Page 31 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

EARLY MUSIC 1000–1400 29

See also: Plainchant 22–23 ■ Micrologus 24–25 ■ Messe de Notre Dame 36–37 ■ Canticum Canticorum 46–51 ■
Monteverdi’s Vespers 64–69 ■ Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott 78–79

The nave of Notre Dame de Paris shifting the single note to an
was completed shortly after the death adjacent pitch, to make a more
of Maurice de Sully in 1196. Léonin and pleasant relationship with the
Pérotin created their music in or close chant before moving back to the
to the new cathedral.
finalis. Traditions involving a fixed
note accompaniment are still heard
century, but the stages in the today, in Sufi Muslim Qawwali
development of harmony-singing music from India and Pakistan,
are unclear. The papal Schola and in bagpipe music.
cantorum (choir) of the 7th century
maintained a total of seven singers, A sinful sound
including three scholae (scholars) The move toward polyphony was
as well as an archiparaphonista not universally welcomed. Some
(the fourth-ranking singer) and within the church objected to the
three paraphonistae, a Greek term new methods—notably the English
meaning “one who sings alongside cardinal Robert of Courçon, who
the chant.” Some musicologists criticized the writers of organum
believe this may suggest the on the grounds that this new music
presence of singers who specialized was effeminate. In his Summa, he
in a harmonizing role. wrote that “If a wanton prelate
He described Léonin as the The simplest harmonizing gives benefices to such wanton ❯❯
optimus organista (best composer technique was for a singer to hold
of organa, or vocal harmonizations) the finalis (principal note) of the
and the author of the Magnus liber mode of the piece as a sustained Cistercian monks at Zwettl Abbey,
Austria, practice choral singing in this
organi (Great Book of Organum), an note underneath the chant. This miniature accompanying notation for
anthology of music used by the would be sung to an open vowel the Graduale Cisterciense (c.1268). A
cathedral to solemnify the liturgy. sound, perhaps occasionally graduale is a liturgical chant or hymn.
Anonymous IV writes that
Léonin’s Great Book was used until
the time of Pérotin (c. 1160–1205),
who was known as the best
composer of discants—an organum
with countermelodies on top of the
plainsong. Pérotin shortened and
improved Léonin’s organa, wrote
better clausulae (musical episodes
inserted in the chant), and also
composed organa for three and four
voices. According to Anonymous
IV, Pérotin’s music was still in use
at Notre Dame in his time (c.1280).
Early harmony
Before the time of Léonin,
vocal harmonies were far simpler.
Theorists took a certain interest
in the practice of singing in parts
from the latter half of the 9th

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