Ars subtilior

Ars subtilior, 'the subtler art', is the mannerist extreme of late medieval polyphony that flourished around 1370–1420 at the courts of Avignon, Aragon, Foix and northern Italy. Composers such as *Solage*, *Baude Cordier*, *Philippus de Caserta* and *Jacob Senleches* pushed notation and rhythm to unprecedented complexity — syncopations, proportions, mensuration games, even scores shaped as hearts and harps — in chansons that often take music itself as their subject. Preserved above all in the Chantilly Codex, the repertory was long deemed unperformable; ensembles such as *Mala Punica* and the *Ferrara Ensemble* revived it from the 1980s.