he Development of Polyphony

Polyphony in the ninth and tenth centuries

• Artistic style of Carolingian/imperial period — addition of mass

• Addition of weight to chant–magadizing (parallel singing)– troping

• Only textbook musical examples survive

Textbook descriptions of early organum

• Musica enchiriadis, Scolica enchiriadis (ca. 900) – Frankish

• Vox principalis doubled at fifth or fourth below by vox organalis– note-against-note style (punctus contra

punctum)– both may be doubled in octaves,

producing both fifths and fourths• Oblique (and contrary) motion– provides sense of opening and closing– allows temporary dissonance and

resolution

Guido of Arezzo, Micrologus (ca. 1025) — principles for organum

• Allows voice crossing• More variety of intervals —

sometimes from drone effect in vox organalis

• Contrary-motion cadences become the norm

Music in the Romanesque period

• Social stability leads to time and interest for composition — period of troubadours

• Sacred and secular societies developed skill and time for rehearsal of complicated music

Winchester Troper (early eleventh century) — examples of organum

• Principal voice generally above, but some voice crossing

• Mostly note-against-note texture• Organal voice has wider range• Considerable use of dissonance,

often seems empirical or even haphazard

• Mixed motion — preference for 3–1 contrary-motion cadences

Ad organum faciendum (French, ca. 1100) — how to improvise organum

• Principal voice lower (sometimes crosses)

• Mostly note-against-note texture• For soloists in responsorial chants —

organal part has wider range• More conservative harmony than

Winchester style (melodic style suffers)

• Fourths and fifths most common, also uses unison and octave and even thirds and sixths

• Contrary-motion cadences

The Abbey of St. Martial — Limoges

Aquitainian polyphony — St. Martial organum

• New polyphonic style– principal voices not always based on

standard liturgical music– principal voice lower, but occasionally

voices cross• Distinction of types– organum (later organum purum) —

melismatic or florid– discant — more or less note-against-

note passages, actually neume against neume

• Versus style — rhymed, metrical poetry• Rhythm in all types roughly indicated by

alignment

Codex Calixtinus (ca. 1170)• From Santiago de Compostela–major pilgrimage site via several

monasteries in southern France, including St. Martial

– important Romanesque cathedral• Manuscript named for Pope Calixtus

(or Calixtine) II (r. 1119–1124)• Mostly liturgical monophony — twenty

polyphonic examples appended– style comparable to Aquitainian

repertoire– organal style mostly for responsorial

chants– discant style for versus and other

ensemble music

Organum from Codex Calixtinus

Gothic architectural aesthetics

• Not just elaboration but order

• High and layered

• Intricate decoration

• Ex., Notre Dame de Paris

University of Paris• Gathering of teachers – order applied to

learning• Charter — 1200 (name “universitas”

1215)• Discipline faculties– arts–medicine – law– philosophy– theology

A student’s day at the University of Paris — an ordered schedule

• 5:00–6:00 — arts lectures• Mass• 8:00–10:00 — lectures• 11:00–12:00 — disputations or debates• 1:00–3:00 — repetitions with tutors on

morning lectures• 3:00–5:00 — special-topic lectures• 7:00–9:00 — study, repetitions with tutors

Scholasticism — order applied to knowledge

• Method – lecture based on reading of

authoritative text– orderly treatment of pros and cons– disputation

• Leaders– Peter Abélard (1079–1142), Sic et non

— applied reason to theological issues– Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), Summa

theologica — covered all of theology

Early composers of Gothic polyphony — identified by Anonymous IV

• Léonin (Magister Leoninus, fl. ca. 1175) — university background–Magnus liber organi — solo parts of

responsorial chants of Office and Mass for liturgical year

• Pérotin (Magister Perotinus, fl. ca. 1200) — major contributions identified by Anonymous IV– revised and replaced parts of Léonin’s

work– organum triplum, organum quadruplum– “optimus discantor” — wrote many

clausulae

Types of Notre Dame polyphony

• Organum purum – lower voice ultra mensuram (called

tenor)–more likely when tenor is more syllabic

• Discant– both voices measured — requires

rhythmic notation–more likely when tenor is melismatic

• Clausula– discant segment– new compositions may have substituted

for preexisting discant clausulae

Léonin, Organum “Viderunt omnes”

Pérotin, Organum “Alleluia Na[tivitas]”

Rhythmic modes in Notre Dame polyphony — ordering the parts

1 (trochaic) long-short ( )2 (iambic) short-long ( )3 (dactylic) long-short-short (. )4 (anapestic) short-short-long ( .)5 (spondaic) long-long (. .)6 (tribrachic) short-short-short ( )

Ordering rhythm in the discant clausula

• Patterning of tenor rhythm – repetition of an ordo (pl. ordines)

• Paired with rhythm in different mode in duplum

• Early tendency for tenor and duplum ordines to match; later more common to overlap

Polyphonic conductus in Notre Dame style — nonliturgical

polyphony• Texts– could be for religious use and on religious

topics– often secular — expresses cultural concerns

outside church• lament• civic events

– Johannes de Grocheio (ca. 1320): “sung at parties of the wealthy and educated”

• Music – two to four voices– newly composed tenor– generally syllabic, familiar style– often has melismatic caudae

Motet

• Begins with addition of words (mots) to untexted upper voice(s) of independent discant clausulae

• Polytextual — named by all three texts (triplum, motetus, tenor)

Stages in the content of motet texts

• Early — gloss on text of tenor• Later — free secular, vernacular–may still be distant gloss on tenor text– closely related to trouvère song —

even borrowing melodies (motet enté –“grafted”)

Stages in style development in motets

• As with discant, rhythmic ordines lend unity– more sophistication in staggering phrasing

among lines• Texting– two-part composition — second text in

motetus– three-part composition — same text in

motetus and triplum– three-part composition — different texts in

motetus and triplum• Distinctions in style among lines — layered

rhythm• Tenor treatment– repetition to increase length– freely composed — called “tenor” or

“neuma”

Social position of 13th-century motets

• Originally developed in sacred context

• Came to be used as secular genre for elite class– Johannes de Grocheio (ca. 1320) —

motets in modern style only for the educated, who could understand their subtlety

– Jacques de Liège (ca. 1320) — aimed at educated lay society

Motet in late 13th century• Franco of Cologne (fl. 1250–1280) —

theorist and composer• Problem of how to indicate rhythm in

syllabic music — motets (conductus)• Solution– note shapes — long, breve, double

long, semibreve (L, B, DL, SB)– dots to mark perfections

• practical result — choirbook notation to save space — use of parts rather than score

Motet in choirbook notation

Petrus de Cruce, S'amours eust point de poer / Au renouveler / Ecce

New problems for the motet

• Petrus de Cruce (fl. 1270–1300) — composer and theorist

• Free rhythm and even shorter note values in upper parts — many SBs in the space of a B (rhythmic inflation)

Questions for discussion

• How was the development and spread of polyphonic music in the eleventh and twelfth centuries a product of political and social conditions and events?

• How did different cultural, political, and ecclesiastical institutions in Paris around 1200 contribute to the growth of a Gothic polyphonic style?

• What aspects of contemporary cultural and aesthetic tendencies did the thirteenth-century motet express?