Isorhythm

Isorhythm is a compositional technique that organizes music through the recurrence of a rhythmic pattern, often paired with a recurring melodic sequence.

Talea: The repeating rhythmic pattern in an isorhythmic composition. It supplies the recurring durations that define the technique.
Ars nova: A fourteenth-century French musical style marked by innovations in rhythm, notation, and composition. Its notational advances supported increasingly complex isorhythmic works.
Garrit gallus—In nova fert—Neuma: A three-texted motet by Philippe de Vitry, preserved in the Roman de Fauvel manuscript. Its isorhythmic tenor illustrates the technique within a politically charged motet.
Renaissance motet: A polyphonic vocal composition of the Renaissance, usually setting a Latin sacred text. Composers retained and transformed structural procedures inherited from medieval motets.
Color (isorhythm): The repeating melodic sequence in an isorhythmic composition. It supplies the pitches that may recur independently of the talea.
Philippe de Vitry: A French composer, theorist, and cleric associated with the musical innovations of the fourteenth century. His name is closely associated with the early Ars nova repertory in which isorhythm flourished.
Messe de Nostre Dame: A polyphonic Mass setting by Guillaume de Machaut, among the earliest complete settings of the Ordinary by one composer. Its movements include structural techniques related to the rhythmic planning of isorhythm.
Cyclic Mass: A Renaissance Mass whose movements are linked by recurring musical material or a shared organizing principle. The search for coherence across movements echoes isorhythm’s long-range structural logic.
Tenor: The principal structural voice in medieval polyphony, often carrying a borrowed melody or extended notes. Isorhythm commonly organizes the tenor beneath more freely moving voices.
Guillaume de Machaut: A fourteenth-century French poet and composer whose works include a substantial body of polyphonic music. His motets provide prominent examples of sophisticated isorhythmic composition.

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