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CHAPTER 7
EARLY POLYPHONY
ORGANUM IN MUSIC THEORY SOURCES
• Western art music is marked by one important
characteristic: polyphony—not melody, not rhythm
but polyphony (the simultaneous sounding of two
or more independent musical lines).
Musica enchiriadis (Music Handbook; c890s)
• Ascribed to Abbot Hoger (d. 906)
• First surviving written description of early
polyphony, or organum (pl. organa).
• Intended to teach church singers how to improvise
polyphonic music on the spot—to take a given
Gregorian chant and make it sound more splendid
by adding one or more lines around it.
Organum
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A term used to connote all early polyphony generally.
Most organum in the Musica enchiriadis is parallel organum
(organum in which all voices move in lockstep, up or down
Parallel organum at the fifth and then with voices doubled at an
octave. The existing Gregorian chant is to be found in vox
principalis (principal voice).
•Micrologus (Little Essay; c1030) written by Guido of Arezzo (d. c1033):
allows for contrary motion in organum and discuss the occursus—the
coming together of voices at cadences.
An example of two-voice organum from Guido’s
Micrologus showing a clear occursus at the end
De Musica (On Music; c1100) by John of St. Gall: situates the vox
principalis (chant) as the lower voice and the vox organalis (newly
added voice) above. The chant was now, and would remain, in the
lowest voice.
ORGANUM IN PRACTICAL SOURCES
• Winchester Troper (c1000): a book of tropes
written in Winchester, England, that also includes
the organal voice for about 150 two-voice organa—
Kyries and Alleluias for the Mass, for example. The
exact pitches of the polyphony cannot be
determined with certainty.
Aquitanian polyphony
• A collection of some sixty-five pieces of two-voice
organum originating in monasteries in the southern
French province of Aquitaine. The notation of these
manuscripts gives precise indication with regard to
pitch. Acquitanian polyphony often involves a style
called sustained-tone organum—the bottom voice
holds a note while the fast-moving upper voice
embellishes it in florid fashion. The end of the
opening phrase of the anonymous two-voice
organum Viderunt omnes exhibits such a moment of
sustained-tone organum.
Viderunt omnes
An anonymous example of two-voice
Aquitanian polyphony Viderunt omnes
The anonymous Viderunt omnes
as it exists in the original twelfth-century manuscript coming from southern France
Codex Calixtunus
• (c1150; named after Pope Calixtus II) A liturgical
book and travel guide that includes twenty
polyphony pieces for the liturgy of St. James the
Apostle. The church of St. James (Santiago) in
Compostela, Spain, was a pilgrimage site in the
West second in importance only to Rome.
An opening in the Codex Calixtinus
Showing the three-voice organum Congaudeant catholici by Master Albertus of Paris.
The Codex Calixtinus is the first manuscript to ascribe composers’
names to particular pieces.
Congaudeant catholoci
A transcription of Master Albertus’ Congaudeant catholoci, the first
example of three-voice music to survive in a practical source.