Incomplete And Utter History Of Classical Music

3. The one that can't be published.

Anyway let's get on. We've got to get to 1225, for 'the next big thing' in music, as they say. Along the way let me try and fill you in on anything you need to know. Modena Cathedral is consecrated in 1184, and, not to be outdone, three years later, the good burghers of Verona complete theirs. In fact, cathedrals are huge at the moment. Not just literally. Everybody wants one. Bamberg start theirs, Chartres theirs and the ochre-topped buildings of Sienna look forward to being ever in the warm shade of theirs. I tell you this for a reason, obviously, not just to pass the time of day, but more of that in a moment.

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on't let me forget to tell you about the carmina????, now, either. It was around the year 1200 that the carmine burana were written. These were a set of monastic songs, many of them with J3 With the possible exception of Mozart's work entitled Musical Joke, it is my theory that there is no such thing as a good musical joke. A 'musical joke* is an oxymoron, put about by slightly nerdy music students to get them out of the spotlight and have it shone back on the IT mob. somewhat racy lyrics in Latin and German, which were found in Benediktbeuren in what is now Bavaria but back then was Bohemia.

Despite their origins within a monastery - or, more likely, because of their origins in a monastery - they concern themselves with subjects like love, and… drinking and… well, how shall I put it… lust! These bawdy ballads were written around the same time as Cambridge University was being founded, but were relatively unknown for a good eight centuries or so, until the Munich-born composer and educationalist Carl Orff put them to use in his piece of 1937, which he called simply Carmina Burana. I've made a note to mention this nearer the time so, for now, let's get on.

Stand-up comedians. They started around now too. Probably to give the musicians a break, chance to nip to the bar, that sort of thing. Of course, they were called court jesters and they started to gain in popularity following the turn of the thirteenth century. Apart from that there were a bunch?" more cathedrals: work started on Reims, Salisbury, Toledo, Brussels and Burgos, as well as a new one for Amiens (old one burnt down - careless!), and a facade for Notre Dame. Ail in all, if your business card read 'Keith Groat - Cathedral Builder' then my guess is, despite the name setback, you were going to be a rich man. Which brings me neatly, if idiosyncratically, to 1225 and 'the next big thing'.