Sources

(1) "A Short History of Irish Traditional Music." Kilkenny Irish Traditional Music Trail. N.p., 2013. Web. 25 Mar. 2015.

(2) Petrie, George. The Petrie Collection of the Ancient Music of Ireland. Farnborough, Eng.: Gregg, 1967. Print.

(3) Robinson, Michael. "Danny Boy--the Mystery Solved!" Danny Boy--the Mystery Solved! N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Mar. 2015.

(4) "Motet." Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2015.

(5) "Tallis's Spem in Alium | The Metropolitan Museum of Art." Tallis's Spem in Alium | The Metropolitan Museum of Art. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2015.

(6) Eagen, Tim. "Irish Musical Instruments." Irish Musical Instruments. N.p., June 2000. Web. 31 Mar. 2015.

(7) "Tallis's Spem in Alium | The Metropolitan Museum of Art." Tallis's Spem in Alium | The Metropolitan Museum of Art. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2015.

(8) "Timbre." Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 06 Apr. 2015.

(9) "Ornamentation | Music." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 1 Apr. 2015.

(Figure 1) "Londonderry Air (Danny Boy) Irish Folk Song (Celtic Harp & Tin Whistle)." YouTube. YouTube, 2010. Web. 1 Apr. 2015.

(Figure 2) "Spem In Alium (Thomas Tallis) - Tallis Scholars." YouTube. YouTube, 2013. Web. 2 Apr. 2015.

(Figures 3-5) "Spem In Alium." Spem in Alium Nunquam Habui (n.d.): 21. Spem in Alium Nunquam Habui. Web. 1 Apr. 2015.

(Figure 6) "Danny Boy - King' Singers in SLC 2002." YouTube. YouTube, 2009. Web. 2 Apr. 2015.

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That's a Wrap on Week 1!

Hey guys!

We've finally hit the end of our first week of musical comparisons! I hope you've learned a lot about Renaissance Motets and Irish Folk Music. Maybe you've found a new favorite song by hearing Londonderry Air or Spem in Alium? Either way, I hope you'll come back next week for more musical analysis!

Ciao!
Brianna

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Timbre and Ornamentation

Hello again!

Today we're going to talk about another link between the two pieces: timbre (or tone color) and ornamentation. When discussing timbre in music, it usually refers to the distinctive characteristics of the sound an instrument produces. (8) It describes the difference you hear between a sound made by a clarinet, versus the sound produced by a vocalist. Ornamentation refers to any musical flourishes that embellish a melody, with the intent to make the piece more pleasing. (9) Both Londonderry Air and Spem in Alium have distinguished attributes in regards to tone and ornamentation.

In Londonderry Air, the tone color and ornamentation can vary, in the same way that the texture can. Depending on the arrangement that you listen to, the piece may have different timbres and degrees of ornamentation. For example, in most versions of Danny Boy, you hear different types of vocal timbres. As with most choral pieces, the choir part has 4 voices, and uses a combination of head voice and chest voice. The singers use different articulation styles or vibrato to shape the mood of the piece. To portray the sorrow that the lyrics already have, most people sing it with a full, rounded sound, to ensure the notes (and the message) carry well. In solely instrumental arrangements of Londonderry Air (such as An Irish Tune from County Derry), the different timbres associated with woodwind and string instruments are featured in symphonic renditions of the piece. As far as ornamentation goes, I haven't found too many versions of Londonderry Air that use heavy ornamentation. This doesn't take away from the elaborate accompaniments that supplement the main melody in the piece.

When looking at the timbre and ornamentation used in Spem in Alium, you can see that it has similar timbre to Danny Boy. They are both choral pieces, and because of that, they have similar vocal timbres. Though the head voice in the soprano lines are most prominent, there are many different styles of voice being heard throughout Spem in Alium. The bass and tenor parts use predominantly chest voice. All of these voices have a pristine quality about them, and they create a pure sound, regardless of what dynamic they are singing. This piece also has a similar lack of ornamentation. Though some portions of the melody may be altered and moved around different choirs, the effect is almost fugal, and not strictly in the parameters of ornamentation that are listed above. Despite this, the piece still has a full sound, with plenty of complex layering.

Both Londonderry Air and Spem in Alium have minimal ornamentation, and clear vocal timbre. Though Londonderry Air was not originally written for voice, the arrangements that have come from that song have comparable characteristics of Spem in Alium.


'Til next time!
Brianna

Figure 6

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The Importance of Texture

Welcome back!

This time at Music Analysis 101, we finally get to do what the title implies!

The first topic we're discussing is their contrasting textures. Musical texture can cover a few different things, but it usually has to do with the melodic lines in a piece, and the relationship between them.

Both of these pieces have incredibly different textures. To start, Londonderry Air doesn't have a set texture, because there is no specified instrumentation. It's a folk piece, so it is hard to determine the original instrumentation the composer had in mind. Despite this, you could assume that it used an Irish harp, and either a tin whistle or a fiddle. (6) Based on that instrumentation, the two-voice texture allows the melody to be heard clearly, without being muddled by excessive ornamentation. The melody is clearly heard, and the harp is used to supplement the chordal structure of the piece, much like a bass continuo. This fills the piece with mainly consonance. The harmonic structure is basic because of the limited number of parts. Though this was a standard instrumentation used in Irish Folk Music, we can't be sure this was the Londonderry Air used. This makes it difficult to determine the importance of texture in this piece. At the same time it also opens up more possibilities to develop and rework the texture of the piece, which many composers/arrangers have done before.

