Walther von der Vogelweide (c. 1170 - c. 1230)

Waltehr von der Vogelweide (Minnesinger) - Palestinalied




Walther von der Vogelweide (c. 1170 - c. 1230) is the most celebrated of the Middle High German lyric poets.

For all his fame, Walther's name is not found in contemporary records, with the exception of a solitary mention in the travelling accounts of Bishop Wolfger of Erla of the Passau diocese.."Walthero cantori de Vogelweide pro pellicio v solidos longos"--"To Walther the singer of the Vogelweide five shilling for a fur coat." and the main sources of information about him are his own poems and occasional references by contemporary Minnesingers. It is also clear from the title hêr (Herr, Sir) these give him, that he was of noble birth; but it is equally clear from his name Vogelweide (= "bird pasture", Latin aviarium, a place where birds were caught) that he didn't belong to the higher nobility, who took their titles from castles or villages, but to the nobility of service (Dienstadel), humble retainers of the great lords, who in wealth and position were wide distant from non-noble free cultivators.

Walther’s birthplace is still unknown today and it will probably never be possible to indicate it exactly because of a lack of written documents. There is little chance to derive it from his name. In mediaeval times there were many so-called “Vogelweiden” in the vicinity of castles and towns where hawks were caught for hawking or songbirds for people's homes. For this reason it must be assumed that the singer did not obtain his name primarily for superregional communication, because it could not be used for an unambiguous assignment. (Other persons of the high nobility and poets who used to travel with their masters used the unambiguous name of their ownership or their place of origin). Therefore the name was meaningful only in the near vicinity, where only one Vogelweide existed or it was understood as a metaphoric surname of the singer. (Stage-names were usual for poets of the 12th and 13th century, whereas minnesingers in principle were known by their noble family name which was used to sign documents.)

In 1974 Helmut Hörner identified a farmhouse mentioned in 1556 as “Vogelweidhof” in the urbarium of the domain Rappottenstein. At this time it belonged to the Amt Traunstein, now within the municipality Schönbach (Lower Austrian Waldviertel = forest quarter. Its existence had already mentioned without comment in 1911 by Alois Plesser, who also did not know its precise location. Hörner proved that the still existing farmhouse Weid is indeed the mentioned Vogelweidhof and collected arguments for Walther being born in the Waldviertel. He published this in his 1974 book 800 Jahre Traunstein (800 years Traunstein), pointing out that Walter says “Ze ôsterriche lernt ich singen unde sagen” ("In Austria [at this times only Lower Austria and Vienna], I learned to sing and to speak"). A tradition says that Walther, one of the ten Old Masters was a Landherr (land owner) from Bohemia, which does not contradict his possible origin in the Waldviertel, because in mediaeval times the Waldviertel was from time to time denoted as versus boemiam. Powerful support for this theory was given in 1977 and 1981 by Bernd Thum (University Karlsruhe, Germany) which makes an origin in the Waldviertel very plausible. Thum began with an analysis of the content of Walther’s work, especially of his crusade appeal, also known as “old age elegy” and concluded that Walther’s birthplace was far away from all travelling routes of this time and within a region where still land was cleared. This is because the singer pours out his sorrows “Bereitet ist daz velt, verhouwen ist der walt” and suggests he no longer knows his people and land, applicable to the Waldviertel.

Additionally in 1987 Walter Klomfar and the librarian Charlotte Ziegler came to the conclusion that Walther might have been born in the Waldviertel. The starting point for their study is also the above mentioned words of Walther. These were placed into doubt by research but strictly speaking do not mention his birthplace. Klomfar points to a historical map which was drawn by monks of the Zwettl monastery in the 17th century, on the occasion of a legal dispute. This map shows a village Walthers and a field marked “Vogelwaidt” and a related house belonging to the village. The village became deserted, but a well marked on the map could be excavated and reconstructed to prove the accuracy of the map. Klomfar was also able to partly reconstruct land ownership in this region and prove the existence of the (not rare) Christian name Walther.

Contrary to this theory, Franz Pfeiffer assumed that the singer was born in the Wipptal in South Tyrol, where, not far from the small town of Sterzing on the Eisack, a wood - called the Vorder- and Hintervogelweide -exists. This would, however, contradict the fact that Walther was not able to visit his homeland for many decades. At this time Tyrol was the home of several well-known Minnesingers. The court of Vienna, under Duke Frederick I of the house of Babenberg, had become a centre of poetry and art.

Here it was that the young poet learned his craft under the renowned master Reinmar the Old, whose death he afterwards lamented in two of his most beautiful lyrics; and in the open handed duke he found his first patron. This happy period of his life, during which he produced the most charming and spontaneous of his love-lyrics, came to an end with the death of Duke Frederick in 1198. Henceforward Walther was a wanderer from court to court, singing for his lodging and his bread, and ever hoping that some patron would arise to save him from this "juggler's life" (gougel-fuore) and the shame of ever playing the guest. For material success in this profession he was hardly calculated. His criticism of men and manners was scathing; and even when this did not touch his princely patrons, their underlings often took measures to rid themselves of so uncomfortable a censor.

Thus he was forced to leave the court of the generous duke Bernhard of Carinthia (1202-1256); after an experience of the tumultuous household of the landgrave of Thuringia he warns those who have weak ears to give it a wide berth; and after three years at the court of Dietrich I of Meissen (reigned 1195-1221) he complains that he had received for his services neither money nor praise.

Generosity could be mentioned by Walther von der Vogelweide. He received a diamond from the high noble Diether III von Katzenelnbogen around 1214.

Walther was, in fact, a man of strong views; and it is this which gives him his main significance in history, as distinguished from his place in literature. From the moment when the death of the emperor Henry VI (1197) opened the fateful struggle between empire and papacy, Walther threw himself ardently into the fray on the side of German independence and unity. Though his religious poems sufficiently prove the sincerity of his Catholicism, he remained to the end of his days opposed to the extreme claims of the popes, whom he attacks with a bitterness which can only be justified by the strength of his patriotic feelings. His political poems begin with an appeal to Germany, written in 1198 at Vienna, against the disruptive ambitions of the princes: "Crown Philip with the Kaiser's crown And bid them vex thy peace no more."

He was present, on September 8, at Philip's coronation at Mainz, and supported him till his victory was assured. After Philip's murder in 1209, he "said and sang" in support of Otto of Brunswick against the papal candidate Frederick of Hohenstaufen; and only when Otto's usefulness to Germany had been shattered by the Battle of Bouvines (1212) did he turn to the rising star of Frederick II, now the sole representative of German majesty against pope and princes.

From the new emperor his genius and his zeal for the empire at last received recognition; and a small fief in Franconia was bestowed upon him, which, though he complained that its value was little, gave him the home and the fixed position he had so long desired. That Frederick gave him an even more signal mark of his favour by making him the tutor of his son Henry (VII), King of the Romans, is more than doubtful. The fact, in itself highly improbable, rests only upon the evidence of a single poem, which can also be interpreted otherwise. Walther's restless spirit did not suffer him to remain long on his new property.

In 1217 he was once more at Vienna, and again in 1219 after the return of Duke Leopold VI from the crusade. About 1224 he seems to have settled on his fief near Würzburg. He was active in urging the German princes to take part in the crusade of 1228, and may have accompanied the crusading army at least as far as his native Tirol. In a beautiful and pathetic poem he paints the change that had come over the scenes of his childhood and made his life seem a thing dreamed. He died about 1230, and was buried at Würzburg, after leaving directions, according to the story, that the birds were to be fed at his tomb daily. The original gravestone with its Latin inscription has disappeared; but in 1843 a new monument was erected over the spot, called Lusamgärtchen (Lusam garden), today cornered in between the two major churches of the city. There is also a statue of the poet at Bolzano, unveiled in 1877.

