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| Chapter 2: Chant and Secular Song in
the Middle Ages, 4001450 |
| Roman Chant and Liturgy |
- Liturgy
- Body of texts and rites that make up a sacred service.
- Varies according to the topic dictated by the Church calendar.
- The language was Latin, the official language of the Church.
- Divine Office, or Canonical Hours
- Divine Office is a series of eight prayer services observed
at specified times daily at convents and cathedrals.
- First codified ca. 520 in the Rule of St. Benedict
- Prayers, psalms and hymns are the main focus.
- Antiphons are sung with each psalm and vary according to
the church calendar.
- Passages of scripture (not connected to psalms) are sung
with responsories.
- The most important offices for music are Matins (before
daybreak), Lauds (at sunrise), and Vespers (sunset).
- Mass
- Combines readings from the Bible (Liturgy of the Word)
with prayers of thanks and praise and a symbolic reenactment
of Christ's Last Supper (Eucharist, or Holy Communion)
- Structure of the Mass liturgy
- The version from the Council of Trent reforms (Tridentine)
is the form used in NAWM and CHWM (see p.
21).
- Introductory section
- Kyrie and Gloria (begun by priest and sung by choir)
- Collects and Epistle (prayers and readings sung
by priest)
- Gradual, Alleluia or Tract, Sequence (sung by soloist
or soloists with responses by the choir)
- Liturgy of the Word
- Gospel (readings sung by priest)
- Sermon (optional, spoken by priest)
- Credo (begun by priest and sung by choir)
- Liturgy of the Eucharist (Communion)
- Offertory (sung by choir during preparation for
Communion)
- Canon (consecration) and Lord's prayer (both
sung to formulas)
- Agnus Dei, Communion (sung by choir before and
after Communion, respectively)
- Post-Communion prayers (sung by priest)
- Ite missa est or Benedicamus Domino (sung by priest
with response by choir)
- Texts of the liturgy
- Proper texts vary according to the church calendar.
- Most of the prayers, all of the readings
- Introit, Gradual, Alleluia, Tract, Offertory, and
Communion
- Ordinary texts are the same at every Mass throughout
the year.
- Sung by the choir
- Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus, Agnus
Dei
- Notation (see etude, p. 23 in CHWM)
- Notation for chant today consists of neumes that represent
one or more pitches on a fourline staff.
- Notation originated in the ninth century, with the
attempt to unify the liturgy and chants of the Frankish
kingdom.
- Methods of classifying chants
- Subject (biblical or nonbiblical)
- Performance practice
- Antiphonal: sung by alternating choirs
- Responsorial: sung by soloist(s) with a choral
response
- Direct: no alternation (choral)
- Text-setting style
- Syllabic: one note per syllable
- Melismatic: frequent use of many notes per syllable
(melismas)
- Neumatic: mostly syllabic but with melismas up
to five notes long
- Important words and syllables are often highlighted
by higher pitches or long melismas.
- The grammar of the text usually determines the
structure of the melody (John "Cotton" vignette
in HWM).
- Chants of the Office
- Psalm tones are formulas for reciting the verses of the
psalms.
- One for each of the eight church modes (discussed later)
plus one extra formula, Tonus peregrinus (wandering tone).
- Initium: formula for the beginning of the first verse
of the psalm
- Reciting tone or Tenor: reciting pitch, used for the
majority of the syllables
- Mediatio: cadence formula for the mid-point of a psalm
verse
- Terminatio: final cadence formula for the end of each
psalm verse (variable)
- Lesser Doxology; text added to the end of the psalm
but sung with the same formula
- Each day of the Church calendar has specific short
chants (antiphons) that frame the psalm, e.g. Tecum
principium (NAWM 4b).
