Life

Two or three details come known just about his life, & extra may be inferred. Around his have treatise he described himself when a papal chaplain and a don of the Knights Hospitallers of St. John at Cologne, an extremely powerful position in northern Europe in the 13th century. More documents of the instance refer to him when "Franco of Paris" too when "Franco teutonicus"; since his writing in music is intimately associated by having a Notre Dame School of Paris, & his Teutonic origwithin is mentioned in many sources, he was probably German, probably travelled between Cologne & Paris, which got close relations when you took that period, and probably experienced the musical position at Notre Dame at a select few point, possibly as a teacher, composer or even cantabile master.

Jacques of Liège, in his early 14th century Speculum musice, a passionate defense of the 13th century ars antiqua style against the newly "dissolute and lascivious" ars nova style, mentioned hearing the composition by Franco of Cologne, a motet in three voices. There are no music of Franco by using dependable attribution has survived, although a bit of works of the late 13th century, from either Parisian sources however stylistically resembling German music of the period, wear occasion been attributed to him.

Writings

Franco's best known function was his Ars cantus mensurabilis, the operate which was widely circulated & copied, & remained influential for astir the hundred years. Unlike several theoretical treatises of the 13th century, it was the practical conclusion, & totally avoided metaphysical speculations; it was plainly written for musicians, & was good of musical examples for both point mass produced in the text.

A topics covered in the treatise include organum, discant, polyphony, clausulae, conductus, and indeed all the compositional techniques of the 13th century Notre Dame school. A rhythmic modes are described around detail, although Franco has a different enumeration scheme for the modes than does the anon. treatise De mensurabili musica on the rhythmical modes, written shortly prior to. (This treatise was another time attributed to Johannes de Garlandia, but scholarship beginning in the Eighties determined that Garlandia edited an anon. manuscript late in the 13th century.)

A central a portion of Franco's treatise, & by far a best knhave, is his guide that a notes themselves may define their own durations. At one time, under a rules of the rhythmical modes, rhythms were according to context: water of similar-appearing notes on the report would exist as interpreted as the series of hanker & short values by the trained singer based on a complex series of conditioned system. When a old formulas was to remain largely in situ for decades yearn, under Franco's method a notes acquired freshly shapes indicating their duration. From either the grounds to believe of the spread of his treatise & the writings of late scholars, this innovation seems to st& been received swell; but then Franco was the pontifical chaplain and a don of a big body of knights, and a acceptance of the method will will have little to launder by having democracy.

A consensus date of virtually all mediaeval music theory scholars on the Ars cantus mensurabilis is astir 1250. A De mensurabili musica dates from either astir 1240, not long prior to; clearly a mid-13th century was a instance of progress around music notation & theory, possibly in case it was simply getting higher sustaining the todays state of composition & performance.

A composer world health organization virtually all notably followed Franco's treatise inside his have music was Petrus de Cruce, one of the virtually all large composers of motets of the late ars antiqua (one of a couple whose title has been preserved; numbers of of the living works come anon.).