Cauda
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Shoemaker's Holiday
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{{Wikify|date=November 2007}}
{{otheruses4|the musical feature}}
The '''Cauda''' is a characteristic feature of songs in the [[Conductus]] style of ''[[a capella]]'' music which flourished between the mid-[[12th century|12th]] and the mid-[[13th century]]. The conductus style placed strict rules on composition, and some such rules were devoted to the cauda, which came at the penultimate syllable of each verse. It takes the form of a lengthy section of [[counterpoint]] - where several simultaneous melodies are combined into one - slurred over the one syllable. The cauda was repeated in each verse.
The significance of the cauda in Conductus music is such that most Conducti were divided into the categories ''Conductus cum Cauda'' and ''Conductus sine cauda'' (Conductus with or without Cauda.) The latter made up less than a third of the repertoire.
The writing of mediaeval music did not include strict rhythmic notation, but when multiple notes were given to one syllable, known as a [[melisma]], special notation, known as [[rhythmic mode]]s, were used. As the cauda is a specific type of melisma, it contains this special notation.
The word "cauda" is derived from the [[Latin language|Latin]] word for [[tail]]. Conceptually, it is easy to see in the cauda, the root of the modern term, coda, which arrived when Latin was replaced by [[Italian language|Italian]] as the musical [[lingua franca]].
Two notable examples occur in ''Vetus Abit Littera'', a four-voice [[Christmas]] conductus from the [[Pluteo 29.1|Florence manuscript]], and ''Dic Christi, Veritas'', a tirade against clerical [[hypocrisy]] written by [[Philip the Chancellor]]. The latter is found in the [[Carmina burana]] manuscript in a [[monophonic]] version and in the Paris sources in an elaborate three-voice setting, laden with caudae.
==See also==
*[[Coda]]
==References==
* New Grove Dictionary of Music
* [[Richard Taruskin]], ed., [[Oxford History of Western Music]] (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) Volume 1.
[[Category:Medieval music]]