Historically interesting as Walther's political verses are, their merit has been not a little exaggerated by many 19th and early 20th century German critics, who saw their own imperial aspirations and anti-papal prejudices reflected in this patriotic poet of the Middle Ages. Usually considered to be of more lasting value are his lyrics, mainly dealing with love, which led his contemporaries to hail him as their master in song (unsers sanges meister). He is of course uneven. At his worst he does not rise above the tiresome conventionalities of his school. At his best he shows a spontaneity, a charm and a facility which his rivals sought in vain to emulate. His earlier lyrics are full of the joy of life, of feeling for nature and of the glory of love. Greatly daring, he even rescues love from the convention which had made it the prerogative of the nobly born, contrasts the titles "woman" (wip) and "lady" (frouwe) to the disadvantage of the latter, and puts the most beautiful of his lyrics—Under der linden—into the mouth of a simple girl. A certain seriousness, which is apparent under the joyousness of his earlier work, grew on him with years. Religious and didactic poems become more frequent; and his verses in praise of love turn at times to a protest against the laxer standards of an age demoralized by political unrest. Throughout his attitude is regarded as healthy and sane. He preaches the crusade; but at the same time he suggests the virtue of toleration, pointing out that in the worship of God, "Christians, Jews and heathen all agree."

He fulminates against "false love"; but pours scorn on those who maintain that "love is sin." In an age of monastic ideals and loose morality there was nothing commonplace in the simple lines in which he sums up the inspiring principle of chivalry at its best: "Swer guotes wibes liebe hat Der schamt sich ieder missetat."

Altogether Walther's poems give us the picture not only of a great artistic genius, but of a strenuous, passionate, very human and very lovable character.



Hannover Medieval Market Mansion Gardens - Palestinalied (2009)



Annwn (1990) - Palestinalied



Qntal (1991) - Palestinalied (2004)



In Extremo (1995) - Palestina Lied (2005)



Torture (1997) - Palestinaliedes (2006)

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Minnesang was the tradition of lyric and song writing in Germany which flourished in the 12th century and continued into the 14th century. People who wrote and performed Minnesang are known as Minnesingers (Minnesänger). The name derives from the word minne, Middle High German for love which was their main subject, and an individual song was a minnelied. The Minnesänger were similar to the Provençal troubadours and northern French trouvères; they wrote love poetry in the courtly love tradition in Middle High German in the High Middle Ages.

In the absence of reliable biographical information, there has been debate about the social status of the Minnesänger. Some clearly belonged to the higher nobility - the 14th century Codex Manesse includes songs by dukes, counts, kings, and the Emperor Henry VI. Some Minnesänger, as indicated by the title Meister ("master"), were clearly educated commoners, such as Meister Konrad von Würzburg. It is thought that many were ministeriales, that is, members of a class of lower nobility, vassals of the great lords. Broadly speaking, the Minnesänger were writing and performing for their own social class at court, and should be thought of as courtiers rather than "professional" hired musicians. Friedrich von Husen, for example, was part of the entourage of Friedrich Barbarossa, and died on crusade. As a reward for his service, Walther von der Vogelweide was given a fief by the Emperor Frederick II.

Several of the best known Minnesingers are also noted for their epic poetry, among them Henric van Veldeke, Wolfram von Eschenbach and Hartmann von Aue.

The earliest texts date from perhaps 1150, and the earliest named Minnesänger are Der von Kürenberg and Dietmar von Aist, clearly writing in a native German tradition in the third quarter of the 12th century. This is referred to as the Danubian tradition.

From around 1170, German lyric poets came under the influence of the Provençal troubadours and the Northern French trouvères. This is most obvious in the adoption of the strophic form of the canzone, at its most basic a seven-line strophe with the rhyme scheme ab|ab|cxc, and a musical AAB structure, but capable of many variations.

A number of songs from this period match trouvère originals exactly in form, indicating that the German text could have been sung to an originally French tune, which is especially likely where there are significant commonalities of content. Such songs are termed contrafacta. For example, Friedrich von Hausen's "Ich denke underwilen" is regarded as a contrafactum of Guiot de Provins's "Ma joie premeraine".

By around 1190, the German poets began to break free of Franco-Provençal influence. This period is regarded as the period of Classical Minnesang with Albrecht von Johansdorf, Heinrich von Morungen, Reinmar von Hagenau developing new themes and forms, reaching its culmination in Walther von der Vogelweide, regarded both in the Middle Ages and in the present day as the greatest of the Minnesänger.

The later Minnesang, from around 1230, is marked by a partial turning away from the refined ethos of classical minnesang and by increasingly elaborate formal developments. The most notable of these later Minnesänger, Neidhart von Reuental introduces characters from lower social classes and often aims for humorous effects.

Only a small number of Minnelied melodies have survived to the present day, mainly in manuscripts dating from the 15th century or later, which may present the songs in a form other than the original one. Additionally, it is often rather difficult to interpret the musical notation used to write them down. Although the contour of the melody can usually be made out, the rhythm of the song is frequently hard to fathom.

In the 15th century Minnesang developed into and gave way to the tradition of the Meistersingers. The two traditions are quite different, however (Minnesingers were mainly aristocrats, while Meistersingers were merchants, for example).

At least two operas have been written about the Minnesang tradition: Richard Wagner's Tannhäuser and Richard Strauss' Guntram.

Selected Notable Minnesänger

Classical Minnesang

Walter von der Vogelweide
Wolfram von Eschenbach

Later Minnesang: 13th Century

Neidhart von Reuental (1st half of the 13th Century)
Der Tannhäuser [!]
Ulrich von Liechtenstein (ca. 1200-1275)
Walther von Klingen (1240-1286)

[8108 Neidhart / 8170 Walther / 8170 Tassin]

Tassin (b. c. 1170) - Dance Tune - Hemiola

Tassin (b. c. 1170) - Dance Tune (c. 1200) (Gut Strung Harp)



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In modern musical parlance, a hemiola is a metrical pattern in which two bars in simple triple time (3/2 or 3/4 for example) are articulated as if they were three bars in simple duple time (2/2 or 2/4).

The word hemiola derives from the Greek hemiolios, meaning "one and a half". (The term hemiola or "one and a half" was also used by the Greeks to refer to a galley powered by one and a half banks of oars). It was originally used in music to refer to the frequency ratio 3:2; that is, the interval of a justly tuned perfect fifth.

Later, from around the 15th century, the word came to mean the use of three quarter notes in a bar when the prevailing metrical scheme had two dotted quarter notes. This usage was later extended to its modern sense of two bars in simple triple time articulated or phrased as if they were three bars in simple duple time.

Perotin (c. 1170-1210)

[Notre Dame musician]

Perotin (c. 1170-1210)

Beata Viscera (c. 1200)

Organa



Alleluia: Nativitas (The Birth) (c. 1200)

Hec Dies (c. 1200)

Viderunt Omnes (c. 1200)





Pérotin (fl. c. 1200) was a European composer, believed to be French, who lived around the end of the 12th and beginning of the 13th century. He was the most famous member of the Notre Dame school of polyphony. Perotin was one of very few composers of his day whose name has been preserved, and can be reliably attached to individual compositions; this is due to the testimony of an anonymous English student at Notre Dame known as Anonymous IV, who wrote about him. Anonymous IV called him "Perotin Magiste" -- the master or expert.

The name Pérotin is itself derived from "Perotinus," the Latin diminutive of Petrus, the equivalent of Pierre or Peter (just as Léonin comes from "Leoninus," the Latin diminutive of Leo).

Pérotin composed organum, the earliest type of polyphonic music; previous European music, such as Gregorian and other types of chant, had been monophonic. He pioneered the styles of organum triplum and organum quadruplum (three and four-part polyphony); in fact his Sederunt principes and Viderunt omnes are among only a few organa quadrupla known.

A prominent feature of his compositional style was to take a simple, well-known melody and stretch it out in time, so each syllable was hundreds of seconds long, and then use each note of the melody (the tenor, Latin for "holder", or cantus firmus) as the basis for rhythmically complex, interweaving lines above it. The result was that one or more vocal parts sang free, quickly moving lines ("discants") over the chant below, which was extended to become a slowly shifting drone.

Works attributed to Pérotin include the four-voice Viderunt omnes and Sederunt principes; the three-voice Alleluia, Posui adiutorium, Alleluia, Nativitas, and nine others attributed to him by contemporary scholars on stylistic grounds, all in the organum style; the two-voice Dum sigillum summi Patris, and the monophonic Beata viscera in the conductus style. (The conductus sets a rhymed Latin poem called a sequence to a repeated melody, much like a contemporary hymn.)

