Introduction
A brief synopsis of music in the Middle Ages before Notre Dame Organum
Gregorian Chant
Gregorian Chant was the first music in western history that left any clear indication of its style or sound. It was named for Pope Gregory II and was spread throughout Western Europe by Charlemagne when he was crowned emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in 800 a.d. Plainchant, as it is called, was performed several times in religious services a day by monks. These daily services were called Offices. On special occasions, such as Easter and Christmas, the monks would perform a Mass appropriate to the event. Unlike music of the later centuries, plainchant had no rhythm and until later in musical development, had no pitch center. The piches just wandered however the composer saw fit.The Mass
The Mass is the most important part of the plainchant liturgy. It consists of two main sections: the Ordinary and the Proper. The Ordinary is performed with the same text every time the Mass is performed. The P!
roper was performed for every Mass but the text often changed from performance to performance. The sections of the ordinary include the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei and either the Ite, missa est or the Benedicamus Domino (the two are interchangeable). The sections of the Proper include the Introit, Collects, Epistle, Gradual, Alleluia or Tract, Sequence, Gospel, Offertory, Preface, Communion and Post-Communion.Additions to the Liturgy
Over the course of about 300 years, between the tenth and thirteenth centuries, many additions to the liturgy were made. These additions were always made to the Proper parts of the Mass. The monophonic, or one-voiced additions included tropes, sequences and liturgical drama. Tropes were additions of new text, new music or both to an already existing chant.
Sequences used both new text and new music and were generally composed in the form ABBCCDD...N. Liturgical drama involved the addition of both new music and new text, the text telling a story relevant to the particular Mass, and added into the middle or beginning of the original chant text.Polyphony
The addition of polyphony to the liturgy was a tremendous change in music to date. Prior to the invention of organum (early polyphonic music), there were no real records of music being sung in more than one voice in the liturgy. The earliest organum was note-against-note or punctus contra punctum meaning that for every note of the original plainchant, one note was composed above it for a second voice. As time wore on, the style became more advanced, and variations on the original note-against-note organum began to surface. The most advanced organum in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was called Notre Dame Organum, name!
d for the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, where the organum style was taught and used.
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