Research Point: Ars Nova

Knighton & Fallows (1992) write that Ars Nova is a term broadly used to define the music of the fourteenth century.  They suggest that the basis of the music during this period stemmed from new notational techniques described in Phillipe de Vitry’s Ars Nova (c. 1320).  It addition, they add that is also an accepted term for French music between 1322 and 1377.  At a time when humanism values began to emerge, a divide between the church and state appeared, making way for new secular musical styles and techniques, alongside the traditional sacred compositions.  It seems that this was also the time when choral music and polyphony came to light. 

 “Lyricisms and effusions of courtly love music as expressed in the musical-poetic forms known as the the forms fixes: the rondeau, virelai, and ballade.”

Atlas (1998)

Allegedly these three structural schemes dominated French music and poetry until the end of the 15^th century. 

Burkholder et al (2010:116) write that the ‘new’ notation systems that developed during the Ars Nova period were as a result of the treatises of both de Vitry and Jehan des Murs.  Innovations included the division of note values using ‘duple’ time, as well as the tradition triple metre; the division of the semibreve into minims, the introduction of mensuration signs (ancestors of the modern time signature).   They add:

“The effects of the new notation system were profound and enduring.  For the first time, notation was so specific and unambiguous for both pitch and rhythm that a piece of music could be written down in one city, carried to another, and performed there exactly as the composer intended.”

The OCA course material describes a technique pioneered by De Vitry, which today has been named ‘isorhythms’.  These are repeated patterns, usually held in tenor heard against the ‘colour’ (melody), which the composer could bring together or separate depending of the musical intention.  Another notable feature is called ‘hocketing’, in which different vocal parts are used to form one melodic line.

Further to this, the course material adds that Guillaume de Machaut, a French composer, was the leader of the Ars Nova movement.  He composed 23 motets, which featured an instrumental tenor line under two independently moving vocal lines.  Whilst his harmonies still bore reference to earlier styles, using parallel fifths and dissonances, but more ‘harmonic’ intervals such as thirds and sixth began to emerge.  

De Machaut was also said to have been one of the first composers to include polyphony in his mass settings.  A good example of this is his Messe de Nostre Dame (c. 1365), which included a tenor part repeating a four note rhythmic motifs moving through twenty-eight notes.

Research Point: Musica Ficta

Atlas (1998) gives a description of the musical ‘scale’, know as the gamut, which was used during the 13^th century onwards.   Beginning on low G and rising to E, this was the scale that defined the diatonic system and located the placement of whole and half steps.  Notes which fell within this scale were referred to as musica recta with other notes, with application of sharps or flat, became know as musica ficta. 

 Musica ficta was the technique of using a system not dissimilar to our system of accidentals, to create a harmonic effect or to avoid some chordal note combinations such as the tritone (known at the time as the 'devil' in music).  The ‘accidentals’ would likely be added almost on an adhoc basis, often during the performance (Atlas, 1998). 

Perhaps it could be said that musica ficta was the first step into the world of purposeful musical dissonance.  Since the Ars Nova period, countless composers such as Schoenberg, Debussy and Beethoven experimented with dissonance, using it to great expressive effect.