A.D. 850-1175

Musical Characteristics

Continuation of many characteristics from Early Medieval Era

Invention of musical notation

Neumatic notation

Staff-notation devised for Plainsong

Composition replaced improvisation

2-part music common

4-line staff used

modern methods of solmization were employed

Plainsong

Plainsong Mass

Passion

Organum

	Parallel/Strict
	Free

Liturgical Drama

Monophonic Conductus

	Hucbald (ca 840-930) Monk of St. Amand; De Harmonica Institutione & Musica Enchiriadis
	Odo of Cluny (d. 942) Abbot of Cluny; Dialogus
	Alia Musica - beginning of Medieval Church modes
	Scholia enchiriadis - early examples of polyphonic practices
	Guido d' Arezzo (ca 995-1050) an Italian monk, perfected staff-notation for plainsong; re-established solmization for training singers; devised the Guidonian Hand; Micrologus
	Hermannus Contractus (ca 1013-1054) Roman theorist and composer
	John "Cotton" Affligem (ca 1100) Flemish (?) theorist who worked in a monastery in Affligem; De Musica

	Notker Balbulus (ca 840-912) Roman monk best known for his sequences
	Quem quaeritis - little play with costumes and props; trope on the dialogue at the tomb of the risen Christ; beginning of the Liturgical Drama
	Tuotilo (d. 915) Roman monk from the Swiss Abbey of St. Gall; most famous composer of tropes
	Wipo of Burgundy (d. ca 1050) "Victimae paschali laudes"
	Winchester Troper

	Peter Abelard (1079-1142) "Alone Thou Goest Forth"
	Bernard of Clairvaux (ca 1091-1153) "Jesus the Very Thought of Thee"
	Bernard of Cluny (ca 12th c.) "De contemptu mundi"

Last Updated: Thursday, August 04, 2005