Genres & songs

The oldest music we can name an author for: songs to the gods from Mesopotamia, highly poetic and complex.

• Hymns: songs to the gods
• Possibly accompanied by lyre
• Melismatic — many pitches on one syllable

Key figures

• Enheduanna (c. 2285–2250 BCE)
  Daughter of Sargon the Great, high priestess of Ur; 42 temple hymns; most powerful woman of her time

Music was part of Greek education and worship. Instruments later spread through the Hellenistic world and were preserved by Muslim scholars.

• Lyre: plucked, learned by youth
• Aulos: double-reed pipe, two notes at once
• Kithara: big, loud lyre
• Pan flute: played by farmers

Key figures

• Pythagoras (c. 570–495 BCE)
  Linked pitch and mathematics

Eastern Christian chant. Ethiopia developed notation centuries before Europe; Byzantium produced the first known woman composer.

• Drone voice under the melody
• Greek or Ge'ez texts
• Seasonal hymn cycles

Key figures

• Saint Yared (c. 505–571 CE)
  Aksum, Ethiopia — notation 500–700 years before Europe; Book of Degua
• Kassiani (c. 810–865 CE)
  Byzantine abbess, poet, first known female composer in Constantinople

Courts of Baghdad and Córdoba blend Persian, Arab and Greek ideas. Not a Western scale; mostly strings with melodic variations — and it travels to Europe through Spain and the Silk Road (transculturation).

• Oud — 'king of instruments', ancestor of the lute/guitar
• One singer + oud, free rhythm
• Tabla / bendir drums

Key figures

• Ziryab (789–857 CE)
  African-Persian 'influencer'; Baghdad → Córdoba; minister of culture, founded a music school
• Abu Nasr al-Farabi (872–951 CE)
  Philosopher-theorist, oud player; translations of Greek works later reawaken Europe

Music of the monastery: one Latin melody, no meter, sung by men to connect with God. Named for Pope Gregory the Great.

• Monophonic, unaccompanied
• No steady rhythm or meter
• Latin, male voices
• Syllabic or melismatic

Key figures

• Pope Gregory the Great (540–604 CE)
  Namesake of the repertoire
• Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179)
  German abbess, 77 chants, advised popes — the first 'Renaissance' person

The cathedral (urban) step beyond chant: a slow chant held in the tenor while faster voices weave above. Notre Dame organum belongs to Ars Antiqua ('Old Art'), the umbrella term for the polyphonic style before Ars Nova.

• Held chant note in the tenor
• Long melismatic upper lines
• Measured rhythms (Pérotin)
• Latin; trained male singers only

Key figures

• Pérotin (Perotinus Magnus) (fl. 1198–1236)
  Master of the Notre Dame choir; great organum; rhythmic notation

The central Catholic service set to music. The Ordinary is the text that stays the same every day — Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei — while the Proper changes with the calendar. It starts as Gregorian chant; Machaut's Ars Nova Messe de Nostre Dame (c. 1365) is the first complete polyphonic setting by one composer.

• Kyrie — 'Lord, have mercy' (Greek)
• Gloria — 'Glory to God in the highest'
• Credo — the Nicene Creed
• Sanctus — 'Holy, holy, holy'
• Agnus Dei — 'Lamb of God'
• Latin; sung in church, organ the only instrument

Key figures

• Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300–1377)
  Canon of Reims; first unified polyphonic Mass Ordinary by a single composer
• Pope Gregory the Great (540–604 CE)
  Namesake of the chant from which the Mass grew

Court songs of love and storytelling in French. Earlier troubadour and trouvère songs are usually a melody with accompaniment; 14th-century polyphonic chansons such as Machaut's belong to the Ars Nova umbrella.

• Strophic form in early chansons
• Vernacular French
• Voice + instrument (vielle, harp)
• Ars Nova chansons use precise rhythm and multiple voices

Key figures

• Beatriz, Countess of Dia (fl. 1175)
  Pioneering trobairitz voicing women's perspectives
• Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300–1377)
  Leading Ars Nova composer of polyphonic chansons

Songs to recruit for and mourn the Crusades (1095–1291) — bridging a sacred cause and secular emotion. Written in the vernacular by trouvères and Minnesingers, they urge knights to take the cross, praise the Holy Land, and lament leaving loved ones. Crusaders also heard Arab music in the Crusader States and brought back instruments like the oud (lute), rebab (rebec) and nakers (kettledrums).

• Vernacular, easy melodies
• Verse–chorus, emotional
• Drums, shawms, strings
• Uplifting or grieving

Key figures

• Thibaut de Champagne (1201–1253)
  Trouvère king of Navarre who led the Barons' Crusade (1239)
• Walther von der Vogelweide (c. 1170–1230)
  German Minnesinger; Palästinalied imagines a pilgrim finally reaching the Holy Land
• Richard the Lionheart (1157–1199)
  Crusader king who also wrote songs, e.g. Ja nus hons pris while held captive

English songs with a refrain marking Christmas, Easter — or a great victory.

• Strophic with burden (ABAB)
• Upbeat, stricter rhythm
• English vernacular

Key figures

• King Henry V (1386–1422)
  Won Agincourt (1415), later heir to France

The motet grew out of organum, with independent voices that could carry different texts. Its 13th-century form belongs to Ars Antiqua; rhythmically intricate 14th-century motets belong to Ars Nova.

• Polyphonic vocal work
• Different texts may sound at once
• Ars Antiqua uses rhythmic modes
• Ars Nova uses more flexible mensural notation

Key figures

• Philippe de Vitry (1291–1361)
  Bishop, poet and theorist associated with the Ars Nova treatise