Music in Great Nortend

Written music in Great Nortend can be traced back to 13th century religious works attributed to the monk Symond de Nollenborough; however, mentions of music date back to the 3rd century before Christ. Music has continually played an important role in Nortish culture, both in the traditional commonship through songs and dances, as well as in higher circles of professional music, and for both worldly and sacred purposes.

History

Mediaeval times

Herman de Ashenbeck was a 13th century minstrel singer, and earliest surviving poet in Middle Nortish.

Sacred music played an important role in the development of the Nortish musical tradition. The numerous monastic houses and collegiate churches and chapels supported a strong musical culture of polyphonic anthems, hymns and settings of divine service. The earliest known Nortish works are by Symond de Nollenborough, precentor at Nollenborough Priory in the late 12th century. Two copies of Maria beata Rosa, thought to be his earliest surviving work, are extant, one in the Priory library and the other in the Royal Library.

Though no earlier Nortish compositions are known, there is a large corpus of liturgical manuscripts held in various religious libraries throughout the Kingdom. These trace back to the centuries after Hartmold the Great christianised Great Nortend and encouraged the establishment of churches and monasteries using the liturgical books brought over by St. Lawrence. The music, though mostly ordinary Gregorian chant, developed between the three main religious centres of Sulthey, Chepingstow, Limmes and Rhise, each of which had its own „Use” or rite, with its own variation of music. In the later mediaeval period, figured polyphony, more and more florid as time passed, was written by eminent Nortish composers such as Thomas Aremold and Frederic a Holth, mainly performed by professional singing clerks employed to sing at monasteries, collegiate churches and chapels.

Early secular music was performed by minstrel singers who were employed by lords and travelled between courts singing unaccompnied songs and lyric poetry. Courtly love songs and songs of chivalrous poetry dominated, although „lighter” music was also performed, such as „Gladly is the day agone”, ascribed to Herman de Ashenbeck circa 1232. By the 15th century, the minstrelsingers had been gathered into recognisable guilds of professional singers dwelling in towns and cities. They continued the traditions of the minstrels, writing verses and melodies. Though these guilds mostly died out by the 17th and 18th centuries, the small Worshipful Compagny of Singing Masters still exists, singing on secular state occasions in Lendert-with-Cadell.

Renaissance

Yves Thomas Hinde was the pre-eminent Nortish composer of the Baroque period.

The House of Anthord, which took the Nortish throne in 1519, was and is a great patron of the arts, especially music. The Anthordian kings richly endowed their chapels and courts with singers and musicians. During the latter half of the 16th century, Baroque music was brought to Great Nortend during the reigns of George I and Edmund V. Composers such as Yves Thomas Hinde and Mark Silvester de Pennercot established the Nortish style of Baroque composition, favouring strong themes with elaborate decoration, as well as compositions for traditional Nortish dances such as the Fowerpin and the Gaitleader which were popular court dances during the period.

The Schism of the Church of Nortend from Rome in 1614 did not greatly affect the sacred musical establishment in Great Nortend, and there was no destruction of organs or burning of libraries. Still, the growing Lutheran influence from Cardinal Frympell and other „Frympellers” began to push out the more florid late mediaeval and early Renaissance works of polyphony and figured music, especially those composed as Lady anthems to the Virgin Mary. New compositions in sacred music were required to be monophonic under the new Reformed standards of music for divine service.

The influence of Lutheran musical traditions in the 17th century in congregational singing introduced the chorale hymn in Baroque form to Erbonian churches, adapted to the traditional melodies which were still prescribed. The congregation, now devoutly listening to the service, were enjoined to join in the singing of office hymns and mess sequences, in the psalms and canticles of the office and in the ordinary of the mess, in the popular four-part harmonisations of the time. This, and the almost complete abandonment of mediaeval modality, resulted in the „plainsong” music which are to-day the distinct hallmark of traditional Nortish church music, which persisted even after the Akeeper Settlement returned the Church's theology away from Luther.

Modern times

John Christian Ferman adapted traditional Nortish folk melodies for his symphonies.

Classical music was slow to grow in Great Nortend, only noticeably developing after 1740. Only a few major Nortish composers worked during this period, and the period saw little music of much national significance apart from the repertoire composed for the popular oratorios, or English „sung poems”, especially by Henry Clebald and James Clarke (who composed the common setting of the national anthem, Rex lætabitur in virtute tua. These works, which covered both sacred and secular themes, were immensely popular, although operas or „sung plays” continued to be written and performed, including the enduring „The Soldier of Cologne” and „The Three Daffodils”. The piano also became popular during the 18th century, and much music was written for it, although most are somewhat forgettable, and lacking in any distinctive features.

