This review sheet covers materials presented in Wright, Listening to Music, 5th ed., Chapter 8, which will be tested in the near future in MUL 2010.

The following concepts and terms in boldface (as well as a few others not specifically listed, but indicated in these review questions) will be included on the first of the three large mid-term tests. You should know all of these terms, including their (1) spelling, (2) definition, and (3) be able to use them correctly in speaking and writing about music.

Dictionary definitions may be found in glossary section of your textbook or in the publisher-sponsored web site that supports your textbook.

Additionally, you should know by sound the one music example (Listening Guide, p. 84) that supports this portion of the textbook.

General Overview

1. What is the rough span of the Middle Ages (or the Medieval Era), and what are the eras on either side of this one?
2. Who or what is the dominant institution that preserves and transmits general knowledge and also music in this era? What is a patron, and why is this institution the most important patron of music in the era?
3. What are monasteries and churches, and why are they important in the transmission of knowledge and the arts in this era?
4. What two basic types/categories of music were made in the Medieval era, which is the more important (or at least the more plentiful in surviving sources), and why?

CHAPTER 8

5. What is chant, and what are its most important stylistic traits (how do you know it when you hear it)?
6. Who was Gregory the Great, and what happened to the liturgy of the church under his leadership?
7. What are liturgy and the mass, and why is some of it Ordinary and some of it Proper? What effect would this have on the writing down of chant, and what are neumes?
8. What is the only texture in which chant is sung, in what language is Gregorian chant, and what are two different ways in which the words of a chant may be set musically?
9. Who was Hildegard of Bingen, and why is she important in the history of music? For what other sorts of things beside music is she remembered?
10. At what famous church (in what city) was sacred polyphony first developed, and who were two of the composers who helped to develop this new style?
11. What important notational problem had to be solved before polyphony could be written? (Which of the 4 basic elements of music is the most important for controling the interaction of two or more voice parts?)
12. What is the Great Book of Organum, and what is organum, i.e., how was chant doecorated in polyphony?
13. Who was Guillaume de Machaut, what sort of training did he have, and how did that influence the kinds of music that he wrote?
14. what is the significance of the triple repetitions of the text in Machaut's Kyrie?
15. Why does less secular music survive from the Medieval era (as compared to sacred music)?
16. Who were some types of secular musicians in the Medieval era and where did the work?
17. Why might troubadours and trouvères be considered superior to other secular musicians?
18. Who was Guillaume Du Fay and at what important court did he work?

---

Listening Guide (p. 84, Machaut)

19. What kind of piece (genre) is this, and who composed it?
20. When and where might this piece have been sung?
21. What are the primary musical traits of this piece, e.g., texture, rhythm, melodic characteristics, language, etc.? (How do you know it when you hear it?)
22. What are melismas and why might they be used in this piece? Also, what are syllabic and neumatic text setting?
23. What are some musical ways in which the most important words of the text are emphasized in this piece?

---

NB. See the textbook, p. 68, for a list of style traits of Medieval music.