Реферат: Adam De La Halle And Ars Antiqua

Time Period Essay, Research Paper

Adam De La Halle and Ars Antiqua Time Period

Life Summary

Adam de la Halle is often referred to as the greatest of the long succession of

post Medieval musicians. He was a poet, musician and innovator of the earliest

French theater. He became famous for his use of polyphony and his theatrical

productions. Adam originally trained for the clergy (the people of the church).

Marriage interfered with his musical career; but with the help of some noble

benefactors he was able to pursue musical studies at the University of Paris.

The remainder of his life was spent in service of noble patrons.

His Music

Adam de la Halle was of French origins. All of his lyrics were written in French.

Much of his early music was monophonic which shortly after became homophonic and

then transformed into polyphonic. Much of his polyphonic work was set for 3

voices or instruments. If a piece of music is monophonic, then it has only a

melody line and no harmony. Much of the medieval music was monophonic. If the

music is homophonic then there is only one melody line, but it may be played by

two or more instruments. Many of the songs that were originally monophonic were

easily transformed into homophonic by add extra voices or instruments.

Polyphonic is the type of music we hear today. Polyphonic is when there is a

melody line accompanied by harmony. A considerable amount of Adam de la Halle’s

polyphonic work was designed for plays. One of Adam’s manuscripts contains the

oldest known existence of the sharp sign. In 1872 his music was officially

published.

Ars Antiqua Time Period

Ars Antiqua is Medieval Latin for “ancient art”. Ars Antiqua was the period of

musical activity in 13th century France. The music was characterized by the

increasing sophistication of counterpoint (the art of combining simultaneous

voice parts). Modern music historians classify the whole 13th century as Ars

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