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Hildegard of Bingen. Women were excluded from religious musicmaking everywhere but in convents. Hildegard of Bingen. Hildegard (1098–1179) was a prioress and abbess of her own convent. She achieved great success as a writer and composer. Her visions became famous.
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Hildegard of Bingen • Women were excluded from religious musicmaking everywhere but in convents.
Hildegard of Bingen • Hildegard (1098–1179) was a prioress and abbess of her own convent. • She achieved great success as a writer and composer. • Her visions became famous. • Her music was known locally and was rediscovered only in the late twentieth century.
Hildegard of Bingen • Ordo virtutum (The Virtues, ca. 1151) • Hildegard’s most extended musical work • A sacred music drama comprising eightytwo songs • Hildegard wrote both the melodies and the poetic verse. • A morality play with allegorical characters • All sing plainchant except the Devil, who can only speak.
Chapter 3 Polyphony Through the Thirteenth Century
Europe enjoyed a cultural revival • Scholars translated Greek and Arabic works into Latin. • Places of learning, including universities, were established. • Several outstanding scholars sought to reconcile classical (Greek) philosophy with Christian doctrine in their work. • Saint Anselm • Saint Thomas Aquinas
Large church buildings were erected • Romanesque style in the eleventh and early twelfth centuries. • Round arches in the style of the Roman basilica • Frescoes and sculptures decorated the buildings.
Large church buildings were erected • Gothic style in the mid-twelfth century onward • Tall, spacious buildings with soaring vaults • Slender columns • Large stained-glass windows
Polyphony • Polyphony occurs when voices sing together on independent parts. • Polyphony was initially a decoration of chant, similar to the decorations on manuscripts and cathedrals. • Purposes • Added grandeur • Functioned as commentary on a chant
Polyphony • Since early polyphony was improvised, many believe that it was used well before the first record of it in the ninth century. • Advances in notation made more elaborate genres possible.
Polyphony • Precepts of Western music were established with medieval polyphony. • Counterpoint, the combination of multiple independent lines • Harmony, the regulation of simultaneous sounds • Notation • Composition as distinct from performance
Polyphony • These changes came about slowly from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries. • Monophonic chant was still dominant during this time; some chants were composed as late as the sixteenth century. • Two types of polyphonic music are discussed in this chapter. • Organum • Motet
Ninth-century organum • Described in Musica enchiriadis • Parallel organum • Duplication of a chant melody (principal voice) in parallel motion at the fifth below by the organal voice • Fifths were considered perfect and beautiful consonances. • Either voice could be doubled at the octave.
Ninth-century organum • Oblique organum • Adjustments were necessary to avoid tritones. • The organal voice remains on one note while the chant voice moves (oblique motion). • Cadences converge on the unison. • These adjustments to parallelism opened the door for more independent polyphony.
Eleventh-century polyphony • Placement of polyphony • Troped sections of the Mass Ordinary, such as the Kyrie and Gloria • Certain parts of the Proper, such as tracts and sequences • Responsories of the Office and Mass, including Graduals and Alleluias • Polyphony is found in passages for soloists only.
Notre Dame Polyphony • Musicians at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris developed a more ornate style of organum in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. • Leoninus (fl. 1150s–ca. 1201), a priest and poet-musician • Perotinus (fl. 1200–1230), probably trained as a singer under Leoninus • Both may have studied at the University of Paris.
Leoninus • Compiled Magnus Liber Organi (big book of organum) • First extensive repertory of composed polyphony • Contains two-voice settings for the major feasts of the church year • Leoninus set the solo portions of the responsorial chants: Graduals, Alleluias, and Office responsories.
Leoninus • Viderunt Omnes, written for the Gradual on Christmas Day, has three distinct musical styles. • Chorus sections of the original chant: sung in unison without alteration • Solo passages with syllabic text setting: extended melismas over long sustained pitches that sound as drones • Solo passages with melismas: discant style
Clausulae • A clausula is a passage in discant style. • By speeding the movement in the tenor, clausulae avoid monotony. • Clausulae are generally more consonant than organa. • They have short phrases and are livelier. • Hundreds of independent clausulae, referred to as substitute clausulae, were composed.
Perotinus • Along with his contemporaries, Perotinus expanded organa by increasing the number of voice parts to three and four. • The voices above the tenor were denoted duplum, triplum, and quadruplum. • Hence a three-voice organum was called an organum triplum (or simply triplum) and a four-voice organum a quadruplum.
Perotinus • Viderunt omnes • A quadruplum • Upper voices move with patterned clusters of notes in modal rhythms. • The tenor has lengthy, unmeasured notes. • These passages alternate with discant sections.
Motets • Motets are polyphonic works with one or more texted voices added to a preexisting tenor.
Motets • Motets originally consisted of newly-written Latin words added to the upper voices of discant clausulae. • The French word mot (“word”) inspired the name for the genre. • The earliest texts were often a textual trope of the clausula. • The second voice, formally the duplum, is called a motetus. • The third and fourth voices are still called triplum and quadruplum. • The tenor, with its borrowed melody from Gregorian chant, is known as the cantus firmus.
Motets • Later texts were written in French on secular topics. • Motets are identified by a compound title comprising the first words of each voice from highest to lowest. • The upper voice(s) were sung, but it is unclear whether the tenor was sung or played on an instrument.
The motet as an independent genre • Existing motets were reworked. • Adding new texts for the duplum, in Latin or French, that were not necessarily linked to the chant text • Adding a third voice to those already present • Giving the additional parts words of their own; a motet with two texts above the tenor is known as a double motet
Motets in the late thirteenth century • A new motet style emerged called Franconian, after the theorist and composer Franco of Cologne. • More rhythmic freedom and variety • The triplum has a longer text and faster-moving melody than the motetus.
Motets in the late thirteenth century • Adam de la Halle’s De ma dame vient/Dieus, comment porroie/Omnes uses rhythmic differences to reinforce contrasting text. • The triplum part is from a man’s point of view. • The duplum part voices the woman’s point of view. • The tenor part repeats the “omnes” melisma from Viderunt omnes twelve times.