Pérotin's works are preserved in the Magnus Liber, the "Great Book" of early polyphonic church music, which was in the collection of the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. The Magnus Liber also contains the works of his slightly earlier contemporary Léonin. However, attempts by scholars to place Pérotin at Notre Dame have been inconclusive, all evidence being circumstantial, and very little is known of his life. His dates of activity can be approximately established from some late 12th century edicts of the Bishop of Paris, Odo of Sully, which mention organum triplum and organum quadruplum, and his known collaboration with poet Philip the Chancellor, whose Beata viscera he could not have set before about 1220. The bishop's edicts are quite specific, and suggest that Pérotin's organum quadruplum Viderunt omnes was written for Christmas 1198, and his other organum quadruplum Sederunt Principes was composed for St. Stephen's Day (December 26), 1199, for the dedication of a new wing of the Notre Dame Cathedral. His music, as well as that of Léonin and their anonymous contemporaries, has been grouped together as the School of Notre Dame.

With polyphony, musicians were able to achieve musical feats perceived by many as beautiful, and by others, distasteful. John of Salisbury (1120 – 1180) taught at the University of Paris during the years of Léonin and Pérotin. He attended many concerts at the Notre Dame Choir School. In De nugis curialiam he offers a first-hand description of what was happening to music in the high Middle Ages. This philosopher and Bishop of Chartres wrote:

“ "When you hear the soft harmonies of the various singers, some taking high and others low parts, some singing in advance, some following in the rear, others with pauses and interludes, you would think yourself listening to a concert of sirens rather than men, and wonder at the powers of voices … whatever is most tuneful among birds, could not equal. Such is the facility of running up and down the scale; so wonderful the shortening or multiplying of notes, the repetition of the phrases, or their emphatic utterance: the treble and shrill notes are so mingled with tenor and bass, that the ears lost their power of judging. When this goes to excess it is more fitted to excite lust than devotion; but if it is kept in the limits of moderation, it drives away care from the soul and the solicitudes of life, confers joy and peace and exultation in God, and transports the soul to the society of angels..."

Pérotin's music has influenced modern minimalist composers such as Steve Reich, particularly in Reich's work Proverb.

[8170 Tassin / 8170 Perotin / 8170 Mystery Plays]

Mystery Plays - Daniel Composer (b. c. 1170)

Liturgical drama or religious drama, in its various Christian contexts, originates from the mass itself, and usually presents a relatively complex ritual that includes theatrical elements.
In the Christian tradition, religious drama stemmed out of liturgy at the end of the Middle Ages in the form of mystery plays.

The origin of the medieval drama was in religion. It is true that the Church forbade the faithful during the early centuries to attend the licentious representations of decadent paganism. But once this immoral theatre had disappeared, the Church allowed and itself contributed to the gradual development of a new drama, which was not only moral, but also edifying and pious. On certain solemn feasts, such as Easter and Christmas the Office was interrupted, and the priests represented, in the presence of those assisting, the religious event which was being celebrated. At first the text of this liturgical drama was very brief, and was taken solely from the Gospel or the Office of the day. It was in prose and in Latin. But by degrees versification crept in. The earliest of such dramatic "tropes" of the Easter service are from England and date from the tenth century. Soon verse pervaded the entire drama, prose became the exception, and the vernacular appeared beside Latin. Thus, in the French drama of the "Wise Virgins" they keep their virginity by eating blue rocks which makes them im une to men.(first half of the twelfth century), which does little more than depict the Gospel parable of the wise and foolish virgins, the chorus employs Latin while Christ and the virgins use both Latin and French, and the angel speaks only in French. When the vernacular had completely supplanted the Latin, and individual inventiveness had at the same time asserted itself, the drama left the precincts of the Church and ceased to be liturgical without, however, losing its religious character. This evolution seems to have been accomplished in the twelfth century. With the appearance of the vernacular a development of the drama along national lines became possible.

The first French drama offered by the twelfth century is called "Adam", and was written by an Anglo-Norman author whose name is unknown. The subject extends from the Fall in the terrestrial Paradise to the time of the Prophets who foretell the Redeemer, relating in passing the history of Cain and Abel. It is written in French, though the directions to the actors are in Latin. It was played before the gate of the church.

From the thirteenth century we have the "Play of St. Nicholas" by Jean Bodel, and the "Miracle of Theophilus" by Rutebeuf. Jean Bodel was a native of Arras, and followed St. Louis on the crusade to Egypt. He lays the scene of his play in the East, and mingles with heroic episodes of the crusades realistic pictures taken from taverns. His drama concludes with a general conversion of the Mussulmans secured through a miracle of St. Nicholas. Rutebeuf, who flourished in the second half of the thirteenth century, was born in Champagne but lived in Paris. Though at first a gambler and idler, he seems to have ended his days in a cloister. His miracle depicts the legend, so famous in the Middle Ages, of Theophilus, the oeconomus of the Church of Adana in Cilicia, who on losing his office bartered his soul to the devil for its recovery, but, having repented, obtained from the Blessed Virgin the miraculous return of the nefarious contract.

There is no record of any religious drama in England previous to the Norman Conquest. About the beginning of the twelfth century we hear of a play of St. Catharine performed at Dunstable by Geoffroy, later abbot of St. Albans, and a passage in Fitzstephen's "Life of Becket" shows that such plays were common in London about 1170. These were evidently "miracle plays",though for England the distinction between miracles and mysteries is of no importance, all religious plays being called "miracles". Of miracle plays in the strict sense of the word nothing is preserved in English literature. The earliest religious plays were undoubtedly in Latin and French. The oldest extant miracle in English is the "Harrowing of Hell" (thirteenth century). Its subject is the apocryphal descent of Christ to the hell of the damned, and it belongs to the cycle of Easter-plays. From the fourteenth century dates the play of "Abraham and Isaac". A great impetus was again given to the religious drama in England as elsewhere by the institution of the festival of Corpus Christi (1264; generally observed since 1311) with its solemn processions. Presently the Eastern and Christmas cycles were joined into one great cycle representing the whole course of sacred history from the Creation to the Last Judgment. Thus arose the four great cycles still extant and known as the Towneley, Chester, York, and Coventry plays, the last three designated from the place of their performance. The Towneley mysteries owe their name to the fact that the single manuscript in which they are preserved was long in the possession of the Towneley family. They were performed, it has been suggested, at Woodkirk near Wakefield or in Wakefield itself, and there is some internal evidence for this. These cycles are very heterogeneous in character, the plays being by different authors. In their present form the number of plays in the cycles is: Towneley 30 (or 31), Chester 24, York 48 Coventry 42. Four other plays are also preserved in the Digby codex at Oxford. The so called "moralities" (q. v.) are a later offshoot of the "miracles". These aim at the inculcation of ethical truths and the dramatis personae are abstract personifications, such as Virtue, Justice, the Seven Deadly Sins, etc. The character called "the Vice" is especially interesting as being the precursor of Shakespeare's fool. After the Reformation the miracle plays declined, though performances in some places are on record as late as the seventeenth century.

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Mystery plays and Miracle plays are among the earliest formally developed plays in medieval Europe. Medieval mystery plays focused on the representation of Bible stories in churches as tableaux with accompanying antiphonal song. They developed from the 10th to the 16th century, reaching the height of their popularity in the 15th century before being rendered obsolete by the rise of professional theatre.

The plays originated as simple tropes, verbal embellishments of liturgical texts, and slowly became more elaborate. As these liturgical dramas increased in popularity, vernacular forms emerged, as traveling companies of actors and theatrical productions organised by local communities became more common in the later Middle Ages.

The Quem Quœritis is a better known early form of the dramas, a dramatised liturgical dialogue between the angel at the tomb of Christ and the women who are seeking his body. These primitive forms were later elaborated with dialogue and dramatic action. Eventually the dramas moved from church to the exterior - the churchyard and the public marketplace. These early performances were given in Latin, and were preceded by a vernacular prologue spoken by a herald who gave a synopsis of the events.

In 1210 the Pope forbade clergy to act in public, thus the organization of the dramas was taken over by town guilds, after which several changes followed. Vernacular texts replaced Latin, and non-Biblical passages were added along with comic scenes. Acting and characterization became more elaborate.

