Classical music of the United Kingdom: Encyclopedia II - Classical music of the United Kingdom - Music before 1500

Classical music of the United Kingdom - Music before 1500

The earliest surviving piece of composed music in the UK is the setting of the folk song "Sumer Is Icumen In" ("Summer is a-coming in"), sometimes known as the Reading rota because the manuscript comes from Reading Abbey, although it was not necessarily written there. Its composer is anonymous, possibly W. de Wycombe, and it is estimated to date from around 1260. It is notable for its elaborate six-part structure which is virtually unique for such an early piece.

In the fourteenth century, the Franciscan friar Simon Tunsted is believed to have been one of the music theorists who influenced the "Ars Nova"—the movement which freed European music from its earlier restricted styles. He is generally credited with the authorship of "Quatuor Principalia Musicae": a treatise on musical composition.

In the fifteenth century, John Dunstable (or Dunstaple, as it is sometimes spelt) was England's most celebrated composer. Nearly all his manuscript music in England was lost during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, but some of his works have been reconstructed from copies found in continental Europe, particularly in Italy. The existence of these copies is testament to his widespread fame within Europe. He may have been the first composer to provide liturgical music with an instrumental accompaniment^[1]

John Hothby (ca. 1410–1487), was an English Carmelite monk, who travelled widely and left little composed music but wrote several theoretical treatises (eg La Calliopea legale), and is credited with introducing innovations to the mediaeval pitch system. These allowed the introduction of additional chromatic pitches into the scales (what we would think of as the black notes of the piano keyboard).

Several aspects of English medieval music led to trends throughout Europe. The treatment of thirds and sixths as consonances seems to have arisen earlier in England than elsewhere, and the practice of fauxbourdon developed in England. Also, the neumatic notation of Sarum chant eventually developed into the square-note notation still used in the Liber usualis and other compendia of Gregorian chant. The earliest evidence of choral polyphony (as opposed to solo ensemble polyphony) is from the Old Hall manuscript (1420, although most of its music was composed before 1400), where there is occasional divisi.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Music before 1500", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki