Famous Musician

on
Medieval Period

Prepared by: Joseph Angelo Vargas

Gr. 9 - Our Lady of Good Counsel
Teacher: Mrs. Annalynn Orcine

MEDIEVAL MUSICIANS
The Medieval musicians influenced the community development with the
message of their creations. The northern Bard, or Skald, accompanied by his harp,
celebrated the ancient gods and heroes of the people, while in the South of Europe,
the troubadours were masters of courtly love and poems glorifying the courage of
the knights.

A. Francesco Landini
Francesco degli Organi, Francesco il Cieco, or
Francesco da Firenze, called by later generations
Francesco Landini or Landino (c. 1325 or 1335
September 2, 1397) was an Italian composer, organist,
singer, poet and instrument maker. He was one of the
most famous and revered composers of the second half
of the 14th century, and by far the most famous
composer in Italy. Landini was most likely born in
Florence. Landini became devoted to music early in life,
and mastered many instruments, including the lute, as
well as the art of singing, writing poetry, and composition. Villani, in his chronicle, also
stated that Landini was an inventor of instruments, including a stringed instrument called the
'syrena syrenarum', that combined features of the lute and psaltery, and it is believed to be the
ancestor of the bandura. Landini was already active in the early 1350s and it is likely that he
was very close to Petrarch. According to Villani, Landini was given a crown of laurel by the
King of Cyprus, who was in Venice for several periods during the 1360s. He was employed
as organist at the Florentine monastery of Santa Trinit in 1361, and at the church of San
Lorenzo from 1365 onward. Among the surviving records are the receipts for the wine that
the two consumed during the three days it had taken to tune the instrument. Landini also
helped build the new organ at SS Annunziata in 1379, and in 1387 he was involved in yet
another organ-building project, this time at Florence Cathedral. Numerous contemporary
writers attest to his fame, not only as a composer, but as a singer, poet, organist, philosopher,
and passionately devoted citizen of Florence, notably Giovanni da Prato, in hist book
Paradiso degli Alberti. This book, written in 1389 contains short stories, one of which
supposedly was related by Landini himself. His reputation for moving an audience with his
music was so powerful that writers noted "the sweetness of his melodies was such that hearts
burst from their bosoms." He is buried in the church of San Lorenzo in Florence. His

tombstone, lost until the 19th century and now again displayed in the church, contains a
depiction of him with a portative organ.
Landini was the foremost exponent of the Italian Trecento style, sometimes also called the
"Italian ars nova". His output was almost exclusively secular. While there are records that he
composed sacred music, none of it has survived. What have survived are eighty-nine ballate
for two voices, forty-two ballate for three voices, and another nine which exist in both two
and three-voice versions. In addition to the ballate, a smaller number of madrigals have
survived. Landini is assumed to have written his own texts for many of his works. His output,
preserved most completely in the Squarcialupi Codex, represents almost a quarter of all
surviving 14th-century Italian music. Landini is the eponym of the Landini cadence (or
Landino sixth), a cadential formula whereby the sixth degree of the scale (the submediant) is
inserted between the leading note and its resolution on the tonic. However this cadence
neither originated with him, nor is unique to his music; it can be found in much polyphonic
music of the period, and well into the 15th century (for example in the songs of Gilles
Binchois). Gherardello da Firenze is the earliest composer to use the cadence whose works
have survived. Yet Landini used the formula consistently throughout his music, so the
eponymwhich dates from after the medieval erais appropriate.

