Chant in the Middle Ages

Part 2: 1000 1400 A.D. by Andrew Lesser, M.M.

Around the beginning of the 11th Century, Europe

witnessed a revival of economic and cultural life.

The First Crusade united Europe under the

common purpose of liberating Jerusalem from

the Turks, which had the added effect of books

and educational practices being brought back

from the Holy Land on a regular basis. Under

Charlemagnes rule, education was set as a higher

priority as the first universities were being built,

in addition to basilicas and cathedrals springing

up all over Europe. In music, Guido de Arezzos

Micrologus was quickly gaining popularity in

monasteries and churches in teaching solfege and

the new musical notation, complete with nuemes

and the predecessor to the modern staff. Hispanic chant was replaced by Gregorian in Spain

around 1071, establishing itself as the dominant form of sacred music expression. Finally, and most

importantly, polyphony was becoming more widespread as previous single melody chants were

being embellished and updated, in addition to new more elaborate chants being composed.

Two Voices for the Price of One

Polyphony consisted of the practice of adding an additional voice, or multiple voices to a

single melody line. When singers improvised chant melodies to give their parts more

independence, new developments in writing chants could be made. At first, singers would simply

improvise a single melody line above an already existing chant melody, but soon composers were

able to write these embellishments in musical notation so that the same performance could be

performed repeatedly. Anonymous treatises, such as the Musica enchiriadis (Music Handbook)

and the Scolia enchiriadis (Excerpts

from Handbooks) described a form of

singing together, or diaphony,

which was designated by the term

organum.

Right: Excerpt from Musica enchiriadis

Music of the Middle Ages Chant after 1000 A.D.

2

Orga-What?

Organum is basically described as two voices sounding together in a plainchant form.

There are several ways to accomplish this. For example, in early organum a plainsong melody,

known as the principal voice is simply duplicated at a fifth or fourth below, which is known as

the organal voice. The excerpt below shows a parallel organum paralleled at a fourth below the

principal voice, or vox principalis.

Parallel organum doubled at an

interval of a fourth.

Sometimes the organal voice would remain stationary to avoid unstable intervals, such as

the tritone, but dissonances were fairly common and in some organum examples, even embraced.

By the time of Guidos Micrologus, the organal voice sang above the plainsong melody, in which

the two voices would often cross and even switch places. The development of polyphony did not

happen at once, however. Many monophonic chants were still in use, and even when polyphony

came to the forefront of chant composition, monophonic sections of chant would be used in

combination with polyphonic sections, resulting in alternating portions of the same chant. Many

monophonic chants would be troped (the addition or embellishment of chants) with an

additional voice rather than composers writing new chants. This led to the two main types of

organum, known as florid organum.

Florid organum was divided into two types of composition. In one embellishment, the

lower voice of a two-voiced chant eventually lost its role as a melody, and became a series of

single note drones, with the melodic elaborations occurring in the upper voice. This lower voice

became known as the tenor, which means to hold. The word tenor designated the lowest voice

of a composition until the Renaissance. Eventually this type of organum was known as organum

purum, or organum duplum. The second type of florid organum was essentially note against note,

and was called discant (singing apart). However, problems soon arose when two or more

singers needed to coordinate their individual parts with each other. Their uncertainty of note

durations led to a solution discovered by composers in northern France, particularly of the Notre

Dame School. The monks working out of the Cathedral of Paris were among the greatest

composers of chant in the Middle Ages. They discovered a way to notate rhythmic changes

between two or more individual parts that were known as the six rhythmic modes.

Music of the Middle Ages Chant after 1000 A.D.

3

The Six Rhythmic Modes and the Great Composers

While the rhythmic modes of the Middle Ages differed greatly from our own modern day

notation, this form of scoring lasted well into the late Middle Ages. By about the mid 13th century,

six distinctive rhythmic modes were incorporated into treatises and chant compositions. These

modes corresponded mostly to poetical meters of French and Latin verse, though the rhythms

themselves were flexible in practice. The rhythms

were used in three part progressions known as

perfections, which also allowed each rhythmic

mode to be combined with any other rhythmic

mode. Ligatures were also used to tie rhythms

together, usually indicating two, three, or more

tones to a single syllable. In this way, even

melismatic texts could be adapted to the rhythmic

modes.

Of all the great composers of the Notre

Dame school, two are recognized as the highest

practitioners of organum. Leonin and his successor

Perotin lived during the end of the 12th century and

were regarded as masters of organum and discant,

respectively. More on these two figures can be found

in their respective section of the Composer Profiles.

New Forms and New Ideas

Using the rhythmic modes, in addition to polyphonic practices such as organum and

discant, new forms started to be created by composers that are unfortunately lost to history.

