Medieval Polyphony which is NOT attributed to Perotin or Leonin

[Mandryka]

As this is something which comes up from time to time in discussions I just want to create a thread of examples. Examples are not common as far as I can see, so this thread may not come to much.

[Mandryka]

And here's one to kick it off. From the latin Easter mass on this CD.




The abbey at Benevento in Italy practised a form of singing (sometimes called Ambrosian), which the papacy tried to suppress. From the booklet essay

This "Ambrosias" chant of the south was suppressed, like so many other repertories, when the political and cultural desires of the Roman church and its supporters required a uniformity of liturgy and music throughout the West, Pope Stephen IX, visiting Monte Cassino in 1058, is reported to hove enforced this suppression : "Ambrosionum canlum in ecclesia isla penitus interdixiC Elsewhere, manuscripts of Beneventan chant were destroyed, recycled, erased. As a result, the Beneventan chant survives incomplete, in frogmeniary form, or tucked away as extra material in later Gregorian manuscripts. The manuscripts of the cathedral of Benevento - the ancient center of this liturgy and its music - provide the richest source material for the local liturgy. Two manuscripts in particular, numbers 38 and 40 in the Biblioteco Copitolore, preserve some twenty Beneventan masses, along with music for the rites of Holy Week, inserted among the Gregorian mosses which ultimately supplanted them. It is this music which is presented here by the Ensemble Organum.

The Alleluia of the Latin Easter mass, starting at 56:43 on this youtube upload, is particularly interesting polyphonically.

https://www.youtube.com/v/n0vDgT903WM&t=3403s&ab_channel=SiredeJoinville

[Mandryka]

The Winchester Troper is a manuscript in the Bodleian which has lots  of examples of 11th century polyphony. This CD contains a mass, the whole shooting match of course, taken from it, much of it quiet two part polyphony, this is the only youtube extract I can find

https://www.youtube.com/v/i-OuElxgC1o&ab_channel=ScholaGregorianaofCambridge

[Mandryka]

 


It's totally unclear to me what we have here. It is often polyphonic, it claims to be 12th century -- but how informed is it? What are the sources? How was their performing edition created? Silence online about such matters as far as I can see.

But one thing I can say is this: historically informed or historically nonsense, both CDs are rather beautiful. So they are well worth hearing certainly, and they merit a place here I guess.

Cluny, by the way, was a an enormous operation with complex connections internally and externally to Rome and elsewhere. The Cluniac network may or may not have developed a unified approach to music, and that approach may or may not have enveloped Gregorian standards. I just cannot say, I don't have access to any research whatsoever on this.

[The new erato]

I know nothing about this, but is very glad you started this.

[Mandryka]

I know nothing about this, but is very glad you started this.

Well thanks for the encouragement but it's proving very hard to find genuine polyphony on record - two or more simultaneous independent melody lines. And with the music I do find, it's not at all clear how the ensemble prepared their performing editions.

There's plenty of heterophony of course. By heterophony I mean two simultaneous almost identical melody lines - maybe one ornaments differently. And there's plenty of imaginative instrumental accompaniments.

This all started because someone said to me that polyphonic music is common in very early folk music from Africa and China, they felt it must have existed in Medieval Europe - just not notated or discussed.

Suggestions appreciated - I'm thinking of stuff from the 13th century and before.

[Mandryka]

https://soundcloud.com/dialogosofficial/sets/abbo-abbas-polyphonies

More from Winchester and from Fleury in France, which was Benedictine musical hot spot in the 11th century. Apparently in both cities the churches practiced a specific form of polyphony, which was described by a monk at Winchester called Thierry, who is speaking of night-office responsories

they were sung 'by four brothers in alb and cope at the top of the steps; two of them, like pupils, are
restricted to the chant melody, while the other two, like masters, stand behind them and perform the
accompaniment – they are called "organists". And France gladly glories in this sort of chant, whereas
Germany stupidly rejects it.

