So all of the early music was monophonic, or only had one
line of melody without any harmony. Polyphony (multiple lines of music) most
likely developed as a way for soloists to show off. It was discussed in Musica enchiriadis, a musical handbook
aimed at students, and was called organum. There were several different kinds
of organum, the main ones being note-against-note organum, which is when the
voices move at the same time, and free organum which consisted of oblique,
parallel, contrary, and similar motion.
Aquitarian polyphony developed a specific style of writing
music in the twelfth century. They often had florid polyphony, which is when
the upper voice has a long melody while the lower note holds one out. One issue
with their notation though was that the timing between the voices was never
clear, so a lot of this is up for interpretation. The opposite of this was
discant clasula, which was the term for a section of the piece that only
consisted of note-against-note organum. (Discant was another term for
note-against-note, while clasula just referred to a part of the piece, or
clause.)
From there, Notre Dame polyphony was developed in the
thirteenth century. They developed a system of notation that was a lot clearer
than the Aquitarian system. This included using ligatures to connect notes and
a system of notes called longs and breves to indicate durations. They also
developed six rhythmic modes, all of which were in threes. Two main composers
of this time were Leonin and Perotin. The treatise Anonymous IV credits Leonin
with putting together a “Magnus Liber Organi” or “Great Book of Organum.” Of
course, it wasn’t just him, but the extent that he worked on it is uncertain.
The composers of Notre Dame polyphony also liked to write substitute clasula,
or clauses that could substitute others in a piece.
The writing of substitute clasula led directly to the
development of the thirteenth century motet. Eventually, composers started
putting words to the substitute clasula that they were writing, and this
developed into its own genre. Duple or triple motets started to be written,
which is when more than one voice is texted, or polytextuality. Since this made
the words difficult to understand, motets were written for a more elite
audience. The third voice added (usually in the middle, above the tenor) was
even called the motetus, which is where the term motet comes from. Many motets
were preserved in the Codexes Montpellier and Bamburg, which were collections
of hundreds of pieces and motets. Often motets were a type of cantus firmus,
which is when the tenor has a part of a chant that the rest of the piece is
based off of. The tenor got the short end of the stick here, they’re just
chanting while the other two voices (triplum and duplum/motetus) get these
pretty melodies.
Then Franconian notation was developed, which included
double longs and the semibreve. This led to much more rhythmic variety. This
was taken advantage of by composers like Adam de la Halle and Petrus de la
Cruce in their pieces.
Then the Ars Nova, or New Art, developed in France. The Ars
Nova featured both triplets and duplets, which was pretty controversial at the
time since people considered the triplet to represent the Holy Trinity. As a
result, triplets were called perfect time and duplets imperfect time. They also
had isorhythm, which is when a part has a rhythm and then repeats it, not
necessarily with the same notes. There was also hoquet, which is when voices
alternate very quickly. And the tenor had a rhythmic part called the talea,
which would match up with the color, or melody, in the upper voices. The talea
was usually shorter than the color and it would take a few repetitions until
they matched up. All this can be seen in pieces by Phillippe de Vitry who wrote
several fourteenth century motets.
So that’s the motet. It’s not that interesting, but there
are some interesting connections between early and modern music, and hopefully
I’ll get around to writing about that soon.
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