Cauda

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The Cauda is a characteristic feature of the Conductus style which was sung between the mid-12th and the mid-13th century. The word cauda finds its root in the Latin word for tail. This is because essentially a cauda is a lengthy melisma in all voices, on the penultimate syllable of the conductus verse. The cauda was repeated in each strophe and as a melisma it was written in ligatures which enables deduction of the rhythmic mode.

Conceptually, it is easy to see in the cauda, the root of the modern term, coda which arrived when Latin was replaced by Italian as the musical lingua franca.

The significance of the cauda in Conductus music is such that most Conducti were divided into the categories Conductus cum Cauda and Conductus sine cauda (Conductus with or without Cauda.) The latter made up less than a third of the repertoire.

Two notable examples occur in 'Vetus Abit Littera', a four voice Christmas conductus from the Florence manuscript, and 'Dic Christi, Veritas', a tirade against clerical hypocrisy written by Phillip the Chancellor. The latter is found in the Carmina burana manuscript in a monophonic version, and in the Paris sources in an elaborate three voice setting, laden with caudae.

Cauda is also the name of an organ that is found on aphids.

New Grove Dictionary of Music

Taruskin, ed., Oxford History of Western Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) Volume 1.