Sacred Medieval Polyphony
After reading and listening, please make sure to look at the discussion questions at the end and post your responses to them as comments (at least one sentence per question) on this discussion post. Remember that your recitation grade is partly determined by your participation in these discussion posts as well as class attendance.
In Week 1, we covered Medieval plainchant and troubadour songs and discussed monophonic textures. In Lecture 2, we discussed another kind of texture called polyphony. In the later Medieval period, musicians began adding additional independent parts to existing monophonic chant melodies to embellish them. The key identifier for a polyphonic texture is not just the number of melodies you hear, but most importantly, their relationship to each other. While they may sometimes align by sounding the same rhythms at the same time, typically, the pitches will be different, and each part operates independently. In some cases, the parts may be so independent as not to align at all.
In this class, we will be looking specifically at sacred polyphony in the Medieval period. Then in the second section for this week, we will move over to secular polyphony. Although organum and motet were both introduced in Lecture 2, we will delve into them a little further in this class. So some of this reading may seem to cover the same ground, but that is just to reinforce the most important aspects of these genres.
Organum
Lecture 2 introduced us to the early polyphonic genre of organum. This genre was developed in the 12th and 13th centuries and initially centered around the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris (and the attached university). Beginning as improvised, unwritten embellishments to existing plainchant melodies, organum would later be written down and “composed” in the traditional sense of the term. The organum that developed in Paris at Notre Dame has come to be known as the Notre Dame School.
Little is known about the composers of organum in the Notre Dame School. Most of the music that survives from this period at Notre Dame is found in the Magnus liber organi (“Great book of organum”). This large manuscript collection was copied in the late 13th century as a record of music which had been sung at the cathedral and passed down orally for at least a century. This book is considered to be the means by which organum transitioned from an oral (unwritten) performance practice to a written, composed genre.
Besides this manuscript collection (and a small handful of other manuscripts), most of what we know about organum at Notre Dame comes from the writings of an unknown priest and music theorist, nicknamed “Anonymous IV.” He is so-called because his works are the fourth in a set of anonymous music treatises published in the 19th century. Not much is known about who Anonymous IV was. All we know is that he was born in England and studied as a student at the University of Paris, where he encountered this music. He then returned to England as a priest but continued to write about music. In his writings, he mentions the names of two composers of organum: Magister Leoninus (or Léonin) and Perotinus Magnus (or Pérotin).
We also know very little about these two men. Anonymous IV tells us that the pieces of organum in the Magnus liber were mostly written by Leoninus and then were expanded and added onto by Perotinus, who was slightly younger. Leoninus was a priest and administrator at the cathedral as well as a composer. The precise identity of Perotinus is still disputed.
Traditionally, Leoninus is credited with developing two-part organum (for two voices) and Perotinus with writing three- and four-part organum. However, modern scholars dispute this. Ultimately, it is impossible to say with absolute certainty who wrote which piece of organum. So, the traditional attributions according to Anonymous IV are typically adopted.
All of the organum pieces for both men are based on pre-existing plainchant melodies. Whether there are two voices or four voices, the chant is sung by the lowest voice in extremely slow notes while the other voice(s) sing newly composed melodies over top. This slowing down of the chant stretches out the chant melody to the point of being unrecognizable. Thus, the intricacy of the polyphonic texture and the virtuosity of the voices becomes the main point of interest.
Our example of organum for this class uses the plainchant melody for “Viderunt omnes” (Psalm 98). This chant was typically sung during Mass on Christmas Day. Here is the text and translation for our excerpt, which does not contain the whole piece but only sets the first stanza of the psalm.
Vīdērunt omnēs fīnēs terræ All the ends of the earth have seen
salūtāre Deī nostrī. the prosperity of our God.
Jubilāte Deō, omnis terra. Rejoice in the Lord, all lands.
As is common for organum, this example only sets the first two words (“Viderunt omnes”) in polyphony in which soloists would typically sing the organum parts while the choir sings the plainchant melody. Then the whole choir would sing the remainder of the verse in plainchant.
This version, typically attributed to Perotinus, features four parts in total. Again, one part sings the chant melody in extremely long, slow notes, while the other three parts embellish with their own separate, independent and equally important melodies. This four-part example requires a little more rhythmic organization so that the parts can line up with each other. Unlike plainchant alone, Perotinus has to specify certain rhythms in order for each part to line up. Thus, a new form of rhythmic notation (called modal rhythm) was developed to do so. The original manuscript from the Magnus liber for this piece can be found here. You will see that it looks fairly similar to monophonic notation for plainchant or troubadour songs (except with multiple parts). But there are some slight differences in the notes to indicate rhythms.
