Ars nova

For other uses, see Ars nova (disambiguation).
Page of the French manuscript Livres de Fauvel, Paris, B.N. Fr. 146 (ca. 1318), "the first practical source of Ars nova music".[1]

Ars nova refers to a musical style which flourished in France and the Burgundian Low Countries in the Late Middle Ages: more particularly, in the period between the preparation of the Roman de Fauvel (1310–1314) and the death of the composer Guillaume de Machaut in 1377 (whose poems were a large inspiration for Johannes Ciconia). Sometimes the term is used more generally to refer to all European polyphonic music of the 14th century, thereby including such figures as Francesco Landini, who was working in Italy. Occasionally the term "Italian ars nova" is used to denote the music of Landini and his compatriots (see Music of the Trecento for the concurrent musical movement in Italy). In ancient and medieval Latin the term "ars nova" does not mean "new art", but rather "new technique",[2] and was first used in two contemporaneous manuscripts, titled Ars novae musicae (New Technique of Music) (c. 1320) by Johannes de Muris, and Ars nova notandi (A New Technique of Writing [Music]) attributed to Philippe de Vitry (c. 1322). However, the term was only first used to describe an historical era by Johannes Wolf in 1904.[3]

The term "ars nova" is generally used in conjunction with another term, "ars antiqua", which refers to the music of the immediately preceding age, usually extending back to take in the period of Notre Dame polyphony (therefore covering the period from about 1170 to 1320). Roughly, then, the "ars antiqua" is the music of the thirteenth century, and the "ars nova" the music of the fourteenth; many music histories use the terms in this more general sense.

Controversial in the Roman Catholic Church, the music was starkly rejected by Pope John XXII, but embraced by Pope Clement VI. The monophonic chant, already harmonized with simple organum, was becoming altered, fragmented, and hidden beneath secular tunes. The lyrics of love poems might be sung above sacred texts, or the sacred text might be placed within a familiar secular melody. It was not merely polyphony that offended the medieval ears, but the notion of secular music merging with the sacred and making its way into the liturgy.

Ars nova versus Ars antiqua

Stylistically, the music of the ars nova differed from the preceding era in several ways. Developments in notation allowed notes to be written with greater independence of rhythm, shunning the limitations of the rhythmic modes which prevailed in the thirteenth century; secular music acquired much of the polyphonic sophistication previously found only in sacred music; and new techniques and forms, such as isorhythm and the isorhythmic motet, became prevalent. The overall aesthetic effect of these changes was to create music of greater expressiveness and variety than had been the case in the thirteenth century.[4] Indeed the sudden historical change which occurred, with its startling new degree of musical expressiveness, can be likened to the introduction of perspective in painting, and it is useful to consider that the changes to the musical art in the period of the ars nova were contemporary with the great early Renaissance revolutions in painting and literature.

The most famous practitioner of the new musical style was Guillaume de Machaut, who also had a distinguished career as a canon at Reims Cathedral and as a poet. The ars-nova style is evident in his considerable body of motets, lais, virelais, rondeaux, and ballades.

Towards the end of the fourteenth century a new stylistic school of composers and poets centered on Avignon in southern France developed; the highly mannered style of this period is often called the ars subtilior, though some scholars choose to consider it a late development of the ars nova rather than breaking it out as a separate school. This strange but interesting repertory of music, limited in geographical distribution (southern France, Aragon and later Cyprus), and clearly intended for performance by specialists for an audience of connoisseurs, is like an endnote to the entire Middle Ages.

Discography

Notes

  1. ↑ Earp 1995, 72.
  2. ↑ Schrade 1956, 331.
  3. ↑ Fallows 2001.
  4. ↑ Musique en Wallonie En un gardin (Old French for ’’Dans un jardin’’ in a garden) see the video (in English) under the few sentences commenting the ’’Fiche détaillée".

References

Further reading