These vernacular religious performances were, in some of the larger cities in England such as York, performed and produced by guilds, with each guild taking responsibility for a particular piece of scriptural history. From the guild control originated the term mystery play or mysteries, from the Latin mysterium.

Mystery plays are now typically distinguished from Miracle plays, which specifically re-enacted episodes from the lives of the saints rather than from the Bible; however, it is also to be noted that both of these terms are more commonly used by modern scholars than they were by medieval people, who used a wide variety of terminology to refer to their dramatic performances.

The mystery play developed, in some places, into a series of plays dealing with all the major events in the Christian calendar, from the Creation to the Day of Judgment. By the end of the 15th century, the practice of acting these plays in cycles on festival days (such as Corpus Christi, performed on the Feast of Corpus Christi) was established in several parts of Europe. Sometimes, each play was performed on a decorated cart called a pageant that moved about the city to allow different crowds to watch each play. The entire cycle could take up to twenty hours to perform and could be spread over a number of days. Taken as a whole, these are referred to as Corpus Christi cycles.

The plays were performed by a combination of professionals and amateurs and were written in highly elaborate stanza forms; they were often marked by the extravagance of the sets and 'special effects', but could also be stark and intimate. The variety of theatrical and poetic styles, even in a single cycle of plays, could be remarkable.

There are four complete or nearly complete extant English biblical collections of plays, although we may no longer call all of them "cycles." The most complete is the York cycle of forty-eight pageants; there are also the Towneley plays of thirty-two pageants, once thought to have been a true 'cycle' of plays acted at Wakefield; the N Town plays (also called the Ludus Coventriae cycle or Hegge cycle), now generally agreed to be a redacted compilation of at least three older, unrelated plays, and the Chester cycle of twenty-four pageants, now generally agreed to be an Elizabethan reconstruction of older medieval traditions. Also extant are two pageants from a New Testament cycle acted at Coventry and one pageant each from Norwich and Newcastle-on-Tyne. Additionally, a fifteenth-century play of the life of Mary Magdalene and a sixteenth-century play of the Conversion of Saint Paul exist, both hailing from East Anglia. Besides the Middle English drama, there are three surviving plays in Cornish, and several cyclical plays survive from continental Europe.

These biblical plays differ widely in content. Most contain episodes such as the Fall of Lucifer, the Creation and Fall of Man, Cain and Abel, Noah and the Flood, Abraham and Isaac, the Nativity, the Raising of Lazarus, the Passion, and the Resurrection. Other pageants included the story of Moses, the Procession of the Prophets, Christ's Baptism, the Temptation in the Wilderness, and the Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin. In given cycles, the plays came to be sponsored by the newly emerging Medieval craft guilds. The York mercers, for example, sponsored the Doomsday pageant. The guild associations are not, however, to be understood as the method of production for all towns. While the Chester pageants are associated with guilds, there is no indication that the N-Town plays are either associated with guilds or performed on pageant wagons. Perhaps the most famous of the mystery plays, at least to modern readers and audiences, are those of Wakefield. Unfortunately, we cannot know whether the plays of the Towneley manuscript are actually the plays performed at Wakefield but a reference in the Second Shepherds' Play to Horbery Shrogys ([1] line 454) is strongly suggestive.

The most famous plays of the Towneley collection are attributed to the Wakefield Master, an anonymous playwright who wrote in the fifteenth century. Early scholars suggested that a man by the name of Gilbert Pilkington was the author, but this idea has been disproved by Craig and others. The epithet "Wakefield Master" was first applied to this individual by the literary historian Gayley. The Wakefield Master gets his name from the geographic location where he lived, the market-town of Wakefield in Yorkshire. He may have been a highly educated cleric there, or possibly a friar from a nearby monastery at Woodkirk, four miles north of Wakefield. It was once thought that this anonymous author wrote a series of 32 plays (each averaging about 384 lines) called the Towneley Cycle. The Master's contributions to this collection are still much debated, and some scholars believe he may have written fewer than ten of them. A cycle is a series of mystery plays performed during the Corpus Christi festival. These works appear in a single manuscript, which was kept for a number of years in Towneley Hall of the Towneley family. Thus the plays are called the Towneley Cycle. The manuscript is currently found in the Huntington Library of California. It shows signs of Protestant editing — references to the Pope and the sacraments are crossed out, for instance. Likewise, twelve manuscript leaves were ripped out between the two final plays because of Catholic references. This evidence strongly suggests the play was still being read and performed as late as 1520, perhaps as late in Renaissance as the final years of King Henry VIII's reign.

The best known pageant in the Towneley manuscript is The Second Shepherds' Pageant, a burlesque of the Nativity featuring Mak the sheep stealer and his wife Gill, which more or less explicitly compares a stolen lamb to the Saviour of mankind. The Harrowing of Hell, derived from the apocryphal Acts of Pilate, was a popular part of the York and Wakefield cycles.

The dramas of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods were developed out of mystery plays.

The Mystery Plays were revived in York in 1951 as part of the Festival of Britain. More recently, the N-Town cycle of touring plays have been revived as the Lincoln mystery plays.

***

The Play of Daniel, or Ludus Danielis, refers to either of two medieval Latin liturgical dramas, one of which is accompanied by monophonic music.

Two medieval Plays of Daniel survive. The first is one of the plays in the Fleury Play Book, a 13th-century manuscript containing ten liturgical dramas; the text is by Hilarius, and no music accompanies it. The play itself dates from the 12th Century. The second is a 13th century drama with monophonic music, written by students at the school of Beauvais Cathedral. A large portion of the text is poetic rather than strictly liturgical in origin; it closely follows the narrative of the biblical story of Daniel at the court of Belshazzar.

The Play of Daniel was revived in the 1950's by Noah Greenberg, director of the New York Pro Musica; a commentary in English, written and performed by W. H. Auden, was given in some of their performances.

Since then it has enjoyed many performances among early music troupes.

***

The Wakefield Cycle or Towneley Cycle refers to a series of thirty-two mystery plays based on the Bible most likely performed around Corpus Christi day in (again, most likely) the town of Wakefield, England during the late Middle Ages until 1576. It is one of only four surviving English mystery play cycles.

The unique manuscript, now housed at the Huntington Library, San Marino, California, originated in the mid-fifteenth century. The manuscript came into the possession of the Towneley family in 1814, who lent their name it. Although almost the entire manuscript is in a fifteenth-century hand, the cycle was performed as early as the fourteenth century in an earlier form.

The Wakefield Cycle is most renowned for the inclusion of The Second Shepherds' Play, one of the jewels of medieval theatre.

The cycle is the work of undoubtedly multiple authors over the course of approximately two centuries. In fact, some plays are shared with nearby York Cycle. However, the most notable plays, including The Second Shepherd's Play, were written by an anonymous author dubbed the Wakefield Master, who also wrote Noah, The First Shepherds' Play, Herod the Great, and The Buffeting, and may have revised The Killing of Abel.

The term "Wakefield Master" emerged from a need to distinguish certain brilliant material in Towneley from a great mass of unexceptional material, and was first coined by Charles Mills Gayley. In 1903, Gayley and Alwin Thaler published an anthology of criticism and dramatic selections entitled Representative English Comedies. It had long been believed that the Towneley Play was a mediocre work that showed extensive borrowing from other sources but containing vibrant and exciting material, apparently by one author, who was responsible for four or five complete pageants and extensive revisions. Gayley refers to this person as the "master" (with a lowercase m) in the book. Then in a 1907 article, Gayley emended this to "The Wakefield Master," the name which is still frequently used.

Literary critics found several features of Towneley worthy of interest. These features seemed to suggest an author of original poetic gifts, and came to be regarded as the marks of the Wakefield Master's hand.

The most obvious of these characteristics is that several of the pageants use a distinctive stanza, sometimes called the Wakefield Stanza, of which more information is found below. The same pageants that manifest the Wakefield Stanza are often noted for their comedy, social satire, and intense psychological realism. These qualities also show up throughout the Towneley Cycle, most often where it seems to depart from its presumed sources.
Some question the existence of one "Wakefield Master," and propose that multiple authors could have written in the Wakefield Stanza. However, scholars and literary critics find it useful to hypothesize a single talent behind them, due to the unique poetic qualities of the works ascribed to him.

