The Melody Web what each genre heard, and what it passed on

heard passed on Click or tap a node to recenter. Use a connecting line, or Influence, for the story.

Heard

Ars antiqua style · 1200–1320

Ars nova keeps the motet’s tenor-plus-upper-voices architecture and the clerkly written habit, then changes what notation can do: duple against triple, syncopation, and a repeatin…

Influence
Medieval polyphony style · 9th century–15th century

Ars nova is the umbrella’s fourteenth-century French dialect: notation that can write independent speeds, the isorhythmic motet, Machaut’s mass, and polyphonic ballade/rondeau/vir…

Influence
Troubadour genre · 1100–1300

Ars nova’s secular job is courtly song in parts.

Influence
Trouvère genre · 1150–1300

Ars nova’s formes fixes keep the northern vernacular courtly-song job — strophic love lyric, refrain forms, a poet-composer — and write it in mensural polyphony.

Influence

Ars nova

style · 1310–1380

Also called French Ars nova

Kind of Medieval polyphony

Fourteenth-century French “new art”: mensural notation that can write duple and triple at several levels, isorhythmic motets, and polyphonic formes fixes (ballade, rondeau, virelai). Vitry names the art; Machaut is the surviving catalog. It is a style of medieval polyphony, not a kind of Renaissance music. It hears Medieval polyphony, Ars antiqua, Troubadour, and Trouvère. It already gives Renaissance polyphony and Ars subtilior. Trecento leftover as an Italian sibling dialect, not a child of this node. Machaut leftover as the named catalog on this node, not a separate genre.

Listen

  1. Garrit gallus / In nova fert / Neuma Philippe de Vitry (1310s) YouTube
  2. In arboris / Tuba sacre fidei / Virgo sum Philippe de Vitry (1320s) YouTube
  3. Impudenter circuivi / Virtutibus laudabilis / Alma redemptoris Philippe de Vitry (1320s) YouTube
  4. Messe de Nostre Dame, Kyrie Guillaume de Machaut (1365) YouTube
  5. Quant en moy / Amour et biaute / Amara valde Guillaume de Machaut (1350s) YouTube
  6. Hoquetus David Guillaume de Machaut (1360s) YouTube
  7. Rose, liz, printemps, verdure Guillaume de Machaut (1360s) YouTube · Spotify
  8. Ma fin est mon commencement Guillaume de Machaut (1360s) YouTube
  9. De toutes flours Guillaume de Machaut (1360s) YouTube
  10. Biauté qui toutes autres pere Guillaume de Machaut (1360s) YouTube

Passed on

Ars subtilior style · 1380–1420

Ars subtilior takes Ars nova’s mensural song-and-motet craft and writes it at the limit: proportional signs, colored notes, conflicting mensurations, eye-music.

Influence
Renaissance polyphony style · 1420–1600

The fifteenth-century chapel keeps the Ars nova fact that a piece is a written, attributable object (mass, motet, chanson) in mensural notation.

Influence

Ars antiqua → Ars nova

rhythmform and structureperformance practicestrength: highscholarly consensus1310–1350notationpedagogy

Mechanism

Ars nova keeps the motet’s tenor-plus-upper-voices architecture and the clerkly written habit, then changes what notation can do: duple against triple, syncopation, and a repeating rhythmic talea that may not line up with the pitch color. Franco’s note shapes are the immediate teaching donor; Vitry’s motets are the first named new-art pieces. Strength high. The polyphonic chanson is a second Ars nova job and takes more from Troubadour than from the motet.

Evidence

Treatise opposition of ars nova to ars antiqua; Fauvel motets; Machaut motets that still use a chant color under a talea. Hocket continues from thirteenth-century experiments (In seculum pieces) into Machaut’s Hoquetus David.

Debate

How sharp the cut is. Some late-thirteenth-century motets already strain Franconian measure. The edge records a named notational and formal turn, not a claim that clerks forgot the old books.

Mediators

artist: Philippe de Vitry; artist: Franco of Cologne

Medieval polyphony → Ars nova

rhythmform and structureperformance practicestrength: highscholarly consensus1310–1380notationpedagogypatronage

Mechanism

Ars nova is the umbrella’s fourteenth-century French dialect: notation that can write independent speeds, the isorhythmic motet, Machaut’s mass, and polyphonic ballade/rondeau/virelai. Taxonomically a style of Medieval polyphony. Strength high on the child. Trecento and Ars subtilior are not folded in.

