Sunday, June 5, 2011

That beautiful music score

The image at the head of the blog is Belle bonne by Baude Cordier from the Codex Chantilly. It was all the rage towards the end of the 14th century to push the intricacies of notation and rhythm to their limits. Hm, sounds very like the middle of the 20th century. This piece is probably the prettiest of those we have, but it is far from the most complex. Some pieces from this period are almost impossible to transcribe into modern notation. The red notes have various kinds of rhythmic significance--sometimes they indicate a dotted note value, sometimes a triplet. The score shows three voices: the discant, the tenor and the countertenor. Here is a performance of the piece:



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