Chapter One Outline «Last» I Chapter 1: the First Literate Repertory In

Chapter One Outline «Last» i Chapter 1: The First Literate Repertory in Western Music: Gregorian Chant I. Introduction A. Music notation began more than 1,000 years ago. Before that, we know very little about how it sounded. Music for the Roman Catholic Church is the first notated music in the West. B. Surviving illustrations, such as those found on prehistoric cave paintings, Egyptian murals, and Greek pottery, provide clues concerning instruments, as do written descriptions, such as those found in the Bible. C. Early notation from Babylon survives: see Ex. 1-1. The intervals used therein are also recognized as consonant in today’s Western music. D. Ancient Greeks developed pitch-specific notation, and some pieces have been deciphered. 1. The Epitaph of Seikolos, probably from the first century BCE, survives in complete form on a tombstone. See Ex. 1-2. 2. Greeks used symbols to indicate pitch and rhythm. 3. Music played an important role in Greece: It was prevalent in drama; philosophers such as Plato discussed its power. II. The Distant Past A. Theories of Music 1. Pythagoras discussed physical properties of music, noting which were consonant and dissonant. St. Augustine wrote about the rhythmic aspects of music in De musica. 2. Boethius wrote the treatise most studied in the Middle Ages, De institutione musica, in which he translated earlier ideas. a) Boethius lays out the premise of abstract music (which derives from the followers of Plato) in a doctrine of ethos: in ascending order of significance these are musica instrumentalis (audible music), musica humana (music of the human constitution), musica mundana (music of the cosmos). b) The ideas presented in De institutione musica influenced Western thought for centuries, as Ex. 1-3 illustrates. B. Historical Imagination 1. Early medieval notation employed a diatonic pitch set similar to the Greek system. The first systems included only pitch; rhythm enters around the late twelfth century. 2. Notated music of the early Middle Ages is predominantly sacred. It is known as monophonic chant. 3. Notated chant represents only a small part of musical life in this period. 4. The first great surviving Western repertory is Gregorian chant. a) Gregorian chant is one aspect of a life devoted to God, not concert or party music. b) We should try to hear Gregorian chant in the context of its original contemporaries in order to gain a clearer understanding Chapter One Outline «Last» ii and appreciation for it. By so doing, we may gain perspective on our own world. C. Christian Beginnings, as far as We Know Them 1. Several different chant repertories existed in the early Middle Ages (before Charlemagne), representing practices from different parts of the Christian world. 2. We will focus on that of the Roman church, which has the most extensive written legacy and came into prominence under the reign of Charlemagne (c. 742–814). a) Charlemagne conquered much of Europe and was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day, 800. b) Charlemagne brought some of the greatest minds to his court, including Alcuin of York, who instituted an education curriculum in which music was part of the quadrivium (four arts of measurement, along with arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy). This system considers the measurable qualities of music: harmonic ratios and rhythm. c) Charlemagne’s centralization of authority extended to the church, which resulted in suppressing alternative rites and establishing the Roman rite (with its constituent chants) as the “correct” way. d) The words of the Roman liturgy were easily codified, but the melodic aspects of chant required notation in order to spread the Roman versions of chants. D. The Legend of St. Gregory 1. Through legend, Pope Gregory I (pope 590–604) became credited with creating the entire musical repertory of the Roman church. 2. He was purported to have been taught the sacred chants by the Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove. This made it holy, divine, better than any other chant repertories, and unchangeable. 3. Gregorian chant was central to a monastic life. a) Monasteries and convents arose very early in the life of the Christian church. b) The practices of chanting psalms in monastic settings gradually developed into Gregorian chant, as “speaking” the texts in a heightened pattern assisted in both memory and focus. c) These chants were monophonic and sung by the entire community of worshippers, not a trained choir. III. Liturgy A. The Development of the Liturgy: The Offices and the Mass 1. The Offices a) The Offices were eight daily services that featured the psalms— all psalms were to be heard within the space of a week. b) Offices were spaced roughly every three hours, and some of them bear names derived from that spacing (Prime, Terce, Sext, Chapter One Outline «Last» iii and None). The others relate to a specific part/activity of day (Matins, Lauds, Vespers, and Compline). c) Offices contain at least a psalm, scripture reading, and a hymn. d) Some of the Offices contain canticles, which are similar to psalms but from the New Testament. e) Feast days marked the liturgical year. f) Eventually, antiphons introduced psalms—these were newly created musical compositions. 