Pérotin, “Viderunt omnes,” organum quadruplum, ~1200
Recording performed by the Early Music Consort of London, directed by David Munrow. [Listen on YouTube]
In the recording excerpt, the organum section (setting just the words “Viderunt omnes”) goes from 0:00 to 3:27. Then from 3:27 to 4:33 is the rest of the stanza above in monophonic plainchant. This arrangement would then continue for each stanza of the rest of the Psalm. The whole piece takes about 12 minutes to perform. If you are interested in hearing more, you can listen to the whole piece here. But you are only responsible for this excerpt.
Polyphonic Mass Setting
Settings of the texts of the Catholic Mass to music are part of the tradition of plainchant in the Medieval church. Unlike other chants, which might be circumstantial in their usage, Mass chants were sung regularly every time a Mass was given. Some of these chants changed week to week or by particular holidays or festivals. These chants, which changed, are known as the Mass Proper. Alongside those, there are five texts which were always sung to chant every Mass, known as the Mass Ordinary. These five texts are titled Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei. These five would always have been chanted at each Mass, although there were many different chants for each text. Like other chants, these were elaborated with polyphony such as organum. Over time, that polyphony became more and more complex. By the 14th century, composers were setting all five texts of the Ordinary in a complete musical setting with polyphony for each of the five sections. These polyphonic Mass settings were musically connected through all five parts in a way that the individual chants were not. They were intended to be performed as part of a Mass ceremony as a unit, rather than individually.
The most prominent composer of Mass settings in the 14th century was Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300–1377). He composed works in both sacred and secular genres (we will listen to one of his motets in the section below and to some of his chansons in the next class). In addition to being a composer, he was an accomplished poet and spent time serving in both court and church environments. As of 1323, he was in the service of the king of Bohemia (an area in the modern-day Czech Republic), but by 1340, he was a canon (member of the clergy) at Reims Cathedral in northwest France. His music was influential in establishing the standards of a number of different genres, and he is the first composer we know of to self-reflect on his role as an artist in society. Where composers like Leoninus and Perotinus might never have even signed their names to their music, Machaut actually gained widespread recognition and even a degree of fame during his lifetime. In the image below from an illuminated manuscript of the 1350s, you can see a depiction of Machaut receiving (as an aristocrat would) an anthropomorphized representation of Nature (wearing a crown) and three of her children.
Machaut composed only one complete setting of the Mass Ordinary, which is known as the Messe de Notre Dame (“Mass of Our Lady”). It is the earliest such setting that can be attributed to a single composer, instead of compiling sections written by multiple composers. The exact date is unknown, but it was definitively written by 1365 for Reims Cathedral and was at one point performed as a memorial Mass for the death of Machaut’s brother.
In the 14th century, a new musical style emerged which is often referred to as Ars Nova or “The New Art.” Composers like Machaut and Philippe de Vitry (1291–1361) responded to the existential threat of the Black Death or the bubonic plague, a major pandemic which ravaged Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia in the 1340s–1350s. These composers created music that was exceedingly complex and intricate. Partly, this was facilitated by changes in categorizing rhythms. Instead of the rhythms which we heard in the 12th-century organum example above, new techniques of conceptualizing and notating rhythm emerged. This resulted in the development of a technique called isorhythm, which used repeated rhythmic patterns (called talea) that could be combined with sequences of pitches (called color) to create complex polyphonic compositions. This technique was used by Machaut in his Messe de Notre Dame.
Our example is just one section of this Mass, the Gloria. See the text for this section below. Machaut writes his setting for four voices (similar to Perotinus’s organum example above). Here, the tenor is no longer the lowest voice, as there is one voice (the contratenor or as it would later be called, the bass) below it. The other two voices are above the tenor. Despite this change, the tenor voice is still the main scaffold around which everything is constructed. This new format also provides the basis for the modern division of choirs into soprano, alto, tenor, and bass parts, although the vocal ranges are not necessarily the same as today. In fact, our recording is sung by four men and as such is transposed to a lower pitch level to accommodate their vocal ranges.
