The Earliest Polyphony

1
The Earliest Polyphony

• Polyphony is defined as music in which separate
  voices sing together, not in unison or octaves
  but as diverging parts
• Singers probably improvised polyphony long before
  it was first notated
• heterophony (embellishment of a melody)

2
Musica enchiriadis (Music Handbook)

• ninth century
• Paired with Scolica enchiriadis
• Describes two types of early organum

3
Organum

• Parallel motion Duplication of a plainsong
  melody (vox principalis) a perfect fourth or
  fifth below by an organal voice (vox organalis)
  with duplication of either voice at the octave
  possible
• Oblique motion The organal voice remaining on
  the same pitch in order to avoid tritones against
  the principal voice

4
Eleventh-Century Organum

• Micrologus of Guido of Arezzo (ca. 10251028)
  voices converge at the ends of phrases from a
  third to a unison
• Vox organalis usually sings above the vox
  principalis
• The two voice parts often cross
• Perfect consonances (unison, octave, fourth, and
  fifth) favored other intervals occur
  incidentally and infrequently

5
The Winchester Troper

• earliest known practical source (i.e., not a
  treatise) but its voices are notated in
  unheighted neumes without staff lines, so that
  only pieces that also occur in later manuscripts
  can be reconstructed
• Soloists sang polyphony during parts of the Mass
  and Divine Office that normally would have been
  sung by soloists in plainchant

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NAWM 13, Alleluia. Justus ut palma, ca. 1100

• Polyphony is mostly note-against-note
• Both contrary and parallel motion are used
• Organal voice sometimes crosses below chant
  melody
• Cadences resolve either from a third to a unison
  or from a sixth to an octave

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Florid organum (organum duplum, organum purum)

• Chant melody
• Sung in long notes
• Tenor voice that sustains or holds the chant
• Organal voice
• Florid melody
• Many notes for each note of the chant melody
• Rhythm not indicated by notation

8
Discant organum

• note-against-note texture

9
Organum Texts

• Tropes of the Benedicamus Domino
• Sequences
• Versus
• NAWM 14, Jubilemus, exultemus

10
Notre Dame Polyphony

• Paris was a flourishing commercial and
  intellectual center in the late twelfth and
  thirteenth centuries
• Notre Dame Cathedral was the employer of the two
  earliest named composers of polyphony, Léonin and
  Pérotin
• Six rhythmic (modes) patterns were indicated
  byligature patterns of neumes

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Léonin

• Magnus Liber Organi (Great Book of Organum)
• Organum settings of solo portions of responsorial
  chants for Mass and Office

12
NAWM 15b, Alleluia. Pascha nostrum

• First Alleluia, in organum purum, for soloists
• Unmeasured rhythm
• Second Alleluia, in unison, by choir
• Psalm verse, "Pascha nostrum" in organum purum
• Clausula (clause or phrase in discant style)
• Discant style used for melismatic portions of the
  chant
• Substitutions of clausulae were common, so these
  passages may have been composed by later composers

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Pérotin's Organum Compositions

• updated the Magnus Liber Organi
• Used measured rhythm in upper voice against
  sustained tenor notes instead of organum purum
• Substitute clausulae by Pérotin
• Triple and Quadruple Organum (three-voice and
  four-voice organum, respectively)

14
NAWM 16, Sederunt
15
Music of the Thirteenth Century

• Polyphonic Conductus
• Composed by Pérotin and others in the early
  thirteenth century Metrical Latin poems
• All voices sing the same words in a homophonic
  texture
• Sometimes melismatic passages (caudae) were
  placed before and after
• Tenor melody was usually newly composed rather
  than coming from chant

16
NAWM 17, Ave virgo virginum

• Three strophes with strophic text setting
• All the voices sing the words
• The rhythm suggests Mode I but Mode II is also
  possible

17
The Early Motet (to about 1280)

• Clausulae came to be separable pieces
• At first the words were Latin tropes of the tenor
  text
• Tenor melodies (cantus firmus)
• Second voice from the bottom motetus
• Third voice from the bottom triplum
• Fourth voice from the bottom quadruplum
• NAWM 18

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The Franconian Motet

• Franco of Cologne
• Theorist active from ca. 1250 to 1280
• Ars Cantus Mensurabilis, ca. 1280
• treatise on rhythm based on the shape of the notes

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NAWM 18, Amours mi font / En mai / Flos filius
eius

• Tenor performs the chant melody twice (repeat
  marked by )
• Motetus
• Originally a clausula duplum
• French text added later
• Triplum
• Moves at a faster rate than the motetus voice
• Melody was probably original composition, not
  from clausula
• Independent from the motetus voice

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The Petronian Motet

• Petrus de Cruce (Pierre de la Croix), active ca.
  1270 to 1300
• The triplum voice contains up to six semibreves
  to the breve, a much faster pace than in the
  Franconian

21
Hocket (hiccup)

• Thirteenth- and fourteenth-century technique in
  which rests interrupt the melody, and a different
  voice sings the missing

22
Franco's Ars cantus mensurabilis

• written ca. 1280, explains advances in notation
• Allows division of the breve into two or three
  semibreves
• Choirbook format
• Each voice has its own section on the page