A History of Western Music: From Psalms to Polyphony
The psalms were probably performed responsorially,
That is that a soloist sing the verses, with a choir or congregations singing
The refrain, such as Alleluia. And antiphony, in which two groups of
Choirs sung 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 and from 6th, the Roman Rite became dominant and normative because of
The papal policy, then, the 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, and 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”. The are two sung parts, the Ordinarium and proprium. Where 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. The Structure is still used today, in the ordinarium are: Kyrie eleison, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus dei and Ite, missa est. And in the propium: The introit, Gradual, Alleluia, Offertory and Communion. In the text setting, the Introit, Sanctus and Agnus Dei were neumatic (between 2-10 notes for each syllable) Whereas for the Kyrie and Offertory often contained melismatic passages (+10), And Psalms, hymns, Glorias, readings from the Bible and prayers were performed Syllabically. Guillaume Machaut was the first to compose a polyphonic cyclic Mass, and in the cycle had four voices and it had the fixed parts of a ordinary Mass, Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus dei and Agnus dei. In the 15th century, G.Dufay used the cantus firmus masss, that 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 Exactly copied now either, but played around with, adapted, varied and ‘paraphrased’. It is not an abstract foundation that is difficult to perceive, But an audible, recognisable thematic musical core, like Missa Pange Lingua, That has also an imitation technique. There were other types of tenor masses Like canon mass and parody mass.
Polyphonic music: The polyphonic
Music is a simultaneous parts that differ from each other, in the music manual
Musica Enchiriadis. And the organum was used for this form of polyphonic
Singing, that means something in the correct mathematical order. There are a
Gregorian melodyor vox principalis to
Which a second, simultaneous voice is added with the same rhythm and text, the
Vox organalis. The first type is the parallel organum, the second, is the
Organum with a pedal point, where 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. The third type is melismatic
Organum, that appeared in the 12th century, where the vox organalis became more independent of the
Principalis, and becoming the more important musical part.
And the notation
System based on lines was used, and the polyphony began to be important in the
12th century with the Martial School in Limoges. The motet:
It was a
Genre emerged from the discant style and created when a new metric text was
Added to the duplum, with religious texts in Latin and they were within the
Organum and the liturgy. Later, the motets were written in French and became to
Be secular. In the 13th century, the French motet was more melodic and rhythmic
Freedom, increasingly independent voices with their own rhymthmic, texts and
Metric organisation and also the news smaller note values. Appeared the motet
Notation because the voices needed to be notated one above the other, with the
Three part motet./renaissance/ 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 happened in Josquin’s generation. Under Josquin’s influence appeared two tendencies, the First one has a imitation in all the voices with less attention to the Relationship between text and music than to contrapuntal play. And the second One has a close relationship between text and music and also imitation cantus Firmus and canons.