While some sections of this Mass are based on pre-existing plainchant, the Gloria is not. This is a major change, as Machaut is creating music here that is completely new and not based on anything pre-existing or merely elaborating a plainchant melody (as in organum). Structurally, Machaut uses the text to break the Gloria into subsections (see indications below). The first line is always sung monophonically in plainchant. The polyphony begins at “Et in terra pax…”
Guillaume de Machaut, Messe de Notre Dame, “Gloria” (polyphonic mass), c. 1365
Recording performed by Diabolus in Musica, directed by Antoine Guerber. [Listen on YouTube]
| Gloria in excelsis Deo | Glory to God in the highest | plainchant (sung by soloist) |
|
Et in terra pax hominibus bone voluntatis. Laudamus te. Benedicamus te. Adoramus te. Glorificamus te. Gratias agimus tibi propter magnam gloriam tuam. |
And on Earth peace and good will among men. We praise you. We bless you. We adore you. We glorify you. We give you thanks for your great glory. |
polyphony, cadence at end |
|
Domine deus, rex celestis, deus pater omnipotens. Domine fili unigenite, Jesu Christe. Domine deus, agnus dei, filius patris. |
Lord God, King of Heaven, Almighty Father. Lord Jesus Christ, Only Begotten Son. Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father. |
polyphony, cadence at end |
|
Qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis. Qui tollis peccata mundi, suscipe deprecationem nostram. Qui sedes ad dexteram patris, miserere nobis. |
You who take away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us. You who take away the sins of the world, hear our prayer. You who sit at the right hand of the Father, have mercy on us. |
polyphony, cadence at end |
|
Quoniam tu solus sanctus. Tu solus dominus. Tu solus altissimus, Jesu Christe. Cum sancto spiritu, in gloria dei patris. |
For you alone are holy, You alone are the Lord, You alone are the most high, Jesus Christ. With the Holy Spirit, in the glory of God the Father. |
polyphony, cadence at end |
| Amen | Amen | polyphony, extended melismas on a single word, cadence at end |
Motet
As a genre, the motet originates in the 13th century and continued to be a popular genre for composers until the 18th century. Like organum, it uses a pre-existing, monophonic plainchant melody as the basis for a polyphonic composition. While the motet can be either secular or sacred depending on the text, we will focus on an example of a sacred motet from the 14th century. Although the specifics of the motet genre can vary depending on the time period, geographical location, and even from composer to composer, in general, it can be defined as a sacred, polyphonic piece for voices with Latin text, which may sometimes have instrumental accompaniment. They could be performed as part of a Mass or outside of a regular worship service in a special ceremony or other event.
In the 13th century, the motet shares with organum a number of features. In both genres, the plainchant melody is sung in very long, slow notes by the tenor while above, one or more other voices sing faster rhythms in complex polyphonic melodies. However, in organum, all voices sing the same text at the same time (derived from the plainchant). In the early Medieval motet, each voice sings a different text! This is typically referred to as a polytextual motet. While the tenor sings the plainchant in Latin, the other voices might sing in Latin or French with texts that are either sacred or secular. Like Mass settings, motets also used isorhythm.
As an example, let’s listen to this polytextual motet by Machaut: “Fera pessima / O livoris feritas / Fons totius.” The title here gives the first few words of each of the three separate texts that are sung in this piece by three different voices. The lowest voice, the tenor, sings the plainchant melody “Fera pessima” (Most evil beast). The other two voices, called the motetus and triplum, sing the other texts. In some cases, polytextual motets juxtapose texts that are related to each other in some way, but in other cases, they may be completely unrelated. The interest there is to find unusual connections between these otherwise seemingly unrelated texts. Machaut’s approach to setting these texts is extremely controlled due to the use of concrete, repeating patterns of pitches and rhythms (isorhythm) in the top two voices, but the overall effect of this technique can make the motet seem impenetrable. Take a look at the full text for each voice with translation here. The roman numerals next to the text indicate where each talea (rhythmic pattern) begins.
Certain references in the text for this motet (including “most evil beast,” “the old fierce dragon,” and “the scorpion”) suggest a possible connection between this piece and the Black Death. Since the dating of this motet is uncertain, it is possible that it predates this pandemic. In either case, it was common from the 14th century onwards for devotional music such as motets to make reference to religious remedies for disasters like a plague. Note in the text the invocations to “the Most Just Judge,” the Virgin Mary, and the Son of God to save the people from the most evil beast and to punish it.
You may find it helpful while listening to follow along with the text and translation. Pick one voice to concentrate on each time you listen rather than trying to absorb the whole polyphonic complex at once. After a couple of listens concentrating this way, try to listen for all three at once to get the full effect. It will be tricky at first to follow just one voice, so if you struggle with that, don’t worry, by the end of the semester, you will find this kind of close listening much easier.
You may hear some instruments playing with the voices in this recording. It was common in this period to have instruments play music originally written for voices, sometimes alongside those voices.
Guillaume de Machaut, “Fera pessima / O livoris feritas / Fons totius” (isorhythmic motet), 1340s
Recording performed by Ensemble Musica Nova. [Listen on YouTube]
After a few listens, take a look at a facsimile of the manuscript, which can be found here. The beginning of each voice part features a large illuminated capital letter; the triplum and motetus begin on page 1 and continue onto page 2, while the tenor is on page 2. Notice how the notation is similar to organum notation in the Magnus liber, but there are clearer indications of rhythm with the use of stems (lines on individual noteheads) and differently shaped notes (diamond vs. square). Isorhythm required a much more specific rhythmic notation in order to make sure the various rhythmic patterns aligned properly.
Discussion Questions
- How does your listening experience of these pieces compare to the monophonic examples we’ve listened to? Do they appeal to you more? Or less?
- How do we think about oral (unwritten) traditions versus written traditions? How does this affect our modern notions of a composer or author in relation to Medieval conventions?
- How do the examples of mass and motet by Machaut compare to the organum example in terms of the relationship of the different voice parts?
