Medieval conductus - music for two voices

Pes

Here is a transcription of a medieval conductus for two voices. I took it from a recording by Anonymous 4 ("Legends of St. Nicholas") of a text starting "Gaudens in Domino." Simple and nice. Here's an image:

Conductus I, SA setting

With words:

Conductus I, SA setting with words

If I could also say a brief thing about this. This is metrical music. The medievals sometimes took secular melodies for them (read the wiki). What interests me about this one is how it avoids triteness. How? First, it's modal. Second, it uses open fifths at strong cadential points. This hollows out the sound. Third, its rhythm remains simple. If you want to count that dissonance in bar five, you can also say that the harmonic approach isn't afraid of some astringency -- here, it's on an off-beat. I find all this interesting because it suggests how a simple, metrical, and repetitive melody can yet be made more austere.

The second example I'll post later, which is much freer in rhythm, illustrates these points even better.

MaryAnn Carr Wilson

Super cool- thanks for this! I will look forward to your transcription.

I am not scandalized by the use of imported secular melodies, had a great early music prof who broke that to me long ago.

I have to ponder this-
'What interests me about this one is how it avoids triteness. How? First, it's modal.' Do you wonder if this association (or lack of association) was true for the time when these were written? I mean, weren't there a lot of secular modal tunes? But certainly agree that now it does not sound trite, as melody has simplified over the centuries, moving from modal to diatonic structure.

Pes

MASM, I don't know anything about the medieval associations, but I would guess that the modal nature of the melody didn't signify strongly as either secular or sacred. These days, such an association is probably much stronger.

Here is a draft of the second transcription of a "prosa," also for two voices. It's just a draft: one of the things I need to check is the location and extent of divisi passages in the soprano. I like these things a lot since, in the context of "contemporary liturgical services," they have a radical, immediately quieting effect. I worked up a two-voice setting of some psalm verses for my schola once; it was for an offertory antiphon, and afterwards, a person rushed up to me and said, "what was that!?!"

I think it's easy to underestimate the effect of relatively simple things. It still gives me a thrill to hear a lot of recto tono chanting followed suddenly by the breaking open of the sound into polyphony. You don't need huge elaborate polyphony to cause a really vivid burst of spring in the midst of things.

Anyway, here is the draft. I'll work on it more and post a final version by the weekend. Work calls!

UPDATE: What a crappy draft, sorry. I'll post a good transcription this week.

Pes

So instead of finishing that Prosa, I ran ahead and transcribed another conductus (for SA and TB) to illustrate the same point. Beautiful piece, surprising dissonances.

First verse:

Iacobe sancte tuum
repetito tempore festum.
Fac preclues celo colentes.

SA:

Conductus II, SA setting

SA setting with words:

Conductus II, SA setting with words

TB:

Conductus II, TB setting

TB setting with words:

Conductus II, TB with words

Pes

You know, all of these images show up for me, but I think it's because I'm logged into esnips, where I keep them. If you can't see them, can you give me some pointers on how I can get them to appear here?

UPDATE: Thanks Jeffrey, they're all hosted now at imageshack.

Pes

For those of you interested in lilypond, here is the source .ly file for Conductus I with words.

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