Johannes Tinctoris (c.1435–1511) was a Flemish composer and music theorist of the Renaissance. He is known to have studied in Orleans, and to have been master of the choir there; he also may have been director of choirboys at Chartres. Because he was employed at Cambrai Cathedral for four months in 1460, it has been speculated that he studied with Dufay, who spent the last part of his life there; certainly Tinctoris must at least have known the elder Burgundian there. Tinctoris went to Naples in 1472 and spent most of the rest of his life in Italy. For other uses, see number 1435. ... 1511 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Flemings (Dutch: Vlamingen) are inhabitants of Flanders in the widest sense of the term, i. ... Music theory is a field of study that investigates the nature or mechanics of music. ... Raphael was famous for depicting illustrious figures of the Classical past with the features of his Renaissance contemporaries. ... This article is about Orléans, France; for other meanings see Orleans (disambiguation). ... Chartres is a town and commune of France, préfecture (capital) of the Eure-et-Loir département. ... Cambrai (Dutch: Kamerijk) is a French city and commune, in the Nord département, of which it is a sous_préfecture. ... Events The first Portuguese navigators reach the coast of modern Sierra Leone. ... Dufay (left), with Gilles Binchois Guillaume Dufay (Du Fay, Du Fayt) (?August 5, 1397 – November 27, 1474) was a Franco-Flemish composer and music theorist of the early Renaissance. ... Composer Guillaume Dufay (left) and Gilles Binchois (right), Martin le Franc, Champion des Dames The Burgundian School is a term used to denote a group of composers active in the 15th century in what is now eastern France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, centered on the court of the Dukes of... The Bay of Naples Naples (Italian: , Neapolitan: Nàpule, from Greek Νεάπολη < Νέα Πόλις Néa Pólis New City) is the largest city in southern Italy and capital of the Campania region and the Province of Naples. ... February 20 - Orkney and Shetland are returned by Norway to Scotland, due to a defaulted dowry payment Possible discovery of Bacalao (possibly Newfoundland, North America) by João Vaz Corte-Real. ...

Tinctoris published many volumes of writings on music. While they are not particularly original, borrowing heavily from ancient writers (including Boethius, Isidore of Seville, and others) they give an impressively detailed record of the technical practices and procedures used by composers of the day. He wrote the first dictionary of musical terms (the Diffinitorium musices); a book on the characteristics of the musical modes; a treatise on proportions; and a book on counterpoint, which is particularly useful in charting the development of voice-leading and harmony in the transitional period between Dufay and Josquin. The writings by Tinctoris were influential on composers and other music theorists for the remainder of the Renaissance. Boethius teaching his students (initial from a 1385 Italian manuscript of the Consolation of Philosophy) Boethius redirects here. ... Saint Isidore of Seville (Spanish: or ) (c. ... This article is about modes as used in music. ... In music, counterpoint is a texture involving the simultaneous sounding of separate melodies or lines against each other, as in polyphony. ... Harmony is the result of polyphony (more than one note being played simultaneously). ... Dufay (left), with Gilles Binchois Guillaume Dufay (Du Fay, Du Fayt) (?August 5, 1397 – November 27, 1474) was a Franco-Flemish composer and music theorist of the early Renaissance. ... Josquin des Prez Josquin Des Prez (French rendering of Dutch Josken, diminutive of Joseph; latinized Josquinus Pratensis, alternatively Jodocus Pratensis) (c. ...

While not much of the music of Tinctoris has survived, that which has shows a love for complex, smoothly flowing polyphony, as well as a liking for unusually low tessituras, occasionally descending in the bass voice to the C two octaves below middle C (showing an interesting similarity to Ockeghem in this regard). He wrote masses, motets and a few chansons. In music, tessitura (Italian: texture) is a range of pitches compared to the instrument for which it was intended to be used. ... Ockeghem (with glasses) and his singers Johannes Ockeghem (c. ... The Mass, a form of sacred musical composition, is a choral composition that sets the fixed portions of the Eucharistic liturgy (principally that of the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, generally known in the US as the Episcopal Church, and also the Lutheran Church) to music. ... In Western music, motet is a word that is applied to a number of highly varied choral musical compositions. ... Chanson is a French word for song, and in English-language contexts is often applied to any song with French words, particularly a cabaret song. ...

Tinctoris was also known as a cleric, a poet, a mathematician, and a lawyer; there is even one reference to him as an accomplished painter.

Notable writings

• the first dictionary of musical terms (Diffinitorum musices)
• an introductions to the elements of musical pitch and rhythmic notation (Exposito manus and Proportionale musices); examples show how rhythmically elaborate extemporization may have been practiced
• a throrough exposition of the modal system (Liber de natura et proprietate tonorum)
• Liber de art contrapuncti – his main exposition of intervals, consonance and dissonance, and their usage. He devised strict rules for introducing dissonances, limiting them to unstressed beats and syncopations (suspensions) and at cadences.
• a broad survery of the origins and evolution of music, its theological and metaphysical roots and ramifications, and vocal and instrumentation practice (De inventione et usu musice)

In music theory, an interval is the relationship between two notes or pitches, the lower and higher members of the interval. ... In music, a consonance (Latin consonare, sounding together) is a harmony, chord, or interval considered stable, as opposed to a dissonance, which is considered unstable. ... In music theory, a suspension is a nonchord tone that occurs when the harmony shifts from one chord to another, but one or more notes of the first chord are held over, suspended, into the second but then resolved to a chord tone. ... Plato and Aristotle (right), by Raphael (Stanza della Segnatura, Rome). ...

References and further reading

• Heinrich Hüschen, "Johannes Tinctoris," in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. ISBN 1-56159-174-2
• Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954. ISBN 0-393-09530-4
• Johannes Tinctoris, Liber de arte contrapuncti, tr. Oliver Strunk, in Source Readings in Music History. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1950.

Gustave Reese (November 29, 1899 &#8211; September 7, 1977) was an American musicologist and teacher. ...

External links

• Latin text of his work Diffinitorium musicae

• Latin text of his work Liber de arte contrapuncti, Liber primus

• Latin text of his work Liber de arte contrapuncti, Liber secundus

• Latin text of his work Liber de arte contrapuncti, Liber tertius

• Latin text of his work De inventione et usu musicae

• Latin text of his work Complexus effectuum musices

• Latin text of his work Proportionale musices

• Latin text of his work Expositio manus

• Latin text of his work Liber de natura et proprietate tonorum

• Latin text of his work Liber imperfectionum notarum musicalium

• Latin text of his work Tractatus de notis et pausis

• Latin text of his work Tractatus de punctis

• Latin text of his work Tractatus alterationum

• Latin text of his work Complexus viginti effectuum nobilis artis musices

• Latin text of his work Tractatus super punctis musicalibus

• Latin text of his work Tractatus de regulari valore notarum