This
month, Clef Notes has been looking at music from the Medieval era. It’s
impossible to cover everything in just one month’s time. Hopefully, however,
you have at least been given a good glance at where our Western music tradition
finds its roots. This week, let’s wrap up the month by looking at polyphony –
music in which multiple voices sing together on independent parts.
Polyphony
first rose in significance during the 11th and 12th
centuries with the purpose of adding ornamentation to liturgical music. It
helped develop the ideas of counterpoint and harmony. It likely existed prior
to this point in history, however the earliest written records of this type of
music date from this time period. There are various genres of polyphony. We
will look at organum today.
Organum
consists of a melody sung against a drone or a melody doubled at a consonant
interval. It includes two voice parts that follow counterpoint rules. There are
various types of organum that we will briefly mention here, but I strongly
encourage you to explore more on your own if you find this topic interesting.
Parallel organum uses a pre-existing chant in one voice and adds an “organal”
voice a fifth below, note for note. Free organum allows the “organal” voice
more independence, moving in similar motion (same direction but different
interval), contrary motion (opposite direction), or oblique motion (one voice
stays the same while the other moves) to the chant voice. Later in the 12th
century we see more ornate examples of this type of polyphony, with anywhere
from one to three notes in one part to every one note in the original chant
voice. Around this time, we see musicians beginning to compose rather that just
improvise music, and their system of notation began to indicate duration of
notes. It didn’t look quite like music notes do today. They used combinations
of note groups rather than note shapes to show the desired duration.
Two
important Notre Dame musicians of the time were Leonin and Perotin. These men
wrote polyphony, specifically organum. Leonin was known for his collection of
two-voice organum, while Perotin also wrote for three or even four voices!
I
think that’s probably enough early music for one sitting. Let’s look more at
another polyphonic genre next time – the motet!
