Page 32 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

30 THE RISE OF VOCAL HARMONY

Pérotin’s Alleluia nativitas was
written for three voices. As seen here,
the number of lines in a staff was not
fixed at this time; they merely gave a
rough idea of the “height” of the notes.

singers in order that this kind of
minstrelish and wanton music may
be heard in his church, I believe
that he becomes contaminated
with the disease of simony.”
Attitudes such as Courçon’s, which
associated the intertwined male
voices of polyphony with sodomy,
sought to discredit the new musical
style by associating it with sin.

Two handbooks
The first works that attempted
to explain vocal harmony were
Musica enchiriadis (“The Music
Handbook”), c.900, and its
companion text Scholia enchiriadis.
The simplest harmonizing method
illustrated by the writer of the
handbooks was singing in octaves.
This technique was known as
“magadizing” in ancient Greece
and occurs naturally when men and also suggests a hybrid method, describe this technique as
boys sing in unison. The method of whereby the vox organalis a version of “heterophony”
utilizing a basic harmony, parallel (“accompanying voice”) either (embellishing a single line).
to the original chant, was called holds a pitch or moves in parallel
“simple organum” by the writer of harmony with the vox principalis Scattered examples
the enchiriadis. Scholia enchiriadis (“main voice”) before returning A short piece of organum for two
to a unison with the chant at the voices moving independently came
ends of phrases. to light in 2014 on the back leaf of a
Although simple organum manuscript in the British Library
involves more than one voice, this that can be dated to c. 900. It
singing in octaves is not normally appears to demonstrate that some
Masters of organum … set described by modern writers as singers in northwest Germany were
minstrelish and effeminate “polyphony,” because the two parts quite adept at this hybrid style of
things before young and are not independent. Creating organum by the end of the 9th
harmony by simply following the
century. Although it is a single
ignorant persons.
Robert of Courçon melody at a different octave (or isolated example, the piece (Sancte
Bonifati martyr, “St. Boniface the
other harmonic interval) makes the
English cardinal harmonizing part a slave to the Martyr”) is agreed to be the
(c.1160–1219)
chant’s shape and movement. The oldest existing notated piece of
effect is to enrich the sound of the polyphonic music for performance.
chant, but the technique of finding The Winchester Troper (c.1000),
this added harmony has little a manuscript copied into two books
finesse. Musicologists prefer to at Winchester Cathedral from

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