Ars subtilior (Latin for 'subtler art') is amusical style characterized byrhythmic andnotational complexity, centered on Paris,Avignon insouthern France, and also in northern Spain at the end of the fourteenth century.[1] The style also is found in theFrench Cypriot repertory. Often the term is used in contrast withars nova, which applies to the musical style of the preceding period from about 1310 to about 1370; though some scholars prefer to considerars subtilior a subcategory of the earlier style. Primary sources forars subtilior are theChantilly Codex, theModena Codex (Mod A M 5.24), and the Turin Manuscript (Torino J.II.9).
Musically, the productions of thears subtilior are highly refined, complex, and difficult to sing, and probably were produced, sung, and enjoyed by a small audience of specialists and connoisseurs. MusicologistRichard Hoppin suggests the superlativears subtilissima, saying, "not until the twentieth century did music again reach the most subtle refinements and rhythmic complexities of themanneristic style."[1] They are almost exclusivelysecular songs, and have as their subject matter love, war, chivalry, and stories from classical antiquity. There are even some songs written in praise of public figures (for exampleAntipope Clement VII). Daniel Albright[2] comparesavant-garde andmodernist music of the20th century's "emphasis on generating music through technical experiment" to the precedent set by thears subtilior movement's "autonomous delight in extending the kingdom of sound." He cites Baude Cordier'sperpetual canonTout par compas (All by compass am I composed), notated on a circular staff.
Albright contrasts this motivation with "expressive urgency" and "obedience to rules of craft" and, indeed, "ars subtilior" was coined by musicologistUrsula Günther in 1960 to avoid the negative connotations of the termsmanneristic style andmannered notation.[3][failed verification] (Günther's coinage was based on references inTractatus de diversis figuris, attributed toPhilippus de Caserta, to composers moving to a style "post modum subtiliorem comparantes" and developing an "artem magis subtiliter".)[4][failed verification]
One of the centers of activity of the style was Avignon at the end of theirPapacy and during the subsequentGreat Schism (1378–1417), the time during which the Western Church had a pope both in Rome and in Avignon. Avignon had developed into an active cultural center, and produced a significant surviving body of secular song in the late fourteenth century.[5] The style spread into, or was simultaneously developed in northern Spain, Italy (especiallyPavia)[6] and as far east as Cyprus (which was a French cultural outpost at the time).[7] French, Flemish, Spanish and Italian composers used the style.
Manuscripts of works in thears subtilior occasionally were themselves in unusual and expressive shapes, as a form ofeye music. As well asBaude Cordier's circular canon and the heart-shaped score shown above,Jacob Senleches'sLa Harpe de melodie is written in the shape of a harp.
Albright, Daniel. 2004.Modernism and Music: An Anthology of Sources. University of Chicago Press.ISBN0-226-01267-0.
Apel, Willi. 1973. "The Development of French Secular Music During the Fourteenth Century".Musica Disciplina 27:41–59.
Günther, Ursula. 1960. "Die Anwendung der Diminution in der Handschrift Chantilly 1047".Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 17:1–21.
Hoppin, Richard H. 1978.Medieval Music. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1978.ISBN0-393-09090-6.
Josephson, Nors S. 2001. "Ars Subtilior".The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited byStanley Sadie andJohn Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.
Berger, Anna Maria Busse. 2002. "The Evolution of Rhythmic Notation". InThe Cambridge History of Western Music Theory, edited by Thomas Street Christensen, 628–56. The Cambridge History of Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.ISBN0-521-62371-5
Fallows, David. "Ars nova" inThe New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980.ISBN1-56159-174-2.
Gleason, Harold, and Warren Becker,Music in the Middle Ages and Renaissance Music Literature Outlines Series I. Bloomington, Indiana. Frangipani Press, 1986.ISBN0-89917-034-X.
Günther, Ursula. 1963. "Das Ende der Ars Nova".Die Musikforschung 16:105–120.
Günther, Ursula. 1964. "Zur Biographie einiger Komponisten der Ars Subtilior".Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 21:172–99.
Josephson, Nora S. "Ars subtilior" inThe New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980.ISBN1-56159-174-2.
Josephson, Nora S. (2003–2008). "Many Roads Lead to Rome: Multifarious Stylistic Tendencies and Their Musical Interrelationships within the "Ars Subtilior"".Musica Disciplina.53:71–97.JSTOR30249358.
Köhler, Laurie. 1990.Pythagoreisch-platonische Proportionen in Werken der ars nova und ars subtilior. 2 vols. Göttinger musikwissenschaftliche Arbeiten 12. Kassel and New York: Bärenreiter.ISBN3-7618-1014-8
Leech-Wilkinson, Daniel. 1990. "Ars Antiqua—Ars Nova—Ars Subtilior". InAntiquity and the Middle Ages: From Ancient Greece to the Fifteenth Century, edited by James McKinnon, 218–40. Man & Music. London: Macmillan.ISBN0-333-51040-2 (cased)ISBN0-333-53004-7 (pbk)
Newes, Virginia Ervin. 1977. "Imitation in the Ars Nova and Ars Subtilior".Revue belge de musicologie/Belgisch tijdschrift voor muziekwetenschap. 31:38–59.
Pirrotta, Nino. 1966. "Ars Nova e stil novo".Rivista Italiana di Musicologia 1:3–19
Plumley, Yolanda M. 1991. "Style and Structure in the Late 14th-Century Chanson". Ph.D. diss., University of Exeter.
Plumley, Yolanda M. 1996.The Grammar of Fourteenth Century Melody: Tonal Organization and Compositional Process in the Chansons of Guillaume de Machaut and the Ars Subtilior. Outstanding Dissertations in Music from British Universities. New York: Garland.ISBN0-8153-2065-5
Plumley, Yolanda M. 1999. "Citation and Allusion in the Late Ars Nova: The Case of 'Esperance' and the 'En attendant' songs".Early Music History 18:287–363.
Plumley, Yolanda, and Anne Stone. 2008.Codex Chantilly: Bibliothèque du Château de Chantilly Ms. 564 facsimile edition with commentary. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols (distributed byOld Manuscripts & Incunabula).ISBN978-2-503-52776-5.
Smith, F. Joseph. 1964. "Ars Nova: A Re-Definition? (Observations in the Light of Speculum Musicae I by Jacques de Liège" Part 1.Musica Disciplina 18:19–35.
Smith, F. Joseph. 1965. "Ars Nova: A Re-Definition?" Part 2.Musica Disciplina 19:83–97.
Smith, F. Joseph. 1983. "Jacques de Liège's Criticism of the Notational Innovations of the Ars nova".The Journal of Musicological Research 4: 267–313
Stone, Anne. 1996. "Che cosa c'è di più sottile riguardo l'ars subtilior?"Rivista Italiana di Musicologia 31:3–31.
Tanay, Dorit. 1999.Noting Music, Making Culture: The Intellectual Context of Rhythmic Notation, 1250–1400. Musicological Studies and Documents 46. Holzgerlingen:American Institute of Musicology and Hänssler-Verlag.ISBN3-7751-3195-7
