chant and monastic life

prelude

• sacred repertory (plainchant) was created for ceremonial use and served as a principal element of public worship in the western Christian church, essentially a musical prayer

• non-sacred songs (secular monody) were courtly and elite or popular and traditional, intended for entertainment and communicating feelings

• all 3 repertories were primarily monophonic, originated in oral cultures, and were performed from memory

  • sacred music was monophonic to keep the focus on the text, even though polyphonic music existed at the time

• repertory of chant became more fluid and varied and were classified into church modes as the western Christian church spread

western Christian chant and liturgy

• music can't be separated from the verbal message or from its place in the worship service

• the liturgy is made up of a body of texts and rites whose purpose is to glorify God and the saints, teach the gospels, and exhort the worshippers along the path of salvation

• the divine office centers on the communal reading of the psalms

  • prayers every few hours - provides the ritual around which life in a monastery or convent is structured

  • series of eight services at specified times around the clock - needed a set schedule to work through 150 songs

  • prayers, recitations of scriptural passages, songs

• the mass includes readings and prayers but is unique in its ritualistic commemoration of the last supper

  • culminates in a symbolic reenactment of the last supper

  • most important service of the Catholic church

  • structure of the mass:

    • introductory prayers

    • liturgy of the word

    • liturgy of the Eucharist

  • mass ordinary - unchanging text

    • kyrie, gloria, credo, sanctus, agnus dei

    • king george creates savvy armies, king george creates super armadillos

    • simple syllabic melodies replaced with ornate settings for choral performance

    • threefold repetition of each phrase of text

  • mass proper - variable special text for different events

    • introit, collects, epistle, gradual, alleluia, gospel, offertory, communion, and other

• oral transmission

  • chants were learned by hearing others sing them and were transmitted without writing

  • melodies were subject to change and variation

• notation of chant

  • invented to standardize the performance of chant melodies - late eighth and ninth centuries

  • worked with frankish leaders to promote a uniform liturgy and music in order to consolidate and increase influence on worshippers

  • legend of st. gregory - dove whispered the chants in his ear, charlemagne propaganda

    • problems - notation hadn't been invented yet

• diffusion of chant

  • 5th-9th centuries - people in western and northern europe converted to Christianity and adopted the doctrines and rites of the roman church

  • gregorian chant was established and all important developments in european music took place north of the alps because the southern Christian regions were either occupied or under threat of attack

  • missionaries from irish and scottish monasteries established schools

  • development of important musical centers, including saint gall monastery

  • melodic lines have more leaps, especially thirds, and introduction of new melodies and new forms of chant

genres and forms of chant

• chant classification

  • texts

    • biblical/non-biblical

    • prose/poetry

  • manner of performance

    • antiphonal - alternating choirs

    • responsorial - choir responds to a soloist

    • direct - sung by one choir

  • musical style

    • syllabic - one note per syllable

    • melismatic - many notes per syllable

    • neumatic - two to seven notes per syllable

• basic formulas

  • formulas are simple melodic outlines that can be used with many different texts

• text setting

  • musical contours of a chant generally reflect the way the latin words were pronounced

  • florid chants prioritize the melodic curve rather than syllables

  • plainchant calls for word repetition only where it exists in the text of the prayer, melodies rarely use emotional or pictorial effects

• melodic structure

  • melody divided into phrases and periods corresponding to the phrases and periods of the text

  • phrases follow an arch, starting low and going high

• chant forms

  • two balanced phrases that correspond to halves of a typical psalm verse

  • same melody sung to several stanzas of text (ex. strophic)

  • free form can be entirely original or incorporate traditional melodic formulas into original composition

chants of the office:

• psalm tones

  • oldest chants in liturgy, formulas for chanting the psalms - designed to fit the words of any psalm

  • one tone for each mode and an extra (tonus peregrinus/wandering tone)

  • sung to tone that matches the mode of the antiphon

  • five separate melodic elements

    • intonation rises to reciting tone

    • semicadence/mediant at the midpoint of the verse

    • continues on reciting tone

    • concludes by descending to a final cadence/termination

    • final verse leads into lesser doxology

  • words of doxology fitted to same psalm tone as verses

  • each psalm will have a new antiphon every week

• antiphonal psalmody

  • half-verses alternate between two choirs

• antiphon

  • more numerous than any other type of chant

  • most use the same melody with slight variations

  • intended to be sung by a group

  • syllabic or florid

chants of the mass proper:

• introit and communion

  • introit was originally a complete psalm but was shortened to consist of the original antiphon, a single verse and a repetition of the antiphon

  • communion is a short chant consisting of one verse

• gradual and alleluia

  • the most highly developed chants

  • occur at contemplative moments where no ritual action occurs

  • only one psalm verse sung to an elaborate melody

  • graduals came to the frankish churches highly evolved

• responsorial performance

  • soloist sings the word alleluia

  • chorus repeats it and continues with the jubilus

  • soloist sings psalm verse

  • chorus joins in on last phrase

• offertory

  • as melismatic as graduals but include the response only

later developments of chant:

• chants of the ordinary

• tropes

  • expanded an existing chant by adding new words and music before the chant and between phrases; melody only and extending/adding melismas; text only and set to existing melismas

  • used for creativity because you couldn't change the actual chants

  • flourished in monasteries but were eventually banned in the interest of simplifying and standardizing the liturgy

• sequences

  • began as tropes but quickly became independent compositions

  • text syllables used to help remember long melismas

  • banned by council of trent

• liturgical drama

  • type of play that grew out of ritual and was performed on holy days such as easter and christmas, originated in troping

  • music consists of a number of chants strung together with processions and actions that approach theatrical representation

• hildegard of bingen

  • unique, non-liturgical but sacred music drama

  • ordo virtutum is a morality play with allegorical characters who all sing in plainchant except the devil, who can only speak

  • women could participate fully in singing the office and mass in convents, learned to read and write latin and music, and had access to an intellectual life

medieval music theory and practice

• church modes

  • eight modes identified by number, defined by the sequences of whole tones and semitones in a diatonic octave built on a finalis/final (used as last note in melody)

  • modes paired, share same final

    • odd numbered modes (authentic) and even numbered modes (plagal)

  • no absolute pitches, just a way to distinguish interval patterns

  • each mode has a second characteristic note (tenor/reciting tone)

• solmization

  • facilitated sight-singing

  • guido of arezzo proposed a set of syllables - ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, together made a hexachord

  • helped locate semitones in chant

  • became modern solfege

• guidonian hand

  • visual device

  • pupils were taught to sing intervals as the teacher pointed with the index finger of the right hand to the different joints of the open left hand

  • each joint stood for one of the twenty notes that made up the musical system

• the staff

  • notes/neumes were originally placed above the text

  • one scribe oriented the neumes around a horizontal line

  • guido suggested an arrangement of lines and spaces from which evolved the modern staff