Nortish artistic music flourished only later, during the 19th century Romantic period, such that the period is often termed the Golden Era of Nortish Music. Inspiration was drawn from the strong and varied folksong and dance traditions of the nation, using Romantic forms such „songs without words”, symphonies and song cycles. Nortish Romantic music, however, also frequently also used more Classical forms such as the concerto or sonata, with Classical progression and techniques such as themes with variation, and never strayed into atonal or „experimental” tonality, which was considered harsh and unmusical.

Such Romantic composers were strongly inspired by the developing Nortish romantic nationalism, which idealised the countryside, mediaeval chivalry, courtly love and religious faith, against an industrial and bleak „modernity”. Composers such as John Christian Ferman adapted traditional Nortish folk melodies, or supposed folk melodies, for their pieces, especially in the form of „songs without words” and symphonic poems. Operas began to be written with a more continuous musical score, although distinct airs, recitatives and choruses remained, unlike in the later works of composers such as Wagner. Simon Peterson, composer at the court of Henry VI, wrote 22 famous ballets for the Royal Dancers, including „The Clockwork Mouse” and „Briarthorn Rose”.

To-day

Common music

Common music, or music in the common practice form, continues to be written and performed in Great Nortend. The growing isolationism of Great Nortend from the 20th century lent itself to the development of the common practice Romantic style with inspiration from historical Nortish influences. 20th century composers such as George Wetter, Richard Monkhouse and Rudolph de Hand-Sazingtoll looked to the the early 18th century, whilst maintaining a lyrical theme for their dances and instrumental pieces.

Operas and ballets continued to be written in the naturalistic Romantic style, although Romantic-era programme music tended to disappear, replaced by more formal structures, as the neoclassicists, but distinguished from the latter by their greater tendence towards romantic expression, perhaps more in line with neo-baroque revival.

Folk music

Military music flourished in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and marching platoons with a band playing popular marches became common.

Styles such as jazz saw limited popularity in Great Nortend owing to the smaller size of its cities and major towns. Furthermore, jazz music was seen as being unacceptably foreign in rhythm and tonality.

As a result, along with the rise of nationalist conservative politics, it mostly disappeared, replaced by more acceptable forms of folk music with roots in traditional tunes, airs and ballads. The growing nationalist political movement also supported the flourishing of military music, especially in the early 20th century following the Great Astyrian War and the expansion of conscription and the Home Service. These took inspiration from folk songs as well, and often have romantic or „folk” style lyrics.

Church music

Nortish church music was revived after the promulgation of the new books for divine service in 1711, after the Small Schism in 1614 effectively suspended the repertoire for a century, with only a few composers continuing to write new music, mostly in the old mediaeval florid polyphonic styles. After the new books were introduced, the Precentor of St Peter's Cathedral, Lendert, William Macker, was asked to rework the ancient musical melodies to better suit them for the new ecclesiastical circumstances, which favoured „heavier” Lutheran chorale-type melodies over melismatic Gregorian chaunts. In 1730, the new music for divine service was published by the Rev’d. Dean Macker in the Book of Chaunts, which dramatically simplified and tonalised the melodies, cutting florid melismas and embellishments which were said to have been „corruptions introduced to entertain monks in the middle ages”.

With the new liturgy came a changed role for the cathedral and college quires, which no longer sang along through nearly the entire service, but had to now share with the congregation. The congregated were called upon, and demanded, to sing the hymns, psalms, and the Credo and Pater noster. „Figured” choral music, as opposed to homophonic or plain song, could thus be sung through in anthems or responsories, or in alternatim psalms, canticles and hymns.

Composers nonetheless took up the new chaunts in the blossomming of “New Church Music”. Composers frequently wrote “Preces and Responses” which include the unchanging opening and closing versicles and responses of Mattins and Vespers, as well as alternatim settings of the psalms and canticles for that mode. Pure figured music dominated in the realms of the anthems and responsories of the hours and the mass. Composing a figured round is considered a pinnacle of Nortish church music. Notable rounds include the 1982 “Morning Round” by Sir Hartmold Monkhouse which include varied settings of every Mattins and Prime anthem and responsory through the year, and the complementary 1999 “Evening Round” by Lady Mildred de Hollfields for Vespers and Compline. Gradual rounds include the anthems and responsories for masses through the year, while Kyrie rounds set the mass ordinaries.