Many of the great composers of the Middle Ages remain anonymous though we have many

examples of their fine work and musical innovations. One such composer we know virtually

nothing about is another monk of the Notre Dame tradition, known only as Magister Albertus of

Paris. His Benedicamus Domino trope, known as Congaudeant catholici, is considered by

historians to be the oldest three voiced work currently preserved (see below). Clausulae, or forms

of discant style where a chant melisma in heard in the tenor (like a separate section between two

larger sections of chant) became inserted into existing chants by composers such as Perotin and

his contemporaries. The voices of Perotins organum were usually set in a series of rhythmic

motifs, such as in his masterpiece Sederunt principes. He expanded his organum into three and

four voiced polyphony, respectively called organum triplum and organum quadruplum.

Another form was that of the conductus, which grew out of genres such as the hymn and the

sequence. In a multiple voiced conductus, the voices sing the same text in essentially the same

rhythm. The tenor was often newly composed, and while the text drew from sacred verse, a new

form would eventually rise out of these forms, known as the motet.

Music of the Middle Ages Chant after 1000 A.D.

4

First page of the three

voiced Benedicamus

Domino trope,

Congaudeant catholici,

by Magister Albertus of

Paris.

Rise of the Motet (Things Aint Never Gonna Be The Same!)

While music of the early Middle Ages was dominated by sacred music such as Gregorian

Chant and the forms which evolved from variations and manipulations of chant, the late Middle

Ages became identified with the gradual widespread popularity of secular music. Secular music,

which will be formally discussed in Secular Music of the Middle Ages, began with monophonic

songs with possible instrumental accompaniment and passed down by oral tradition. With the

advent of polyphony, however, came a new form that became the standard that continued

through the Renaissance, known as the motet. The motet developed from the addition of words

to existing chants (the name motet comes from the French mot, meaning word), specifically

clausuale. As separate compositions, composers could introduce multiple voicings and even

multiple texts which could be sung at the same time. Most of these motets were composed to be

sung outside the church, but that does not mean that there were no sacred motets in existence.

Generally, however, the motet is defined as the vehicle in which secular music gained a large

foothold in the musical culture of Western Europe.

In the 13th century, Franco of Cologne, a French composer and theorist, developed a

system to provide for more independent parts above the tenor. This new kind of motet, called

Franconian, distinguishes each of the higher voices from each other by a newly created notation

involving breves and semibreves, which would become the Medieval equivalent of our modern

quarter notes and eighth notes. This system, combined with the composition of mensural, or

measured music, gave composers the freedom to specifically communicate their intentions to

the performer. Before this, oral tradition resulted in each performance being altered in some way

by the performer, as there were no copyright laws to enforce the compositions integrity. With

Music of the Middle Ages Chant after 1000 A.D.

5

notation being solidified into the beginnings of what would become common practice, composers

could have more control over how their music was performed.

By the end of the 13th century, both sacred and secular texts were being written, and the

chant of the early Middle Ages was quickly becoming outdated. Many composers would only use

monophonic chant as the basis of adding multiple voices and creating new texts, rendering the

original chant almost unrecognizable. The monophonic style, in addition to organum and discant,

were quickly being replaced by more complex forms. The motet signaled the end of the golden

age of Gregorian Chant, and welcomed an era that would lead mankind to the Renaissance.

For Review:

Chant of the late Middle Ages is characterized by the widespread use of polyphony, or

multiple voiced compositions.

Organum, or singing together, was the first form of polyphony, and involved two voices

singing together in parallel motion.

Leonin of the School of Notre Dame was considered the greatest composer of organum

while his successor, Perotin, was the greatest writer of discant. Discant involves two

voices moving together note-for-note.

Performance issues arose from polyphony which prompted the created of the six rhythmic

modes, an invention that gradually led to improvements in music notation.

More voices were gradually added to existing chants, resulting in three to four voiced

textures, called organum triplum, and organum quadruplum, respectively.

Substitute sections, called clausula, were inserted into existing chants and then

eventually were given to their own treatment as separate compositions.

Clausualae that were given texts and added voices became known as motets, which

marked the end of monophonic chant and the increased popularity of secular music.

Suggested Listening:

Leonin: Alleluia Pascha nostrum

Magister Albertus of Paris: Congaudent catholici

Perotin: Sederunt

Anonymous Motet: Amours mi font souffrir (Love wrongly makes me suffer pain)

Sources:

Grout, Donald & Palisca, Claude. A History of Western Music, Fifth Edition. W.W. Norton and

Company: New York, 1996.

Palisca, Claude, ed. Norton Anthology of Western Music, Volume 1, Third Edition. W.W. Norton

and Company: New York, 1996.

Hoppin, Richard. Medieval Music. W.W. Norton and Company: New York, 1978.

Hoppin, Richard, ed. Anthology of Medieval Music. W.W. Norton and Company: New York, 1978.

Treitler, Leo, ed. Source Readings in Music History. W.W. Norton and Company: New York, 1998.