# Medieval



## croscrane (Jul 26, 2018)

Liner notes by Egon Kenton on a Palestrina LP say that musical art doesn't progress, it just changes. He classifies Palestrina as a Medieval composer, a non-innovator, whose work was never surpassed. What do you think?


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

He's a Renaissance composer, not medieval. There are later composers I like more but I would have trouble saying they surpassed him, so I guess I agree with liner note guy.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

I agree that musical art just changes in the overall scheme of things, and there are emphases on different aspects in different periods.


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## Guest (Jul 26, 2018)

Well, yes, Mozart didn't make Bach obsolete the way the iPhone made the flip phone obsolete.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Baron Scarpia said:


> Well, yes, Mozart didn't make Bach obsolete the way the iPhone made the flip phone obsolete.


I happen to have a perfectly working flip phone ... and I may even use it one of these days. (It's actually one of the newer technologies in my possession.)
Of course, I listen to my Mozart, Bach, and Palestrina through tubed stereo equipment utilizing hard media (vinyl records, tapes, and CDs). 
If to progress means to change, then I don't understand what this thread is about.


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

SONNET CLV said:


> If to progress means to change, then I don't understand what this thread is about.


"Progress" implies a sense of improvement, while "change" does not necessarily.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Eschbeg said:


> "Progress" implies a sense of improvement, while "change" does not necessarily.


Of course. Progress is change. But change is not necessarily progress. And progress is not necessarily "good" in a moral or ethical sense. Progress as "improvement" remains a subjective construct to some degree, even if many think of it only as an objective construct. Progress for one person (or group) may not be the same thing for another. 
Which brings me back to say "I don't understand what this thread is about."


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## Guest (Jul 27, 2018)

SONNET CLV said:


> I happen to have a perfectly working flip phone ... and I may even use it one of these days. (It's actually one of the newer technologies in my possession.)


And you're posting to this forum how? With an Apple IIc? 

Progress, change, surpass. Some clumsy use of language, but I suspect the point is just that a new musical style doesn't make an old music style obsolete, whereas a new technology will typically make an old technology obsolete.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

In a sense there's a progress in music: in the sense that through the experiments of many composers during the centuries the possibilities and expressivity have been extended and one could learn to appreciate different aesthetics, and one could learn to question his own tastes and learn different perspectives.
And I don't think it's wrong to call that progress.


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## San Antone (Feb 15, 2018)

croscrane said:


> Liner notes by Egon Kenton on a Palestrina LP say that musical art doesn't progress, it just changes. He classifies Palestrina as a Medieval composer, a non-innovator, whose work was never surpassed. What do you think?


I think Kenton doesn't know what he is talking about since Palestrina (1525-1594) was a Late Renaissance composer, whose career occurred more than 150 years after the end of the Medieval period (1400). But I do agree that while music throughout history has changed it does not always amount to progress.

Speaking of Medieval music, today I bought this excellent, imo, recording of music from the English Medieval period.

The Lily & the Rose
Adoration of the Virgin in sound and stone
The Binchois Consort, Andrew Kirkman


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## Eusebius12 (Mar 22, 2010)

Change doesn't necessarily mean progress, as a cursory glance at what is currently popular in music will emphatically demonstrate. I'm glad that music has progressed in many ways since Palestrina's time, or at least has incorporated more elements than were the fashion of the time, and has broken the shackles of the Council of Trent. However Palestrina's body of work is worthy of deep respect and admiration. It requires a special sort of mood for me to crave his music, same of pretty well all composers pre-1600, but enough open listening reveals the quality of his genius. It is a shame that so much of the pre-1600 music is considered so specialized, even in the specialized world of CM. However he, Josquin, Byrd, Victoria, Lassus, Ockeghem, Dufay, Tallis and Orlando Gibbons are without doubt worth experiencing. Some one devoted a thread to the music of Philip de Monte, I have heard very little of his work but he is spoken of highly in reference works. I have listened rewardingly to works of Manchicourt, Gombert, the Gabrielis, Schutz, De Rore, De Vitry (another great without doubt) and Machaut and many others, but I haven't given as much attention to Renaissance and Medieval music as later eras. Byzantine chant can be awe inspiring, and the works of the troubadors and minnesingers have also entranced me on occasion, without having explored their extant material at all exhaustively. Then there is middle eastern and carnatic/hindustani 'classical music'. I seem to have digressed. There is too much music to process in one lifetime.

But back to the topic at hand, the body of compositions of Palestrina although mellifluous and lacking conflict (does the sense of drama require chromaticism and dissonance?) are grand and of awesome sublimity


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