For medeival influenced music you cant beat gryphon. Every albums a classic. The Incredible String Band, Amazing Blondel and the Third Ear Band are all worth looking at. and of course there's circulus if you want a more tongue in cheek version. On the subject of these bands i think its an awful shame that the're all in the archives bar the incredible string band. one of the most influencial bands of there day and did much more of a progressive rock group than deep purple, queen, uriah heap, the beatles and all those other bands that get in 

 

Not prog but if you like medieval music Maddy Prior & the carnival band deserves a particular attention, especially the album 'sing lustily and with good courage' where her gorgeous vocals are associated with traditional instruments

 

 

 

Well, I believe Medieval Music is a wide influence in at least three different sub genres but not a sub-genre per se.

 

Being that around the XII or XIII Century the music split into Religious and Pagan, this is the point in history when what we know as Classical and Folk start as we know them, the Pagan music and the trouvadores stayed in Folk and of course Religious Music (Starting with Perotin and his pairs) are the early form of Classical music.

 

We can find Medieval influences in:

 

Iván

       I have many of the artists mentioned already, and a sizeable collection of true medieval music (mostly the instrumental stuff, but some with vocals, too).

 

       Let's not forget Spinal Tap....   STONEHENGE!!! 

 

Loreena McKennitt.

 

She is about to release her first new album in 5 years.

 

LINK> http://www.quinlanroad.com/ - http://www.quinlanroad.com/

 

Indeed. Truly their best number; not to mention live show.

 

  http://www.progarchives.com/Progressive_rock_discography_BAND.asp?band_id=620 - http://www.progarchives.com/Progressive_rock_discography_BAND.asp?band_id=620

 

Haven't got time yet to review Ougenweide, but in the next weeks........... coming up

 

 And I have not seen Third Ear Band mentioned anywhere.

 

Paul Stump (if you are the writer of those prog books including the GG biography), indeed if you are looking for Ripaille , they are out on Musea and should not be difficult to find.

 

 

If you are out for music like Gryphon, you might want to try ELO's first album (and to a lesser extent On The Third Day)

the streamed song from this album is not the most mediaeval in sound, but the language is a mediaeval dialect related to romanian that is still spoken in some places in europe ("aromanian", dialect of "aromanians") and it's a mediaeval incantation.

 

 

BTW, We have Paul Stump as a member.

 

He wrote two books regarding prog!!

 

Acquiring The Taste >> the Gentle Giant story

 

The Music Is All That Matters >>> one of the opening trilogy of the mid-90's books analysing the prog scene, the others being Bill Martin's Listen To The Future and Edward Macan's Rocking The Classics

 

A cross of Pentangle, Gryphon, Amazing Blondel.

 

Their first four albums have been re-issued as 2 on 1 by a small label, but those version are pristine and stellar.

 

They (Gryphon) clearly admitted that they never considered their work as veracious. They were just guessing and even then they were not studying the matter that closely.

 

Yes GG's main influences are medieval and I am rather for their move to the folk prog category, but no-one follows me on this in the collab zone. Therefore GG are stuck in this no man's land called Art Rock

 

 

But real medieval (this means between 800 and 1200) music was a lot freer than it became once the clergies started banning minor chords etc... What many call western music's finest hour (the classical/symphonic years >> from Bach to the Russians) are really fairly poor years because of clergy censorship.

 

The clergy banned minor chords? What are you talking about? That's ridiculous. The church never did such a thing. If they banned minor chords then they DEFINITELY banned diminished and augmented chords! Let's not even discuss extended harmony like 7th chords. Those things are offensive! But that would only leave 3 diatonic chords left in each key. Maybe you are thinking of the tritone interval? But guess what, that's ALL OVER THE PLACE in baroque and classical music! It's actually hard to find a Bach or classical piece that doesn't have the infamous "devil's interval". In fact classical period music uses it frequently.

 The reason medieval music was freer has nothing to do with "clergy censorship". The real reason is because medieval society had no concept of tonality. Major and minor keys didn't come into full use until the late 16th century. Consequently most medieval stuff (not all mind you) sounds lost and directionless. It has no tonal center. You'll fast realize this if you pick up a Dowland piece to analyze (and he's actually Renaissance, much later than medieval). The chords go through different keys all the time. Medieval music is very boring from a tonal perspective because the only chord movement they use is V-I. Most medieval music is comprised on unisons, perfect fourths, perfect fifths, and octaves. It's really quite boring. At least Bach and company spiced things up a bit with an occassional iii chord or a (gasp!) diminished vii. Analyze a concerto by Vivaldi (a member of those bowdlerizing clergy) and compare it with a piece by John Dowland. Then try and tell us that the music from Bach to the Russians was poor.

 By the way, this is the first time I've ever heard someone suggest that Bach's music suffered because of censorship. Usually people are falling over themselves to gush about how perfect in every respect his music is.

 

 What's interesting about "medieval" prog is that none of it actually sounds like medieval music. Gryphon is a great band but they are WAY more interesting than medieval stuff precisely because they use tonality. Their music has direction, development, and closure. Even the traditional stuff they choose to do has these things. Somehow we've come to associate their stylistic approach with medieval music even though it is not at all.

 

I will give medieval music its props though. They had isorythmic motets which are sweet!

 

 

 

 

 

I am not a musician, but I have strong interests in history. So maybe some minor chords were allowed, but it is generally accepted that church control/censorship of the music actually allowed a poorer development of it, much like most control do to any field.

 

 

The churches had strong censorship (this is one of this atheist's pet peeves) in all artistical matters and even went as far as painting over the nude models vine leaves to hide the sexes etc... in order to keep things in their moral normality.  They exerted constant pressures on painters, sculptors and other artistes.