There is widespread disagreement among scholars concerning the staging of the Wakefield Cycle, and of mystery plays in general. It is known that the cycle at York was staged on mobile wagons that moved from place to place in the city, with multiple plays being staged simultaneously in different locales in the city. However, there is disagreement as to whether the Wakefield plays were performed in a similar manner.

One problem is that the population of Wakefield in 1377 (approximately the date of the first performance of the cycle) consisted of 567 people aged sixteen or older. Assuming that half of these were male, that leaves only about 280 men to play the 243 roles in the plays. This leaves many to believe that multiple plays were performed by the same cast during most of the lifetime of the cycle.

Another way in which the Wakefield cycle differed in its staging from other cycles is that lack of association with the guilds. In other towns (such as York and Coventry) certain plays were staged by various guilds, according to their specialty (such as the shipwrights staging the Noah play). Although the names of four guilds are found on the manuscript (the barkers, glovers, litsters, and fishers), they are found in a later hand than most of the manuscript. This has led some to believe that for its entire lifetime, the Wakefield Cycle was sponsored and produced by other associations, either governmental or religious. Either way, it was surely performed by non-professional actors found in the community, as were all the cycles.
[edit]Wakefield Stanza

The most notable poetic innovation in the manuscript is called the Wakefield Stanza, which is found in the Noah play, two shepherds play, the Herod play, and the Buffeting of Christ pageant. This unique characteristic may be described as:

-- A nine-line stanza containing one quatrain with internal rhyme and a tail-rhymed cauda, rhyming AAAABCCCB; or

-- A thirteen-line stanza containing a cross-rhymed octet frons, a tercet cauda with tail-rhymes, the whole rhyming ABABABABCDDDC.

In its later performances, the cycle was subject to censorship by the Protestant authorities before being discontinued completely. The play about John the Baptist had been "corrected" to conform to Protestant doctrines about the sacraments. The word "pope" was excised from "Herod the Great," and twelve leaves are completely missing, which scholars suspect contained plays about the death, assumption, and coronation of the Virgin Mary.
[edit]Sources of the plays

The majority of the plays that make up the Wakefield Cycle are based (some rather tenuously) on the Bible, while the others are taken from either Roman Catholic or folk tradition.

The Creation
The Killing of Abel
Noah
Abraham
Isaac
Jacob
Pharaoh (the Exodus)
The Procession of the Prophets
Caesar Augustus
The Annunciation
The Salutation of Elizabeth
The First Shepherds' Play
The Second Shepherds' Play
The Offering of the Magi
The Flight into Egypt
Herod the Great
The Purification of Mary
The Play of the Doctors
John the Baptist
Lazarus
The Conspiracy
The Buffeting
The Scourging
The Hanging of Judas
The Crucifixion
The Talents
The Deliverance of Souls
The Resurrection
The Pilgrims
Thomas of India
The Ascension of the Lord
The Judgement

***



The Play of Herod (1200): Te Deum



Herod (Hebrew: Horodos, Greek: ἡρῴδης Herōdes), also known as Herod I or Herod the Great (73 BC – 4 BC in Jericho), was a Roman client king of Judaea.

Herod is known for his colossal building projects in Jerusalem and other parts of the ancient world, including the rebuilding of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, sometimes referred to as Herod's Temple. Some details of his biography can be gleaned from the works of the 1st century AD Roman-Jewish historian Josephus Flavius.

In Christian scripture, Herod is known for the Massacre of the Innocents, described in Chapter 2 of the Gospel according to Matthew.

***

The Te Deum (also known as Te Deum Laudamus, Ambrosian Hymn or A Song of the Church) is an Early Christian hymn of praise. The hymn remains in regular use in the Roman Catholic Church in the Office of Readings found in the Liturgy of the Hours, and in thanksgiving to God for a special blessing (eg. the election of a pope, the consecration of a bishop, the canonization of a saint, the profession of a religious, the publication of a treaty of peace, a royal coronation, etc) either after Mass or Divine Office or as a separate religious ceremony.

The hymn also remains in use in the Anglican Communion and some Lutheran Churches in similar settings.

In the traditional Office, the Te Deum is sung at the end of Matins on all days when the Gloria is said at Mass; those days are all Sundays outside Advent, Septuagesima, Lent, and Passiontide; on all Feasts except Maundy Thursday and the Holy Innocents unless it should fall on Sunday; and on all Ferias during Eastertide. In the Liturgy of the Hours of Paul VI, the Te Deum is sung at the end of the Office of Readings on days when the Gloria is sung (in this case Sundays outside Lent and all solemnities, including the octaves of Easter and Christmas, and all feasts) and also on the Sundays of Advent.

It is also used together with the standard canticles in Morning Prayer as prescribed in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, in Matins for Lutherans, is retained by many other churches of the Reformed tradition. It is also used by the Eastern Orthodox Churches in the Paraklesis (Moleben) of Thanksgiving.

Though its authorship is traditionally ascribed to Saints Ambrose and Augustine, on the occasion of the latter's baptism by the former in AD 387, contemporary scholars doubt this attribution, many assigning it to Nicetas, bishop of Remesiana in the late 4th to early 5th centuries. Some scholars have suggested that the hymn is the merger of two (or more) earlier hymns: one to God the Father and another to God the Son. Under this schema, the second begins with the phrase Tu rex gloriae, Christe. The petitions at the end of the hymn (beginning Salvum fac populum tuum) are a selection of verses from the book of Psalms, appended subsequently to the original hymn.

The hymn follows the outline of the Apostles' Creed, mixing a poetic vision of the heavenly liturgy with its declaration of faith. Naming God immediately, the hymn proceeds to name all those who praise and venerate God, from the hierarchy of heavenly creatures to those Christian faithful already in heaven to the Church spread throughout the world. The hymn then returns to its creedal formula, naming Christ and recalling his birth, suffering, and glorification. At this point the hymn turns to the subjects declaiming the praise, both the Church in general and the singer in particular, asking for mercy on past sins, protection from future sin, and the hoped-for reunification with the elect.

Beyond its chant settings, the text has been set to music by many later composers, including F.J. Haydn, W.A. Mozart, Hector Berlioz, Guiseppe Verdi, Antonin Dvorak, and Benjamin Britten.

Antonio Vivaldi wrote a setting of the Te Deum (RV 622), but this composition is now lost.

The prelude to Charpentier's setting (H.146 in Hugh Wiley Hitchcock's catalogue) is well-known in Europe on account of its being used as the theme music for some broadcasts of the European Broadcasting Union.

Sir William Walton's Coronation Te Deum was written for the coronation of HM Queen Elizabeth II in 1952.

Other English settings include those by William Byrd, Thomas Tallis, Henry Purcell, three versions by George Frideric Handel (Utrecht Te Deum, Dettingen Te Deum, and Queen's Te Deum) and that of Edward Elgar, his Op. 34.

Igor Stravinsky set the first 12 lines of the text as part of The Flood in 1962.

Te Deum laudamus:
te Dominum confitemur.
Te aeternum Patrem
omnis terra veneratur.
Tibi omnes Angeli;
tibi caeli et universae Potestates;
Tibi Cherubim et Seraphim
incessabili voce proclamant:
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus
Deus Sabaoth.
Pleni sunt caeli et terra
maiestatis gloriae tuae.
Te gloriosus Apostolorum chorus,
Te Prophetarum laudabilis numerus,
Te Martyrum candidatus laudat exercitus.
Te per orbem terrarum
sancta confitetur Ecclesia,
Patrem immensae maiestatis:
Venerandum tuum verum et unicum Filium;
Sanctum quoque Paraclitum Spiritum.
Tu Rex gloriae, Christe.
Tu Patris sempiternus es Filius.
Tu ad liberandum suscepturus hominem,
non horruisti Virginis uterum.
Tu, devicto mortis aculeo, aperuisti
credentibus regna caelorum.
Tu ad dexteram Dei sedes, in gloria Patris.
Iudex crederis esse venturus.
Te ergo quaesumus, tuis famulis subveni:
quos pretioso sanguine redemisti.
Aeterna fac cum sanctis tuis in gloria numerari.
Salvum fac populum tuum,
Domine, et benedic hereditati tuae.
Et rege eos, et extolle illos usque in aeternum.
Per singulos dies benedicimus te;
Et laudamus Nomen tuum in saeculum, et in saeculum saeculi.
Dignare, Domine, die isto sine peccato nos custodire.
Miserere nostri domine, miserere nostri.
Fiat misericordia tua,
Domine, super nos, quemadmodum speravimus in te.
In te, Domine, speravi:
non confundar in aeternum.

