ars nova - References and further reading

In music, a term for the ‘new art’ of the 14th-c, as distinct from that of the preceding period. Its principal representatives were the composer Guillaume de Machaut, and the theorist Philippe de Vitry.

Ars nova was a stylistic period in music of the Late Middle Ages, centered in France, which encompassed the period roughly from the publication of the Roman de Fauvel (1310 and 1314) until the death of Machaut (1377). Sometimes the term is used more loosely and refers to all European music of the 14th century, thereby including such figures as Landini, who was working in Italy. Occasionally the term "Italian ars nova" is used to denote the music of Landini and his compatriots (see Music of the trecento for the concurrent musical movement in Italy). The term ars nova means "new art" or "new technique", and was first used in a publication by Philippe de Vitry of the same name (c.1322).

Ars nova is generally used in conjunction with another term, ars antiqua, which refers to the music of the immediately preceding age, usually extending back to take in the period of Notre Dame polyphony (therefore covering the period from about 1170 to 1320). Roughly, then, the ars antiqua is the music of the thirteenth century, and the ars nova the music of the fourteenth;

Controversial in the Roman Catholic Church, the music was starkly rejected by Pope John XXII, but embraced by Pope Clement VI. It was not merely polyphony that offended the medieval ears, but the notion of secular music merging with the sacred and making its way into the liturgy.

Stylistically, the music of the ars nova differed from the preceding era in several ways. secular music acquired much of the polyphonic sophistication previously found only in sacred music; The overall aesthetic effect of these changes was to create music of greater expressiveness and variety than had been the case in the thirteenth century. Indeed the sudden historical change which occurred, with its startling new degree of musical expressiveness, can be likened to the introduction of perspective in painting, and it is useful to consider that the changes to the musical art in the period of the ars nova were contemporary with the great early Renaissance revolutions in painting and literature. the highly mannered style of this period is often called the ars subtilior, though some scholars choose to consider it a late development of the ars nova rather than breaking it out as a separate school.

References and further reading

Article "ars nova", in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. ISBN 0-393-09090-6 Harold Gleason and Warren Becker, Music in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (Music Literature Outlines Series I).