2. The Mass a) The most elaborate music of the Christian Church is associated with the Mass. During the Mass, celebrants re-enact the Last Supper of Jesus, the Jewish Passover Seder. b) The Mass Proper consists of the texts that are “proper” to the day—that change based upon the feast day, liturgical calendar, etc. c) The Mass Ordinary consists of the “ordinary” texts—the ones done every time. These developed over time, but have existed in their present form for centuries. The five sections are Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei. B. Writing It Down: Neumes 1. Chant notation evolved through the invention of neumes. 2. Scholars believe that neumes were invented to indicate accent, which implied direction, although these explanations are not completely proven. 3. In the early eleventh century, neumes were placed on lines and spaces. We call these diastematic neumes. C. Guido of Arezzo 1. The Italian monk Guido of Arezzo wrote a treatise on music theory (Micrologus) and provided the earliest guide to staff notation in the early eleventh century. The norm for early notation is four staff lines. 2. Guido used the hymn Ut queant laxis as a device to teach sight- singing. Each syllable of this text is one step above the next. (Think “Doe, a deer,” from the Sound of Music.) This is the beginning of solmization. 3. Guido describes a system in which music is organized around groups of six consecutive pitches, hence hexachord. a) Hexachords began on G, A, C, and D and followed what we consider the “white notes” of the piano. See Ex. 1-6. b) Hexachords with a major third (e.g., on G or C) were the “hard” hexachords, and those with a minor (e.g., A and D) were “soft.” c) The tritone from F–B was “fixed” by substituting B-mi for B-fa; that is, lowering it a half-step to what we consider B-flat. d) Guido is well-known to musicians for his Guidonian Hand, a visual guide to sight-singing based on solmization. See Fig. 1-9. 4. Later teachers added si (ti) and substituted do for ut. Chapter One Outline «Last» iv 5. After Guido, square or quadratic notation became standard (beginning in the twelfth century). This notation can be found in the Liber usualis (a large anthology of chants for the Mass and Office). See Exx. 1-7a and 7b. D. Modal Theory 1. Psalm tones outline the basic functions of singing psalms. There are eight plus the tonus peregrinus (“migrating tone”). They consist primarily of a primary reciting tone (tenor) and ending note (finalis). 2. Mode indicates not simply a scale, but also melodic characteristics. 3. Collections of antiphons grouped according to the psalm tones with which they were associated are known as tonaries. These emerged in the ninth century. a) These groupings were practical because they assisted in group singing of the psalms in the correct patterns. b) The existence of tonaries means that the person who put them together had to deal with a large body of music and organize it. c) The result was neither Greek nor Roman, but Frankish (after the Franks, Charlemagne being the most famous). 4. Chant classification by mode and its correspondence with psalm tones involves the recognition of the range (ambitus). a) Chants are broken down further based on the range + final. b) Those that end on the final are “authentic.” c) Those that emphasize the final in the middle of their range are “plagal.” 5. Eight modes make up the Medieval church modes, whose names may be found in Boethius’ writings. 6. Pitch is non-standard in medieval music, so we should not associate modes with pitches found on the piano. Notation indicates the arrangement of half-steps and whole-steps. E. Psalmody in Practice: The Office and the Mass 1. Justus ut palma florebit (Psalm 91) in the Office a) As a psalm tone. (1) To sing Justus ut palma florebit according to the psalm tone, the soloist gives the intonation, which ascends to a repeated pitch (reciting tone). (2) Everyone else enters for the recitation (on the reciting tone), which lasts as long as is needed for the text. The setting is syllabic. (3) The second half begins on the reciting tone. (4) The psalm ends with a fall to the termination, or cadence. (5) The Doxology is added to the end of the psalm.

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