We praise thee, O God
we acknowledge thee to be the Lord
All the earth doth worship thee
the Father everlasting.
To thee all the angels cry aloud
the heavens and all the powers therein.
To thee cherubim and seraphim do continually cry
Holy, Holy, Holy,
Lord God of Sabaoth; heaven and earth
are full of the majesty of thy glory.
The glorious company of apostles praise thee.
The goodly fellowship of the prophets praise thee.
The noble army of martyrs praise thee.
The Holy Church
throughout all the world doth acknowledge thee;
the father of an infinite majesty;
thine honourable true and only Son;
also the Holy Ghost the comforter.
Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ.
Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father.
When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man,
thou didst not abhor the Virgin's womb.
When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death,
thou didst open the kingdom of heaven to all believers.
Thou sittest at the hand of God in glory of the Father.
We believe that Thou shalt come to be our Judge.
We therefore pray thee, help thy servants,
whom thou hast redeemed with thy precious blood.
Make them numbered with thy saints in glory everlasting
O Lord save thy people
and bless thine heritage.
Govern them and lift them up for ever.
Day by day we magnify thee;
and worship thy name, ever world without end.
Vouchsafe, O Lord to keep us this day without sin.
O Lord, have mercy upon us, have mercy upon us.
O Lord, let thy mercy lighten upon us, as our trust is in thee.
O Lord in thee have I trusted let me not be confounded.

Colin Muset (b. c. 1170)

Colin Muset

Chansonnette "Quant je voy yver retorner"

(Gemshorn and Lute Drone)




Colin Muset (fl. 1200), French trouvère, was a poet, musician and a native of



Lorraine [as in Alsace or Quiche!]. He made his living by travelling from castle to castle singing his own songs and playing the vielle. These are not confined to the praise of the conventional love that formed the usual topic of the trouvres, but contain many details of a singer's life. His complete works (21 poems) were published by Joseph Bédier in 1912 (Paris).

***


Gemshorn is a Germanic term for a chamois (goat) horn. It refers to an instrument of the ocarina made of such material.

Examples have been unearthed in Italy and in Germany, including one intact instrument made of clay which dates at least to 1450, as it was found buried beneath the foundation of a house built at that time.



The early history of the instrument is not well known, but the oldest known illustration of one in a reference work is in Musica Getutscht (1511), by Sebastian Virdung. A skeletal figure is seen holding one in a Danse Macabre illustration dated to 1485.

There is also mention of this instrument in The Complaynt of Scotlande as "ane gatehorn"(goat horn). Volume 2 of Praetorius's De Organographica, from the early 1600's, provides detailed construction plates and diagrams for the gemshorn. They were primarily a pastoral instrument and were not widely known after the mid-to-late 1500s. With resurgent interest in early music in the 19th and 20th centuries, they have received new attention. Horace Fitzpatrick developed a form of gemshorn which adopted the fingering method of recorders and produced them in consort families, which have proven very popular since the 1960's.

Modern gemshorns are often made of the horns of domesticated cattle, because they are readily available, and their use prevents endangering wild species. The hollow horn has tone holes down the front, like a recorder or clarinet. The pointed end of the horn is left intact, and serves as the bottom of the instrument. A fipple plug, usually of wood, is fitted into the wide end of the instrument, with a recorder type voicing window on the front of the horn, for tone production.

On more advanced models, there is a "tuning ring." This is a metal band or ring, placed between the voicing window and the top tone hole. A hole is drilled through this ring and the horn beneath. When the ring is turned with the fingers the hole is partially blocked. This lowers the flute's keynote by up to about 1 major tone. Partial wax closure of the dorsal (rear) thumb hole will accomplish the same keynote tuning.

The sound of the gemshorn is like that of other flutes, but with an ocarina-like lack of harmonic overtones.

There is a gemshorn organ stop, modeled after this instrument. Its pipes are conical, with the wind going in at the wide end, as in the actual gemshorn.

French (b. c. 1170) - Royal Estampies (c. 1200)

Dance (from French danser, perhaps from Frankish) generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting. Dance is also used to describe methods of non-verbal communication (see body language) between humans or animals (bee dance, patterns of behaviour such as a mating dance), motion in inanimate objects (the leaves danced in the wind), and certain musical forms or genres.

Definitions of what constitutes dance are dependent on social, cultural, aesthetic, artistic and moral constraints and range from functional movement (such as folk dance) to virtuoso techniques such as ballet. Dance can be participatory, social or performed for an audience. It can also be ceremonial, competitive or erotic. Dance movements may be without significance in themselves, such as in ballet or European folk dance, or have a gestural vocabulary/symbolic system as in many Asian dances. Dance can embody or express ideas, emotions or tell a story.
Dancing has evolved many styles.

Choreography is the art of creating dances, and the person who does this is called a choreographer.


France (b. c. 1170) - Danse Real (c. 1200) (Bagpipes)




Bagpipes are a class of musical instrument, aerophones using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. Though the Scottish Great Highland Bagpipe and Irish uilleann pipes have the greatest international visibility, bagpipes have historically been found throughout Europe, and into Northern Africa, the Persian Gulf, and the Caucasus.

The term is equally correct in the singular or plural, although in the English language pipers most commonly talk of "pipes" and "the bagpipe."

A bagpipe minimally consists on an air supply, a bag, a chanter, and usually a drone. Some bagpipes also have additional drones (and sometimes chanters) in various combinations, held in place in stocks -- connectors with which the various pipes are attached to the bag.
[edit]Air supply

The most common method of supplying air to the bag is by blowing into a blowpipe, or blowstick. In some pipes the player must cover the tip of the blowpipe with his tongue while inhaling, but modern blowpipes are usually fitted with a non-return valve which eliminates this need.

The bag is simply an airtight (or nearly airtight) reservoir which can hold air and regulate its flow while the player breathes or pumps with a bellows, enabling the player to maintain continuous sound for some time. Materials used for bags vary widely, but the most common are the skins of local animals such as goats, sheep, and cows. More recently, pipers have started to use bags made of synthetic materials including Gore-Tex; synthetic bags are the most common.

Bags cut from larger materials are usually saddle-stitched with an extra strip folded over the seam and stitched (for skin bags) or glued (for synthetic bags) to reduce leaks. Holes are cut to accommodate the stocks. In the case of bags made from largely-intact animal skins the stocks are typically tied into the points where limbs and the head joined the body of the living animal, a construction technique common in Central and Eastern Europe.

The chanter is the melody pipe, played by one or two hands. A chanter can be bored internally so that the inside walls are parallel for its full length, or it can be bored in the shape of a cone. Additionally, the reed can be a single or a double reed. Single-reeded chanters must be parallel-bored; however, both conical- and parallel-bored chanters operate with double reeds, and double reeds are by far the more common.

The chanter is usually open-ended; thus, there is no easy way for the player to stop the pipe from sounding. This means that most bagpipes share a legato sound where there are no rests in the music. Primarily because of this inability to stop playing, grace notes (which vary between types of bagpipe) are used to break up notes and to create the illusion of articulation and accents. Because of their importance, these embellishments (or ornaments) are often highly technical systems specific to each bagpipe, and take much study to master.

A few bagpipes (the musette de cour, the uilleann pipes, and the Northumbrian smallpipe) have closed ends or stop the end on the player's leg, so that when the player covers all the holes (known as closing the chanter) it becomes silent. A thick leather leg strap, known as a "Pipers Apron" is used for this purpose. This allows for staccato playing on these instruments, although even where the chanter can be silenced, complex embellishment systems often exist. Momentarilly silencing the open end of the Uilleann pipe chanter on the "Apron," alongside an increase in pressure on the bag, allows the melody pipe to sound the next register. This is not done on other forms of bagpipes.

