tempi also create a wholly different mood in the piece, and make some of the contrasts more subtle, or even absent, depending on one's taste.

 

In Perotin, I listened to the whole of Vellard/Ensemble Gilles Binchois, and yes, at 17:09 versus Deller's 10:48 with no instruments, there's a big difference between the two versions, illustrating how the state of the sources of early music often also create an extremely wide playground for ideas from the performers.

I think both versions have qualities; Vellard obviously makes the musical ongoings much, much clearer, but the differences in tempi also create a wholly different mood in the piece, and make some of the contrasts more subtle, or even absent, depending on one's taste.

Well to be fair I could find equally wide divergences about tempo in 18th, 19th and 20th century music quite easily. Deller set a tradition about the right pulse for the piece I guess, because most people who've recorded it seem to be quite close to what he did. Vellard isn't chosing the tactus at random, or because of some sort of creative whim, he argues for it on the basis of some historical documentation. Deller, Hilliard and the rest were letting their imaginations run wild.

 

Many thanks to science for that wonderful post.

I've done a small amount of homework on Hildegard (including finding some podcasts about her). What I understand is that she is monophonic and predates Leonin and Pelotin who were both polyphonic. Correct? And all of this is different from Gregorian Chant, which comes over a century prior to Hildegard.

I guess I need to look up Gregorian Chant, too.

Some questions I have in case anyone has any insights.

1) How widespread and uniform are the Gregorian Chant, Monophony, and Polyphony traditions/practices throughout Christendom (is there a better term? Is it "Western Europe" or different group of regions?)? Or is much of this just happening in isolation? I heard the Pope had called on Hildegard and appreciated her music, so I'm guessing a decent chunk of Europe was pretty mobile.

2) I'm curious to know if anyone has any insight or context into the interrelatedness of this Catholic liturgical music with the sounds/music of other religions, at least those west India. Is this growing from the same or similar traditions as the other church/temple/mosque songs from Judaism and Islam, the latter of which would have a significant foothold in Spain, around the mediterranean, and elsewhere throughout the medieval period?


Lastly: I think I align with mmsbls in his preference for the polyphony of Leonin over the monophony of Hildegard's harmony of the celestial. The evolution of style was a worthy one.

 

Lastly: I think I align with mmsbls in his preference for the polyphony of Leonin over the monophony of Hildegard's harmony of the celestial. The evolution of style was a worthy one.

My own feeling is that it's hard to make extended periods of purely monophonic music work today unless the audience understands the words and the singers are good at delivering the words. Hildegard became popular partly because she's a strong woman - so there's a feminist element. But also because the wide ambitus in the melismas can give the impression of thrilling virtuosity, like in bel canto coloratura.

But note that not all monophony is pure - one singer. There is antiphonic music, music sung with a drone (a bourdon), and (what I call, maybe wrongly) heterophonic performance - two singers singing together with slightly different interpretations, not completely identical lines - at the very least each singer has a different timbre and that affects things. They need not blend seamlessly. All these things can be poetic, and there are examples on Hildegard interpretation on record.

 

I suspect the tenor part would be boring to sing for a large part of the piece, with long stretches of what seems like a pedal

 

Yes

Snsnsnsnsnsnsnsn

 

Let's talk Trouvères, Troubadours, and Minnesängers. The recommendations for these types of music are:

Level 5 (4-6 recommendations)

Adam de la Halle: La Jeu de Robin et de Marion

Level 6 (2-3 recommendations)

Bernart de Ventadorn: Can Vei La Lauzeta Mover
Walther von der Vogelweide: Palästinlied

Level 7 (1 recommendation)

Marcabru: L'Autrier Jost'una Serbissa
Marcabru: Pax! In Nomine Domini
Raimon de Miraval: Ainsi Cum es Genser Pascors
Giraut de Bornelh: Reis Glorios
Walther von der Vogelweide: Unter der Linden
Audefroi le Bastart: Bele Y Doine
Neidhart von Reuental: Meienzit
Adam de la Halle: Bone Amourette
Adam de la Halle: Dieus Soit en Cheste Maison
Adam de la Halle: Fines Amouretes
Ernoul Caupain: Ler main pensis chevauchai

I was astonished to read that there are more than 25 different genres of Troubadour music. For those with a deeper knowledge than me, tell us what you know and who and what are we missing from this list?

My planned listening for today:

Adam de la Halle: La Jeu de Robin et de Marion

Claude Bernatchez, Ensemble Anonymous

Bernart de Ventadorn: Can Vei La Lauzeta Mover

Duo Enßle-Lamprecht

Walther von der Vogelweide: Palästinlied, Unter der Linden

I Ciarlatani, Augsburg Early Music Ensemble

 

My planned listening for today:

Adam de la Halle: La Jeu de Robin et de Marion

Claude Bernatchez, Ensemble Anonymous

Bernart de Ventadorn: Can Vei La Lauzeta Mover

Duo Enßle-Lamprecht

Walther von der Vogelweide: Palästinlied, Unter der Linden

I Ciarlatani, Augsburg Early Music Ensemble

I had a hard time getting into the Adam de la Halle. I understand it's a stage play or some sort of theatrical performance piece, and I always struggle digesting those purely via recording. I don't listen to broadway tunes for that very reason.

The Ventadorn piece and the rest of that album was very interesting. I had no idea recorders were serious instruments or had any purpose beyond lesson for schoolchildren. Great stuff and excellent trivial research fodder!

My fave of this session is easily Under der Linden. Found the translation on the wikipedia page. Fun to see some early examples of secular music about love and getting laid! I can easily imagine a tavern scene with people drunkenly singing along to this. And that line about the little bird somehow reminded me of Ovid's Amores and his own weird and delightful sense of humor.

Edit: I was listening to a silly podcast episode that somewhat-drunkenly discussed the life and times of Hildegard of Bingen. Seems she was writing about female anatomy and reproduction too with interesting theories about how all that worked. How she would have known anything about that as a presumably chaste nun is fun for speculation (and colors my recent viewing of the wild and wicked movie, Bernadetta). I wonder if she ever set her theories of reproduction and carnal love to music...