In Spem in Alium, the complete opposite is true. The forty-voice texture that Tallis uses is essential to the piece itself. Spem in Alium consists of 8 5-part choirs, and each part plays an important role in the mood of the piece. (7) The basic motifs are passed from voice to voice within a choir, and then the choirs pass the motifs around to one another. This constant exchange creates a distinct flow within the piece, and almost makes it sound ambient.

The depth of the texture is also important to the level of dynamics the piece achieves. Until the classic period, people didn't write in or put much focus on dynamics, but they would use the number of instruments to make the piece louder or softer. This technique is seen all throughout the Tallis piece. One way he does that is by adding in each voice or choir slowly, to create a slow crescendo in the piece. But the most powerful use of the texture is when he has a pause in the piece, and then uses all forty voices at once, to create the climax of the piece (an example is in measure 122, refer to picture below). Texture is an important technique used in Spem in Alium, and it plays a crucial role in the form of the piece.

It is clear that texture plays very different roles in each piece. Though texture is one of the principle aspects in Spem in Alium, the texture in Londonderry Air matters very little to the core of the piece. Regardless, it's important to analyze both styles of texture!

With this in mind, next time we will look at a different aspect of both pieces!

Signing off!
Brianna

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Figure 3

Figure 4

Figure 5

(These pictures depict measure 121-122 of Spem in Alium. Note the pause at the end of measure 121, followed by all 8 choirs joining in simultaneously in measure 122)

The Renaissance Motet with Thomas Tallis

Welcome back everyone!

Since we already covered the history behind Londonderry Air, let's talk about motets and Spem in Alium!

The motet is a genre that has been around for ages, and it was especially popular during the Renaissance. There are many distinctive qualities associated with the motet, but all you really need to know is that it's a non-secular, polyphonic, vocal composition. (4)

Now our main focus, Spem in Alium. It was originally written in 1556, by English composer Thomas Tallis. There are many speculations on why Tallis wrote it, and for a while people believed he wrote it for Queen Elizabeth. But as people have analyzed the words used in the piece, they believe it was written for Queen Mary Tudor. The words of Spem in Alium are derived from the Biblical book of Judith, and Queen Mary Tudor was considered the Judith of her time, because of her beheading of the Duke of Northumberland, John Dudley. (5)

Despite its interesting backstory, the reason the piece is so well-known is because of its complex use of vocal lines. At its creation, it had the most vocal lines of any previous piece (with the predecessor having thirty vocal lines). People argue that there are symbolic reasons to have forty parts (which also ties in to the Mary Tudor theory), but the score is considered important because of the way Tallis managed the different vocal lines. The finesse he used while writing makes his piece something we still focus on to this day.

Okay, now we should have enough knowledge about the genres and pieces to start discussing some important musical links between them. Stick around, and in the next few days we'll begin to really analyze Londonderry Air and Spem in Alium!


See you again soon!
Brianna

Spem in Alium performed by The Tallis Scholars
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Irish Folk Music and Mysterious Origins

Hello guys, welcome back!

Today let's talk about Irish Folk Music, and more specifically Londonderry Air. Just so you have a general idea of basic Irish Folk Music characteristics, many of the pieces tend to be in 3/4, but that isn't always the case. It commonly used the harp or fiddle, and most of the music that survived the British subjugation of the Irish aristocracy was dance music for the common man. (1)

Londonderry Air (also known as An Irish Tune from County Derry, the remastered Danny Boy, or many others) was first recognized as part of a series collected by George Petrie. Jane Ross helped him gather many of the pieces Petrie got from the Irish County area. (2) Later on, Londonderry Air and the other Irish tunes were compiled into The Ancient Music of Ireland, released in 1855. (3) Many people have claimed that they knew the composer of the piece, but there is no concrete evidence to back any of their claims sufficiently.

Though the composer of the piece is unknown, it hasn't had a problem becoming popular. The melody of Londonderry Air has been reworked and molded into a multitude of other pieces. The aforementioned Danny Boy uses the same melody, but with lyrics written by Frederick Edward Weatherly in 1913. It was also used as the backing for many hymns, including one called I Cannot Tell by William Young Fullerton. And you can't forget the band classic, An Irish Tune from County Derry, which was a setting written by Percy Grainger, using the same token melody. There are many other pieces based off of Londonderry Air, but I'm sure you understand the scope of its influence.

Alright, that should fill you in on some of the basic history about the piece, next time we'll be talking about Spem in Alium!


Talk to you again soon!
Brianna

Londonderry Air 
Figure 1

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Welcome

Hey guys!

Welcome to Music Analysis 101! This is your number one place for discovering new pieces and the links between them. Every week we're going to compare two different musical styles, and analyze a few different areas that link them together. By focusing on one song to represent each genre, you might find some new favorites from genres you never expected to like! Hopefully you'll come along for the ride and learn some new things!

For our first week, we're starting with two distinct cultures: Irish Folk Music and English Renaissance Motets. From Irish Folk Music, we'll be focusing on the tune, Londonderry Air. Our piece from the English Renaissance period is the renowned Spem in Alium by Thomas Tallis.

Stick around, and in the next day or so we'll learn some background on both genres and pieces!


Until we chat again,
Brianna

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