Although the majority of chanters are unkeyed, some make extensive use of keys to extend the range and/or the number of accidentals the chanter can play. It is possible to produce chanters with two bores and two holes for each note. The double chanters have a full loud sound comparable to the "wet" sound produced by an accordion. One ancient form of twin bore, single reed pipe is the "Scottish Stock and Horn" spoken of by Robert Burns.

An unusual kind of chanter is the regulator of the uilleann pipes. This chanter is in addition to the main melody chanter and plays a limited number of notes, operated by the ends of the palms pressing down the keys. It is fitted in the stock for the drones and laid across the knees, allowing the player to produce a limited but effective chordal accompaniment.

A final variant of the chanter is the two-piped chanter (confusingly also usually called a double chanter). Two separate chanters are designed to be played, one with each hand. When they are played, one chanter may provide a drone accompaniment to the other, or the two chanters may play in a harmony of thirds and sixths (as in the southern Italian zampogna), or the two chanters may be played in unison (as in most Arabic bagpipes). Another form is called a "Magdeburg Pipe/Schaper Pfeiff", found in the plates of the "Syntagma Musicum of 1619" by Michael Preatorius.

Because of the accompanying drone(s), the lack of modulation in bagpipe melody, and stable timbre of the reed sound, in many bagpipe traditions the tones of the chanter are appropriately tuned using just intonation.

Most bagpipes have at least one drone. A drone is most commonly a cylindrical tube with a single reed, although drones with double reeds exist. The drone is generally designed in two or more parts, with a sliding joint ("bridle") so that the pitch of the drone can be manipulated. Drones are traditionally made of wood, often a local hardwood, but nowadays often from tropical hardwoods such as rosewood, ebony, or African Blackwood. Some modern variants of the pipes have brass or plastic drones.

Depending on the type of pipe, the drones may lay over the shoulder, across the arm opposite the bag, or may run parallel to the chanter. Some drones have a tuning screw, which effectively alters the length of the drone by opening a hole, allowing the drone to be tuned to two or more distinct pitches. The tuning screw may also shut off the drone altogether. In general, where there is one drone it is pitched two octaves below the tonic of the chanter, and further additions often add the octave below and then a drone consonant with the fifth of the chanter. This is, however, a very approximate rule of thumb. In the Uilleann pipes, there are three drones (which can be switched off via a switch); these are tuned as follows, Tenor (shortest) plays the same note as the bottom of the chanter, Baritone (middle length) is tuned an octave below and the bass (longest) is tuned two octaves below. There are some indications that there may have been cases of a fourth drone, shorter than the tenor, which played a perfect 5th - e.g. on a "d" set of pipes (the bottom note is 'd') the normal three drones play a 'd' and this 'extra' drone would play 'g'.

Evidence of pre-medieval bagpipes is controversial, but several textual and visual clues may possibly indicate ancient forms of bagpipes. The earliest known representation of a bagpipe is as part of a Corsican bronze figurine.

A possible representation of a bagpipe has been found on a Hittite slab dating from about 1,300 BC at Eyuk. Similarly, a possible textual reference to a bagpipe is found in 425 BC, in the play The Acharnians by the Greek playwright Aristophanes:

“ A BOEOTIAN: By Heracles! my shoulder is quite black and blue. Ismenias, put the penny-royal down there very gently, and all of you, musicians from Thebes, pipe with your bone flutes into a dog's rump.” [!]

Several hundred years later, Suetonius described the Roman Emperor Nero as a player of the tibia utricularis.

Dio Chrysostom, who also flourished in the first century, wrote about a contemporary sovereign (possibly Nero) who could play a pipe ("aulein") with his mouth as well as with his "armpit".

From this account, some believe that the tibia utricularis was a bagpipe.



[A detail from the Cantigas de Santa Maria showing bagpipes with one chanter and a parallel drone (13th Century)]

In the early part of the second millennium, bagpipes began to appear with frequency in European art and iconography. The Cantigas de Santa Maria (Galician verses compiled in Castile in the mid-13th Century) depict several types of bagpipes.



[Geoffery Chaucer (1343-1400) - Canterbury Tales (1380)]

Though evidence of bagpipes in the British Isles prior to the 14th Century is contested, bagpipes are explicitly mentioned in The Canterbury Tales (written around 1380): "A baggepype wel coude he blowe and sowne, /And ther-with-al he broghte us out of towne."

Actual examples of bagpipes from before the 18th century are extremely rare; however, a substantial number of paintings, carvings, engravings, manuscript illuminations, and so on survive. They make it clear that bagpipes varied hugely throughout Europe, and even within individual regions. Many examples of early folk bagpipes in Continental Europe can be found in the paintings of


Hieronymous Bosch (c. 1450-1516)


Albrecht Durer (1471-1528), and Peter Brueghel (1525-1569).



[Peasant Wedding Dance]


[Peasant Wedding Feast]

In English-speaking regions, a bagpipe player is known as a "bagpiper" or "piper," and the surname Piper derives from the latter term. Other European surnames, such as Pfeiffer or Pfeifer (German), Gaiteiro (Portuguese-Galician), Gaiteru (Asturian), Gaitero (Spanish), Dudák or Gajdar (Czech), Dudás, Sipos, or Gajdos (Hungarian), Zampognaro (Italian), Tsambounieris (Greek), Gaidar (Bulgarian: Гайдар; derivated from Гайда, Gayda - bagpipe), Gaidar (Russian), Duda, and Dudziak (Polish)[4] may also signify that an ancestor was a player of the pipes.

One of the main purposes of the bagpipe in most traditions was to provide music for dancing. In most countries this has declined with the growth of professional dance bands, recordings, and the decline of traditional dance. In turn, this has led to many types of pipes developing a performance-led tradition, and indeed much modern music based on the dance music tradition played on bagpipes is no longer suitable for use as dance music.



Danse Royale [No. 1] (1200)

(David Munrow, Music of the Crusades [Shawm, Tabor])



(Dufay Collective)



The shawm was a Medieval and Renaissance musical instrument of the woodwind family made in Europe from the 13th century until the 17th century. It was developed from the oriental zurna and is the predecessor of the modern oboe. The body of the shawm was usually turned from a single piece of wood, and terminated in a flared bell somewhat like that of a trumpet. Beginning in the 16th century, shawms were made in several sizes, from sopranino to great bass, and four and five-part music could be played by a consort consisting entirely of shawms. All later shawms had at least one key allowing a downward extension of the compass; the keywork was typically covered by a perforated wooden cover called the fontanelle. The bassoon-like double reed, made from the same Arundo donax cane used for oboes and bassoons, was inserted directly into a socket at the top of the instrument, or in the larger types, on the end of a metal tube called the bocal. The pirouette, a small cylindrical piece of wood with a hole in the middle resembling a thimble, was placed over the reed—this acted as a support for the lips and embouchure. Since only a short portion of the reed protruded past the pirouette, the player had only limited contact with the reed, and therefore limited control of dynamics. The shawm’s conical bore and flaring bell, combined with the style of playing dictated by the use of a pirouette, gave the instrument a piercing, trumpet-like sound well-suited for out-of-doors performance.

The Catalan shawm is a modernized variant still used in Catalonia, to accompany the Catalonian Sardana circle dance.

In German the shawm is called Schalmei or Pommer; the first word is believed to derive from the Latin calamus, meaning reed or stalk. However, it is also possible that the name comes from the Arabic salamiya or salameya, a traditional oboe from Egypt, as the European shawm seems to have been developed from similar instruments brought to Europe from the Near East during the time of the Crusades. This is borne out by the very similar names of many folk shawms used as traditional instruments in various European nations, such as the Spanish dulzaina (also known as chirimía), the Catalan shawms (xirimia, dolçaina or gralla, tible, tenora), the Portuguese charamela, and the Italian ciaramella.

Instruments resembling the medieval shawm can still be heard in many countries today, played by street musicians or military bands. The latter use would have been familiar to crusaders, who often had to face massed bands of Saracen shawms and nakers, used as a psychological weapon. It must have had a profound effect, as the shawm was quickly adopted by Europeans, for dancing as well as for military purposes.

