Chant Based Polyphony

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Embellishing the Liturgy Tropes …newly composed additions to chants New words and music added New melismas added without text New words added to existing melismas Sequences originated as tropes to Alleluias but became independent pieces Notker Balbulus (ca. 840–912) put words to music at St. Gall The sequence was a popular compositional type in the tenth through thirteenth centuries Prosa: the text for a sequence Form of the sequence: a bb cc dd . . .

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Chant Based Polyphony

Transcript of Chant Based Polyphony

Page 1: Chant Based Polyphony

Embellishing the LiturgyTropes…newly composed additions to chants

New words and music addedNew melismas added without textNew words added to existing melismas

Sequencesoriginated as tropes to Alleluias but became independent piecesNotker Balbulus (ca. 840–912) put words to music at St. GallThe sequence was a popular compositional type in the tenth through thirteenth centuriesProsa: the text for a sequenceForm of the sequence: a bb cc dd . . .

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Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179)Nun in GermanyComposed both melodies and words of sequences and other chantsFreer form than in sequences composed in France or Switzerland

Liturgical dramasEarly liturgical dramas originated as tropes to the introitExample: Quem quaeritis in praesepe Whom do you seek in the Manger?Dialogue and acting preceding the third Mass of Christmas Day

Morality playsSacred but not part of the liturgyExample: Hildegard of Bingen's Ordo VirtutumAll parts (except Devil) sung in plainchantCharacters are allegorical

Chant-based Polyphony

Nichomachus (c. 60-120)Ptolemy (c. 83-161)

Boethius (480–524)

Musica Enchiriadis (9th century)Aurelian of Réôme (fl. 840-50)Regino of Prüm (c. 842-915)Hucbald (c. 840-930)Guido d’Arezzo (c. 995-1033)

Florid (melismatic) organumBased on syllabic SOLO sections of plainchant

Discant (clausula) style organumBased on melismatic SOLO sections of plainchant

See: organumchart.pdf

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Rhythmic Modes

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Ligature patterns--Rhythmic Modes

Organum purum (florid organum)

Upper voice florid (many notes), free rhythmTenor: long sustained pitches (from original plainchant)

Discant organum (clausula style)

Upper voice metrical (rhythmic modes)Tenor: original plainchant; ostinato rhythm (often rhythmic mode 5)

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Responsorial plainchant: alternating solo and choir

Solo sections become basis for organum (polyphony)

Syllabic solo sections: set in organum purum (florid organum)

Melismatic solo sections: set in discant organum

New substitute settings (clausula) are composed for Discant organum sections.These substitute clausula become the basis for the new motet.

Notre Dame12th-13th century polyphony

Léonin(fl Paris, 1150s–c1201). Composer of polyphony, including organum and, probably, conductus. He is credited by the theorist Anonymus 4 with perhaps the single greatest achievement in the develop-

ment of early polyphony, the creation of the so-called Magnus liber.

Magnus liberFirst cycle of Notre Dame polyphony--music for both Mass & Officespolyphony was transformed from performance practice into ‘composition’ in the modern sense of the

word. a system of consonance and dissonance that would dominate polyphonic composition for the next three

centuries, and also a coherent rhythmic language that, for the first time in Western music, ex-pressed itself in its notation.

Anonymus 4 observed:“… note that Magister Leoninus, so it has been said, was the best worker with organum [optimus organista]

who made [‘fecit’] the great book of polyphony [magnus liber organi] on the gradual and antiphonary to embellish the divine service.”

Perotin(fl Paris, c1200). Composer of organa, conductus and, probably, motets. active at the cathedral of Notre Dame, Paris, and was the most important of the musicians involved in the

revision and updating of the Magnus liber organi attributed to Leoninus. mentioned in two documents from the late 13th century, the treatises of Johannes de Garlandia (Hiero-

mymus de Moravia's compilation) and Anonymus 4.

Perotin’s edition of the Magnus Liber…used a more developed system of rhythmic notation than Leonin hadthe full system of rhythmic modes was operative some elements of mensural notation were present

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Anonymus 4 observed:“… Perotinus, who made a redaction [‘abbreviavit eundem’] of it--the Magnus Liber--and made many better

clausulas, or puncta, he being the best worker with discant [‘discantor’], and better [at discant] than Leoninus was. But the same cannot be said regarding the subtlety of organum [purum]…”

Sumer is icumen in

Conductus10th-12th cent.: monophonic serious sacred poetrySong to accompany processional during Mass

Polyphonic conductussettings of Latin poemsReferred to any newly composed song with a Latin textWritten in verse, often set strophicallyHomorhythmic, regular phrasing, syllabicBrief melismatic passage at the end called a caudaRepresent a significant break from the liturgical anchor of most earlier musicFirst polyphonic compositions that had no connection to plainchantNewly composed throughout

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MotetFirst stage--added words to upper voice of a clausulaTenor came to be regarded as a musical structure, the foundation of a compositionText trope (in Latin)--commented on the meaning of the chant or the occasionNext stage--vernacular (in French), took on a secular slantThen, composers wrote completely new upper parts for motets, no longer relying on the existing clausulae;

retained the tenorSo, three parts--2 new upper parts

Motet became……most popular new form of new music in the 13th cent.Polytextual--upper voices had different poetic textsIntellectual genre--artistic inventions (upper texts projected interplay of meanings)

Motet: mid-13th cent.3-voice; tenor slowest moving, middle voice faster, top voice fastest (Franconian)1250-1275: motet tended to break away from modal rhythmic patterns

Motet: late 13th cent.Continued freedomAllowed up to nine semibreves division of a breve (Petrus de Cruce)Clear differentiation of the voicesTriplum has fast notes and rapid declamation

Franco of Cologne13th-cent. composer & theoristNotation system: note shapes represented temporal durations

White notation (15th–16th cent.)

Maxima longa brevis semi- minima semi- fusa semi- brevis minima fusa

Black notation (14th–15th cent.)

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Franconian notation (13th cent.)

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