A Comprehensive Guide to Medieval and Renaissance Music: From Gregorian Chant to Polyphony
The psalms were probably performed responsorially, that is, a soloist sang the verses, with a choir or congregations singing the refrain, such as Alleluia. And antiphony, in which two groups of choirs sang alternating psalm verses.
Gregorian Music (4th-9th Centuries)
The early, monophonic liturgical music in this early period of official Christianity didn’t exist in the form of one unified style. From the 6th century, the Roman Rite became dominant and normative because of the papal policy. Then, Pope Gregory I sent St. Augustine to England in 597 to establish the Roman Rite there. In the 8th century, the Roman songs became widespread across the kingdom of the Franks, and a ‘hybrid style’ of the Gallican variant emerged. It was to be given the name ‘Gregorian’ after Pope Gregory I.
Mass
The term missa or mass comes from the final words of the Eucharist ceremony: “Ite, missa est”. There are two sung parts, the ordinarium and proprium. The parts of the ordinarium stay the same in every celebration of the mass, whereas the proprium changes depending on the day, feast, or ritual, like Christmas, mass for the dead or réquiem, or Easter.
Structure of the Mass
The structure is still used today. In the ordinarium are:
- Kyrie eleison
- Gloria
- Credo
- Sanctus
- Agnus dei
- Ite, missa est
And in the proprium:
- The introit
- Gradual
- Alleluia
- Offertory
- Communion
In the text setting, the Introit, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei were neumatic (between 2-10 notes for each syllable), whereas the Kyrie and Offertory often contained melismatic passages (+10). Psalms, hymns, Glorias, readings from the Bible, and prayers were performed syllabically.
Polyphonic Mass
Guillaume Machaut was the first to compose a polyphonic cyclic mass. The cycle had four voices and included the fixed parts of an ordinary mass: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus dei, and Agnus dei.
In the 15th century, G. Dufay used the cantus firmus mass, which could be derived from spiritual or profane music (L’homme armé). After, Ockeghem used techniques like the crab and proportional canons. Also, the contrapuntal tours at this time can be found in his freely composed masses.
Then, with Josquin Des Prez appeared the paraphrase mass, where the melody begins to infiltrate the other voices and is no longer exactly copied but played around with, adapted, varied, and ‘paraphrased’. It is not an abstract foundation that is difficult to perceive, but an audible, recognizable thematic musical core, like Missa Pange Lingua, which also has an imitation technique. There were other types of tenor masses like canon mass and parody mass.
Polyphonic Music
Polyphonic music is a simultaneous parts that differ from each other, as described in the music manual Musica Enchiriadis. The organum was used for this form of polyphonic singing, which means something in the correct mathematical order.
Types of Organum
There is a Gregorian melody or vox principalis to which a second, simultaneous voice is added with the same rhythm and text, the vox organalis.
- Parallel organum: The vox organalis moves in parallel with the vox principalis.
- Organum with a pedal point: The vox principalis goes up, then the vox organalis goes to the same low pitch. When the interval is a fourth, the vox organalis goes with the principalis in parallel.
- Melismatic organum: This type appeared in the 12th century, where the vox organalis became more independent of the principalis and became the more important musical part.
The notation system based on lines was used, and polyphony began to be important in the 12th century with the Martial School in Limoges.
The Motet
The motet was a genre that emerged from the discant style and was created when a new metric text was added to the duplum, with religious texts in Latin. They were within the organum and the liturgy. Later, the motets were written in French and became secular.
Evolution of the Motet
In the 13th century, the French motet had more melodic and rhythmic freedom, increasingly independent voices with their own rhythmic, texts, and metric organization, and also the new smaller note values. The motet notation appeared because the voices needed to be notated one above the other, with the three-part motet.
The Isorhythmic Motet
In the isorhythmic motet, G. Dufay composed his Nuper Rosarum Flores. It was composed for the consecration of the Santa Maria del Fiore, with an Anglo-French style and imitative counterpoint in the upper voice. This motet has a brilliant fusion of elegant vocal lines and counterpoint, with a complex mathematical structure and even a touch of dramatic text expression.
Dufay mainly wrote Marian motets, with a considerable extension of the theme of motets to include psalm texts only really happening in Josquin’s generation.
Josquin’s Influence on the Motet
Under Josquin’s influence, two tendencies appeared:
- The first one has imitation in all the voices with less attention to the relationship between text and music than to contrapuntal play.
- The second one has a close relationship between text and music and also imitation cantus firmus and canons.