Philippe de Vitry

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Philippe de Vitry (1291 to 1361) was a French composer, poet, bishop and music theorist of the late Middle Ages. Little is known about his youth. He probably studied in Paris, because in documents he is called magister. Later he worked at the courts of Charles IV, Philip VI and John II as secretary and adviser, was a canon in several places and served for a time in the retinue of the pope in Avignon. He was also a diplomat and a soldier. In 1351 he became bishop of Meaux. He knew the Italian scholar Petrarch, who praised him as a keen seeker after truth, and the mathematician and music theorist Nicole Oresme.

Music and breakthrough

In music history he is best known for the treatise Ars nova notandi of 1322, which gave its name to the music of his time, the ars nova. His authorship, and even the existence of the text as we know it, has been called into question. Little of his composition has survived, and only his sacred works have come down to us, even though he also wrote secular music. His motets from the Roman de Fauvel are attributed to his style.

Influence

Vitry's importance lies in notation, above all rhythm and the division of the beat. These innovations made possible the free and complex music of the following century. In this way he determined how polyphonic music was set down on paper from the fourteenth century onwards.

Listening

Discography

Studio albums

• 1993Philippe de Vitry and the Ars Nova
• 2018Ars Nova - New Music

Mentioned in other articles

• Ars nova GenreAround 1320 the Parisian scholar Philippe de Vitry wrote a treatise entitled Ars nova, new art.