Phillipe de Vitry was a highly influential French composer and music theorist during the Medieval period. He is known for writing chansons and motets, developing the motet form, and authoring the famous music theory treatise Ars Nova, which expanded rhythmic resources for composers and introduced new mensural notation. De Vitry was also a bishop and poet who lived from 1291 to 1361.

1. Phillipe de Vitry

2. We know his dates!

3. No! Not those Kind of Dates!!
• These dates: October 31, 1291 - June 9, 1361
• Rare to know

4. French Composer…
• Medieval Period
• Wrote Chansons and Motets
• Only a few of his compositions have survived through the ages
• Was very influential in the development of the Motet
In Aboris- De Vitry

5. 13th. Century Motet
• Plainsong in bottom voice
• Top voice was secular poetry Example of 13th. Century Motet
usually written by the
composer
• Would not be used in worship

6. Music Theorist…
• Author of a famous music theory treatise
• Ars Nova, which has been taken up as the name of that entire
period of music history.
• In the Ars Nova, Vitry is primarily concerned with expanding
the rhythmic resources offered to composers; he introduces
new rhythmic schemes, along with a new mensural notation
which was to play an important role for more than a hundred
years after his death.
• The main result of his innovations is that the different lines of
polyphony are given much greater independence than had
been done previously – during the so-called Ars Antiqua.

7. Ars Antiqua (old art)

8. Ars Nova

9. Mensural Notation

10. Bishop and Poet…
• Bishop of Meaux