 

They thought that many of the minor keys and descending lines where leading the masses to lower instincts and banned many songs thought to encourage fornication (let alone the lyrics but sometimes even the languages). Of course they (Clergies) were intelligent enough to know the best way to shut up an artiste is to buy him out (hire him for life) and have him write spiritual/liturgical  musics. Their control on music stated around the gothic era and lasted for 5 centuries. If Renaissance and Tudor-era music is not chruch-controlled, than none of it is.

 

 

Even nowadays some churches strongly restrict music on grounds of immorality and keep it for their own private religious needs. Islam for one, but many sects

 

 I am well aware of the Church's opposition to dissonance. But that's not what you or the original poster seem to be stating. You're say the Church banned minor chords and keys which is pure rubbish.  Minor chords are formed by a minor third and a major third interval. These are VERY consonant intervals. In fact the minor third is possibly MORE consonant than the major third. There's also a perfect fifth in a minor triad, and that's the most consonant interval of all time (excepting the octave...maybe). You even suggest that some of the minor keys were offensive. But not all of them? They're all the same! They differ only by tone, not by structure. Unless you're going to argue the difference between natural, harmonic, and melodic minors. The Church's main point was that sacred music should be beautiful (does anyone actually disagree with this?) and dissonance detracts from beauty. It was intervals like the minor second and augmented fourth which the Church did not allow in music, primarily because they sounded awful. But as composers developed a greater understanding of tonal harmony they were able to create music with these intervals which still sounded beautiful. And after that even those intervals started to appear in sacred music.

 But why would you care, I wonder. After all this is just the Church adminstratively stating what can happen in the Church. Why should that bother a self-proclaimed atheist? Maybe you think the Church brough to bear its influence on all music, sacred and secular? Unfortunately that is not quite true. Being interested in history as you say, you must certainly know of an artistic movement known as Mannerism.  This was a movement in the Renaissance which embraced dissonance for dissonance sake and also to affect drastic and unhappy moods. A good example of Mannerism are some of the madrigals by Carlo Gesualdo. Some of them are painful to listen to (very interesting nonetheless). And yet, they were published! Unaffected by supposed Church bans. What's really interesting is that Gesualdo led a very unhappy, sordid life. But still he also managed to have published sacred music as well. Surely if someone were to be censored by the Church it would be him.

 Speaking of madrigals, there were innumerable ribald madrigals in popularity at the time. One example is the famous "El Grillo." It's not really about a cricket. And despite it all, the music for some of these licentious tunes was converted into music for mass. Certainly the clergy, whom you note are intelligent, knew about this. So not only did the Church not stop the production of these tunes, they also employed them in the mass. I look at it as a form of sanctification.

 As far as the Church exerting pressure on artisans, well that's only natural. When you commission someone to produce a an artistic work you give them guidelines. I hardly see anything wrong with the Church telling a painter, "Um...no scenes with fornication please." And for some reason I don't think many painters responded, "To hell with you, I'm going to paint fornicators. Damn censors!" We can thank the Church for being the largest patron of the arts in history.

 

One more thing, only some sects of Islam forbid music, not all of them. Consider Dervish dances. Also the ones that forbid music STILL have song. They just consider it high speech.

 

 

But mainly because the central power in the Medieval world was the Church and they wanted to keep it and the easier mechanism was control over everything, literature, art and science.

 

Catholic scholars were able to appreciate good music and did it in private as they knew the world was round and that geocentrism was false, everything they said to the public were simple excuses to justify themselves.

 

I'm a Catholic, but accept the mistakes the Church made and apparently the Church is officially douing the same thing, something very healthy.

 

Iván

 

Regarding the music techniques I can give you a point, because I have no real profound knowledge of thirs and such. All I knowis that many musical practices were forbidden for the reasons I mentioned.

 Lyrically interesting if you are germanophile as they sung in Middle High German using words, poems and texts from von Herde who lived in the XII and XIIth century. Sonically, they sound like Malicorne, Steeleeye span (but not celtic >> no jigs), a bit of Gryphon and Fairport Convention.

 

 

If you can find the double live Unguzwunden, it also makes an excellent introduction to the band.

among modern groups but usually considered as Wyrd Folk

 

 

 

http://www.espers.org/ - http://www.espers.org/

http://www.myspace.com/espers - http://www.myspace.com/espers

 

three albums of which the medium brown and the dark brown cover albums are essential. Astounding stuff.

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=26219 - http://www.boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=26219

 

Only heard of the Well Of Memory, but it comes close to being the album (released on amish records if you can believe it) of the year for me. Outstanding.

 

 

 

 

 

 

From 16 Horsepoower, comes David Eugene Edwards (not our Trouserpress) Woven Hand

 

http://www.wovenhand.net/ - http://www.wovenhand.net/

 

Heard three of their four albums, the folkier being Mosaic (their last), but all three have excellent chances to please progheads

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And also The Iditarod (based on the dog sled race thru Alaska)

 

http://www.secreteye.org/theiditarod/reviews.html#NEKT - http://www.secreteye.org/theiditarod/reviews.html#NEKT

 

Four albums three of which I have heard? Sometimes very close to lo-fi folk, but on the whole excellent.

 

 

 

 

 Long Live Death is also a fine nu-folk along the lines of these I just named (two albums so far, but their site seems abandonned, though).........

 

 

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^

Is this not a metal group?

 

I think it says "Canterbury".

 

Diamond Head was part of the NWOBHMB (I couldn't find this one at the library >> Canterbury, but it is the best rated albums of theirs)...

 

Guess I'll have to check at buddies of mine that own a record shop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

we talking of medieval folk prog here

 

not Celtic folk rock