La Quarte Estampie Royal - Estampies & Danses Royales This song is dated back to 1250-1270 in the Common Era, and it was created in France. As the title describes it, fulfills a social function that is to provide an inviting atmosphere to dancers, who were dancing to a particular dance, the “Estampie”. This peace features two phrases that resemble the question-answer structure that usually folk songs have. This manuscript was one of the few documentations of this type of music, because it was usually performed by memory or improvised. This piece features bowed string instruments, and plucked string instruments, which can be assumed to be lyres, percussion instruments, particularly tambourine, which is featured heavily in ancient folk music as a recurrent element. The meter is triple, which is ideal for dancing, and it resembles the Dorian mode, based on the type of scale that the melodic line is based on. Also it is important to note that this piece can be easily differentiated from sacred music, because it lacks a vocal part. Considering that all sacred music imperatively required sacred texts in it. Although this piece is considered to be a “Royal Estampie”, which was basically used for the entertainment of the royalty, a mundane feeling can be perceived, due to its animosity, the lack of any vocal parts and the way the melody is embellished. This piece is also a perfect example of what people nowadays conceive as “music of the middle ages”, because it portrays significantly the many traits that define this period, for example the instrumentation, the form of the song, and the structure of the melody, as well as the context it was played in, which also tells much about the function and purpose of the music.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Sep 2014 07:26:30 +0000
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