B. Protin
Protin (fl. c. 1200), also called Perotin the Great, 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 and the ars antiqua style. He
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 and his predecessor Lonin.
Anonymous IV called him "Magister Perotinus" ("Protin the Master"). The title, employed
also by Johannes de Garlandia, means that Perotinus, like Leoninus, earned the degree
magister artium, almost certainly in Paris, and that he was licensed to teach. The name
Perotinus, the Latin diminutive of Petrus, is assumed to be derived from the French name
Protin, diminutive of Pierre. The diminutive was presumably a mark of respect bestowed by
his colleagues. He was also designated "magnus" by Anonymous IV, a mark of the esteem in
which he was held, even long after his death. Anonymous IV attributed four compositions to
Protin: the four-voice Viderunt omnes and Sederunt principes, and the three-voice Alleluia
"Posui adiutorium" and Alleluia "Nativitas. Nine other works are attributed to him by
contemporary scholars on stylistic grounds, all in the organum style, as well as 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.) Protin'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 Lonin. However, attempts by scholars to place Protin 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, Eudes de 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.[5] The bishop's edicts are quite specific, and suggest that
Protin's organum quadruplum Viderunt omnes was written for Christmas 1198, and his other
organum quadruplum Sederunt Principes was composed for St. Stephen's Day (26
December), 1199, for the dedication of a new wing of the Notre Dame Cathedral. His music,
as well as that of Lonin and their anonymous contemporaries, has been grouped together as
the School of Notre Dame. Two important members of the Notre Dame administration have
been suggested as possible identities for Perotinus: the theologian Petrus Cantor (who died in
1197) and the Petrus who was Succentor of Notre Dame from at least 1207 until about 1238.
Petrus Succentor is more probable, in part on chronological grounds, and partly because of
the succentor's role in overseeing the celebration of the liturgy in the cathedral.

C. Guillaume de Machaut
Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300 April 1377) was a medieval French poet and composer. He
is one of the earliest composers on whom significant
biographical information is available. According to Daniel
Leech-Wilkinson, Machaut was "the last great poet who
was also a composer". Well into the 15th century,
Machaut's poetry was greatly admired and imitated by other
poets, including Geoffrey Chaucer. Machaut composed in a
wide range of styles and forms. He is a part of the musical
movement known as the ars nova. Machaut helped develop
the motet and secular song forms (particularly the lai and
the formes fixes: rondeau, virelai and ballade). Machaut
wrote the Messe de Nostre Dame, the earliest known complete setting of the Ordinary of the
Mass attributable to a single composer. Guillaume de Machaut was born about 1300, and
educated in the region around Reims. His surname most likely derives from the nearby town
of Machault, 30 km northeast of Reims in the Ardennes region. He was employed as
secretary to John I, Count of Luxembourg and King of Bohemia from 1323 to 1346, and also
became a canon (1337). He often accompanied King John on his various trips, many of them
military expeditions around Europe (including Prague). He was named the canon of Verdun
in 1330, Arras in 1332, and Reims in 1337. By 1340, Machaut was living in Reims, having

relinquished his other canonic posts at the request of Pope Benedict XII. In 1346, King John
was killed fighting at the Battle of Crcy, and Machaut, who was famous and much in
demand, entered the service of various other aristocrats and rulers, including King John's
daughter Bonne (who died of the Black Death in 1349), her sons Jean de Berry and Charles
(later Charles V, Duke of Normandy), and others such as Charles II of Navarre. Machaut
survived the Black Death that devastated Europe, and spent his later years living in Reims
composing and supervising the creation of his complete-works manuscripts. His poem Le
voir dit (probably 13611365) purports to recount a late love affair with a 19-year-old girl,
Pronne d'Armentires, although the accuracy of the work as autobiography is contested.
When he died in 1377, other composers such as Franois Andrieu wrote elegies lamenting his
death. As a composer of the 14th century, Machaut's secular song output includes
monophonic lais and virelais, which continue, in updated forms, some of the tradition of the
troubadours. He also worked in the polyphonic forms of the ballade and rondeau and wrote
the first complete setting of the Ordinary of the Mass which can be attributed to a single
composer. The lyrics of Machaut's works almost always dealt with courtly love. A few works
exist to commemorate a particular event, such as M18, "Bone Pastor/Bone Pastor/Bone
Pastor." Machaut mostly composed in five genres: the lai, the virelai, the motet, the ballade,
and the rondeau. In these genres, Machaut retained the basic formes fixes, but often utilized
creative text setting and cadences. For example, most rondeau phrases end with a long
melisma on the penultimate syllable. However, a few of Machaut's rondeaux, such as R18
"Puis qu'en oubli", are mostly syllabic in treatment. Machaut's motets often contain sacred
texts in the tenor, such as in M12 "Corde mesto cantando/Helas! pour quoy virent/Libera
me". The top two voices in these three-part compositions, in contrast, sing secular French
texts, creating interesting concordances between the sacred and secular. In his other genres,
though, he does not utilize sacred texts.