Sacred Vs. Secular Music

Essay # 57323

An examination of the evolution of sacred and secular music from the medieval period to the beginning of the Renaissance period.

1,878 words () | 7 sources | MLA | 2004 United States

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how the contrast and overlap of sacred and secular music spans their entire history and how, although their developments, accomplishments, and features are for the most part dissimilar, there are elements in both types of music that give sacred and secular music some common ground. It examines the differences and similarities of both forms of music by looking at two pieces of music: Franco of Cologne's "Psallt Chorus" and Adam de la Halle's "He, Diex! Quant Verrai ".

From the Paper:

"As the church music became more solidified, composers looked for other ways of being creative. Taken from the idea of the gloss, or adding notes, further discussions, and expansions of principals to the liturgy, composers came up with the idea of the trope in the ninth century. The trope is the addition of extra musical ideas to the end of an established chant. Since once a chant was established, it could not be altered, the trope was a way to work with existing ideas and improve upon them. Some of the tropes became their own separate movements in the church repertoire, and were called sequences. Through the next three centuries, the number of sequences grew to over four thousand. Finally, in the sixteenth century, the Council of Trent abolished all but four sequences."