- Antiphonal singing: two choirs or two halves of a choir
alternate verses of a psalm
- Antiphon
- Were originally sung after every verse
- Most numerous category of chant
- Usually in simple style for choral singing
- Some became parts of the Proper of the Mass
- Chants of the Mass
- Simple chants derived from psalmody
- Introit
- Was originally a complete psalm with its antiphon
- Shortened to antiphon, psalm verse, Lesser Doxology,
repeat of antiphon
- Communion, near the end of the Mass, consists of only
one scriptural verse
- Responsorial chants (for meditative portions of the Mass)
- Consist of a respond (framing verse) for soloist(s)
and choir and a single, composed, psalm verse for the
soloist(s)
- Gradual
- Florid melody
- Soloist(s) sings the beginning of the respond
(framing verse).
- Choir joins for the end of the respond.
- Soloist(s) sings the psalm verse.
- Choir joins on the last phrase.
- Many graduals have melismatic formulas because
they were originally memorized rather than notated.
- Alleluia (see CHWM, p. 29)
- Similar in form to the Gradual (both are responsorial)
- The respond text is always "Alleluia."
- The final melisma (on "ia") is called
a jubilus.
- Alleluias are less formulaic than graduals.
- Ordinary chants
- Texts are invariable.
- Longer texts, Gloria and Credo, are set syllabically.
- Shorter texts, Kyrie, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei
- Have melismatic settings
- Three-part text structures often reflected in the
structure of the chant
- Tropes and Sequences
- Tropes: newly composed additions to chants (NAWM 7)
- New words and music added
- New melismas added without text
- New words added to existing melismas
- Flourished in the tenth and eleventh centuries
- Sequences originated as tropes to Alleluias but became
independent pieces.
- Notker Balbulus (ca. 840912) put words to music
at St. Gall (see vignette in HWM).
- The sequence was a popular compositional type in the
tenth through thirteenth centuries.
- Most banned by the Council of Trent (154563)
- Liturgical dramas
- Originated as tropes
- Example: NAWM 7, Quem quaeritis in praesepe
- Whom do you seek in the Manger?
- Dialogue and acting preceding the third Mass of
Christmas Day.
- Morality plays
- Sacred but not part of the liturgy
- Example: NAWM 6, Hildegard of Bingen's (10981179)
Ordo Virtutum
- All parts (except Devil) sung in plainchant
- Characters are allegorical.
- Hildegard composed both melodies and words of sequences
and other chants.
- Medieval Music Theory
- Practical issues were more important than theoretical elegance
in the treatises of the Middle Ages.
- Boethius continued to be the main source of Greek theory,
but authors adapted his writings to accommodate issues
of concern to them.
- Theoretical ideas addressed the need to help students
learn, memorize, and read chants.
- The church modes are part of a pitch classification system
that became finalized in the eleventh century. This system
was used for classifying existing chants, which often do not
fit the theory precisely.
- There are eight modes, two each on four "finals."
- The four finals are D, E, F, G (pitches not absolute).
- Authentic modes had their range above their final.
- Plagal modes had their range above and below their
finals, making them about a perfect fourth below their
authentic counterparts.
- The modes are numbered, with authentic modes having
odd numbers and their plagal counterpart the next
higher number (e.g., the authentic D mode is 1, the
plagal D mode is 2, etc.).
- Tenor: second characteristic tone of each mode
- In authentic modes the tenor is a perfect fifth
above the final.
- In plagal modes the tenor is a third below the
final of the corresponding authentic mode, but when
the resulting pitch is a B, the tenor is C.
- The only flatted pitch used at the time was B-flat
and there were no raised pitches.
- In the tenth century some theorists applied the Greek
modal names to the church modes, but they are the same
in name only.
- Solmization: a system for teaching sight-singing
- Guido of Arezzo (ca. 1025) proposed syllables to represent
pitches.
- The hymn Ut queant laxis (CHWM, ex. 2.4)
starts each phrase one step higher than the previous phrase,
so its syllables were used.
- Ut = C, re = D, mi = E, fa
= F, sol = G, la = A
- This system is still used, with do for ut
in English, and ti for B.
- The Guidonian hand: Assigning notes to parts of the
hand helped Medieval and Renaissance students learn their
intervals.
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