Research and text by Chris Whent at HOASM (Here on a Sunday Morning - WBAI 99.5 FM New York)
Composer Bibliography - links to Wikipedia and HOASM
Discography - lists of commercial musical recordings - links to HOASM
Vocal PDF-files (music scores) and MIDI-files - links to CPDL (Choral Public Domain Library)
Vocal MP3-recordings - public MP3-files at choir home-pages (and some password-protected files, PWD)
II. The Central Middle Ages (1100-1350)
From the Ninth Century onwards, a new kind of music began to appear, in which the older chants were implemented by additional voice parts of increasingly independent character. The gradual melodic and rhythmic independence of these 'counter parts' led eventually to the rich polyphonic music of the later mediaeval period. From the beginning of the Twelfth Century, the composers of secular song (the knightly troubadours, trouvères and Minnesingers) and of vocal and instrumental dance music also began to make use of polyphonic settings. The climax of this development of polyphony was reached in the French Ars Nova of the Fourteenth Century, with Guillaume de Machaut (died 1377) as its leading master.