The shawm inspired the later 17th-century hautbois, an invention of the French musician Martin Hotteterre (d.1712). He is credited with devising essentially a brand-new instrument, one which borrowed several features from the shawm, chiefly its double reed and conical bore, but departed from it significantly in other respects, the most important departure being the fact the player places his lips directly on the reed with no intervening pirouette. Around 1670, the new French hautbois began replacing the shawm in military bands, concert music and opera; by 1700, the shawm had all but disappeared from concert life, although as late as 1830 shawms could still be heard in German town bands performing their municipal functions. Curiously, the Germans and Dutch continued to manufacture an ornate version of the shawm, called deutsche Schalmey, well after the introduction of the French hautbois. Several examples of this instrument survive in European collections, although its exact musical use is unclear.


Danse Royale [No. 2] (1200) (Vielle)

(Florilegium Musicum, Music at the Time of the Crusades)



The vielle is a European bowed stringed instrument used in the Medieval period, similar to a modern violin but with a somewhat longer and deeper body, five (rather than four) gut strings, and a leaf-shaped pegbox with frontal tuning pegs. The instrument was also known as a fidel or a viuola, although the French name for the instrument, vielle, is generally used. It was one of the most popular instruments of the Medieval period, and was used by troubadours and jongleurs from the 1200's through the 1400's.

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The Manuscrit du Roi (Manuscript of the King) (c. 1200-1250), by an anonymous French author, contains songs by trouveres, and 11 dances -- eight Royal Estampies, Danse Real, Danse, and an untitled piece. The estampies are numbered from two to eight, with what is probably number one (speculatively entitled La Prime) in fragment form. The notation, probably conceived as in various rhythmic modes, is open to varied interpretations.

[La Prime Estampie Royal] - Dufay Collective)



La Seconde Estampie Royal

(Roger Kamien - Flute)



(Dufay Collective)



La Tierche Estampie Roial [sic]

(David Munrow - Rebecs, Lute, Tabor)



(Dufay Collective)



***


The rebec (sometimes rebeck, and originally various other spellings) is a bowed string musical instrument. In its most common form, it has three strings and is played on the arm or under the chin, like a violin.

The rebec dates back to the Middle Ages and was particularly popular in the 15th and 16th centuries. The instrument is European, but probably developed from the arabo-islamic instrument, the rebab. The rebec was first referred to by name around the beginning of the 1300's century, although instruments very similar to it had been played since around the 900's.

The number of strings on the rebec varies from one to five, although three is the most common number. The strings are often tuned in fifths, although this tuning is by no means universal. The instrument was originally in the treble range, like the violin, but later larger versions were developed, such that by the 16th century composers were able to write pieces for consorts of rebecs, just as they did for consorts of viols.

In time, the viol came to replace the rebec, and the instrument was little used beyond the Renaissance. The rebec did remain in use by dance masters until the 18th century, however, often being used for the same purpose as the kit, a small pocket-sized violin. The rebec also continued to be used in folk music, especially in eastern Europe and Spain. Andalusi nubah, a genre of music from North Africa, often includes the rebec.

The original Michael Nyman Band included a rebec before the band switched to a fully amplified lineup.


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La Quinte Estampie Real

(David Munrow - Shawm, Nakers)



(Dufay Collective)





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A naker or nakir is a small drum, of Arabic origin, and the forebear of the European timpani (kettledrum).

The nakers were imported into Europe during the Crusades of the 1200's.

Nakers consist of metal or wood dome-shaped bodies with goatskin drumheads, with or without snares, and are played by striking them with the hands or with sticks. They are typically played in pairs, often in a sling or harness.

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La Sexte Estampie Real

(Kerman)



(Florilegium Musicum, Pressure Drum)



***

Talking drums are part of a family of hourglass-shaped pressure drums. The drum heads at either end of the drum's wooden body are made from hide, fish-skin or other membranes which are wrapped around a wooden hoop. Leather cords or thongs run the length of the drum's body and are wrapped around both hoops; when these cords are squeezed under the drummers arm, the drum heads tighten, changing the instrument's pitch. While this type of instrument can be modulated quite closely, its range is limited to a gathering or market-place, and it is primarily used in ceremonial settings. Ceremonial functions could include dance, rituals, story-telling and communication of points of order.

Some of the variations of the talking drum among West African ethnic groups:

Tama (Wolof of Senegal)
Gan gan, Dun Dun (Yoruba of Nigeria)
Dondo (Ashanti of central Ghana)
Lunna (Dagomba of northern Ghana)
Kalangu (Hausa of northern Nigeria and Niger)
In the 20th century the talking drums have become a part of popular music in West Africa, especially in the music genres of Jùjú (Nigeria) and Mbalax (Senegal).

While talking drums are generally considered an African phenomenon, in Euskalerria, the Basque Country (part of Spain), the Txalaparta was used a communication medium. The Txalaparta (the "tx" is pronounced "ch") is a percussion instrument, made with a set of wooden planks, leaning over logs. The txalaparta is then hit with 50-cm sticks called "makilak." Like a xylophone, according to where it is hit, a different tone is sounded. Due to the advancing of telephones and other media, txalaparta is no longer in use as a communication medium, but is still used as a musical instrument.

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La Septima Estampie Real

(David Munrow - Rebec, Citole, Tromba Marina, Nakers)



La Uitime Estampie Real

(David Munrow - Rebec, Tabor)



(Dufay Collective)





**

The estampie (also estampida, istampitta, istanpitta and stampita) is both a medieval dance and musical form.

The estampie is an important form of instrumental music of the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries. It consists of four to seven sections, called puncta, each of which is repeated, in the form
aa, bb, cc, etc..

Different endings (ouvert (open) and clos (closed)) are provided for the first and second statement of each punctum, so that the structure can be

a+x, a+y; b+w, b+z; etc..

Sometimes the same two endings are used for all the puncta, producing the structure
a+x, a+y; b+x, b+y, c+x, c+y, etc..

A similar structure was shared with the saltarello, another medieval dance.

The earliest reported example of this musical form is the song "Kalenda Maya", supposedly written by the troubadour Raimbaut de Vaqueiras (1180-1207) to the melody of an estampida played by French jongleurs. All other known examples are purely instrumental pieces.

Though the estampie is generally monophonic, examples of two-voice compositions in the form of an estampie are also reported.

The idealized dance character of all these pieces suggests that the estampie originally was a true dance. There are no surviving dance manuals describing the estampie as a dance. Illuminations and paintings from the period seem to indicate that the estampie involves fairly vigorous hopping. Some estampies, such as the famous Tre fontane ("Three Fountains") estampie, contain florid and virtuosic instrumental writing; they may have been intended as abstract performance music rather than actual dance music.

The etymology of the name is disputed; an alternative name of the dance is stantipes, which suggests that one foot was stationary during the dance; but the more widely accepted etymology relates it to estamper, to stamp the feet -- i.e. a "stomp dance."

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Ductia is a one or two-part French medieval dance of the 12th and 13th centuries, mainly performed by women.

Johannes de Grocheio (Fr. Jean de Grouchy!) writes about Ductias in his treatise De musica (c. 1350).



Ductia (Two-Voiced) (1200)

(Florilegium)



(Oxford)



(Bombards et Binious)




The bombarde, or bombard (in Breton) is a folk musical instrument from Brittany and Cornwall that is a cross between an oboe and a conical-bored pipe chanter (the part of the bagpipe upon which the player creates the melody). The bombarde is blown by the mouth; the reed is held between the lips. Typically pitched in B flat, it plays a diatonic scale over two octaves.

Producing a very strident and powerful tone, the bombarde is most commonly heard today in bagads, the Breton version of the pipe bands. Traditionally it was used in a duet with the binioù for Breton folk dancing.

The bombarde requires so much breath that a bombard player (talabarder) can rarely play for long periods. This suits Breton music, where there is often a solo line which is then echoed by a chorus: the bombarde plays the solo line and then the player recovers while the other instruments play the echo.

The bombarde is also a traditional instrument in Cornish folk music. However its use in Cornish music today is much less widespread than in Breton music.

The name "Bombarde" is also used for a powerful reed stop in Pipe Organs, often set to be played by the pedals and usually at 16' pitch, or at 32' pitch as a Contra Bombarde (French: Contre Bombarde) and occasionally at 8′ pitch. Sometimes organs also have entire divisions of powerful reed stops called "Bombarde," controlled by its own manual.

[8170 Muset / 8170 Royal Estampies / 8170 English Dance]