Evidence

Vitry’s motets and the Ars nova teaching; Machaut’s complete-works manuscripts.

Debate

Whether “Ars nova” is only a treatise slogan. The corpus keeps it as a named style because the Renaissance exit is unintelligible without a fourteenth-century mensural song-and-motet donor.

Mediators

artist: Philippe de Vitry; artist: Guillaume de Machaut

Troubadour → Ars nova

form and structuremelodyfunction and contextstrength: highscholarly consensus1340–1377notationpatronageoral

Mechanism

Ars nova’s secular job is courtly song in parts. Ballade, rondeau, and virelai are refrain and stanza plans inherited from trouvère (and related dance-song) practice, now written as mensural polyphony for chapel-trained clerks at court. Machaut is the hinge: a poet in the trouvère line who composes the songs as Ars nova pieces. Strength high on that song wing. The isorhythmic motet and the mass take their tenors from chant, not from this edge.

Evidence

Machaut’s Loange des dames and polyphonic songbooks; the same formes that appear as monophonic virelais also appear as three-voice rondeaux (Rose, liz). Hoppin’s survey treats the formes fixes as the late medieval song language descending from the vernacular lyric.

Debate

Whether the formes fixes are trouvère forms or fourteenth-century inventions that only keep the courtly stance. The refrain architecture and the poet-composer habit are the transferable craft; exact stanza maps vary.

Mediators

artist: Guillaume de Machaut

Trouvère → Ars nova

form and structuremelodyfunction and contextstrength: mediumscholarly consensus1300–1350oralnotationpatronage

Mechanism

Ars nova’s formes fixes keep the northern vernacular courtly-song job — strophic love lyric, refrain forms, a poet-composer — and write it in mensural polyphony. Strength medium. Occitan Troubadour is the older sibling school (troubadour ars nova); this hop is the oïl path that Machaut actually speaks.

Evidence

Continuity of ballade/rondeau/virelai as French lyric types; Machaut as poet-composer in the trouvère line; Hoppin and Grove on the vernacular-to-Ars-nova succession.

Debate

How much is trouvère versus a general courtly-song inheritance. Keep both this edge and troubadour ars nova: Occitan prestige and oïl language are different gifts.

Mediators

artist: Guillaume de Machaut

Ars nova → Ars subtilior

rhythmform and structureperformance practicestrength: highscholarly consensus1380–1410notationpedagogypatronage

Mechanism

Ars subtilior takes Ars nova’s mensural song-and-motet craft and writes it at the limit: proportional signs, colored notes, conflicting mensurations, eye-music. Strength high. ars nova renaissance polyphony is the chapel exit; this hop is the late-fourteenth-century court avant-garde. Trecento leftover as an Italian sibling, not this French thickening.

Evidence

Chantilly and Modena books; Solage’s Fumeux fume; Cordier’s notational pictures; Grove, Hoppin, Taruskin on the named turn after Machaut.

Debate

Whether subtilior is still Ars nova. The corpus splits a named mannered style from Machaut-generation default practice.

Mediators

artist: Solage; artist: Baude Cordier

Ars nova → Renaissance polyphony

form and structurerhythmperformance practicestrength: mediumscholarly consensus1420–1470notationpedagogypatronage

Mechanism

The fifteenth-century chapel keeps the Ars nova fact that a piece is a written, attributable object (mass, motet, chanson) in mensural notation. What changes is the sound: imitation, third and sixth, the cyclic mass. Strength medium. Du Fay is the usual hinge. This is influence, not a claim that Renaissance polyphony is a style of Ars nova.

Evidence

Machaut’s mass and songbooks as the late-medieval composer catalog; Du Fay and the Burgundian chapels; Hoppin and Atlas on the notational and institutional continuity.

Debate

English contenance angloise is a second donor already sitting under the medieval-to-Renaissance umbrella edge. This file isolates what Ars nova specifically passes: the written chapel job. Ars subtilior is a late thickening, not a second parent.

Mediators

artist: Guillaume Du Fay; institution: Burgundian and papal chapels