Dialogos are slightly open about the preparation of their performing edition

But the surviving musical sources associated with this practice at Fleury are few and far between (our
programme offers a chance to hear the gradual Viderunt omnes which belongs to this repertory). On the
other hand, the Winchester Troper of the same period preserves a large number of pieces for two voices
(in our programme, Sancte Benedicte, Kyrie, Alleluia, Sint lumbi vestri) which testify to the same tradition
as that referred to by Thierry of Fleury.
Notated using a complex system of neumes which allows of not one but several interpretations, these
polyphonic pieces might have been condemned to silence and neglect, since it is impossible to give a
unique interpretation of them in modern transcription. Hence any attempt to find out what they sounded
like can only proceed from a hypothetical reconstitution, even with the aid of the medieval theoretical
treatises (Musica enchiriadis and Guido of Arezzo's Micrologus). But it is precisely the ambiguity of the
written sources that has prompted us to devote ourselves to this repertory: in this programme, Dialogos
offers a musical creation in which the music of the tenth century is placed in dialogue with improvisations in the style of the medieval singers whom Abbo might have heard in his abbey. In a generously
vocal approach to these virtuoso melodies, the most archaic chants are heard alongside the new reconstructions, sometimes passing through nu

Very basic polyphony! Not really polyphonic at all in my sense.

[PeterWillem]

Another great thread Mandryka. I've already discovered some recordings I like thanks to your passion.
I'm typically too lazy to post but in this case I would like to propose a set of 3 recordings which I consider to be essential in this thread:


Let me warn that those works require quite an attention from the listener as they are rhytmically extremely complex. They remind me the first recording of Ensemble Organum a bit as they sound like a more advanced aquitanian polyphony (probably intervals are similar). All-star recording. Perfect sound & acoustics (with not too much reverb thankfully). Highly recommended.

[PeterWillem]

As this is something which comes up from time to time in discussions I just want to create a thread of examples. Examples are not common as far as I can see, so this thread may not come to much.

Actually, unless you restrict the thread to either ars antiqua or ars nova, you may get quite a lot of recommendations.

[San Antone]

Another great thread Mandryka. I've already discovered some recordings I like thanks to your passion.
I'm typically too lazy to post but in this case I would like to propose a set of 3 recordings which I consider to be essential in this thread:


Let me warn that those works require quite an attention from the listener as they are rhytmically extremely complex. They remind me the first recording of Ensemble Organum a bit as they sound like a more advanced aquitanian polyphony (probably intervals are similar). All-star recording. Perfect sound & acoustics (with not too much reverb thankfully). Highly recommended.

I agree these three recordings are very good, but I think they post date Pérotin, and of course Léonin who was even earlier.

[Mandryka]

Re the above discussion - I wanted to collect together examples of polyphonic music. Not monophonic or antiphonic. And I'm not primarily interested in music with a melody voice and drone - I was mainly interested to see whether there were examples with two or more simultaneous independent melody voices.

Very often in this music you have two singers singing the same melody simultaneously, but the embellish the music differently. I'm not sure what the correct name is for this - I have been saying heterophonic, but that is a slightly misleading term because, for example, isorhythmic music is sometimes called heterophony. But anyway, this sort of "neo-monophony" is not my main interest either - it's just a performance effect.

[San Antone]

Re the above discussion - I wanted to collect together examples of polyphonic music. Not monophonic or or neo-monophonic. And I'm not primarily interested in music with a melody voice and drone - I was mainly interested to see whether there were examples with two or more independent melody voices.

I don't think we have any surviving polyphonic music earlier or even contemporaneous with Léonin or Pérotin that you are looking for.

[Mandryka]

I don't think we have any surviving polyphonic music earlier or even contemporaneous with Léonin or Pérotin that you are looking for.

In Kyrie and Gloria in Mary Berry's mass from the Winchester Troper, and the alleluia, the two voices are so staggered they come close! But it is, in my terms, a very free example of neo-monophony. Maybe it's a simultaneous chant and trope.

I've been listening to all four of Savall's recordings of Roman liturgy. I think the manuscripts are very early. As far as I can see there is no polyphony,- just melody voices and drone. But sometimes, the drone is so rich you would think you're dealing with the tenor in a motet. I'll post something about the recordings - some of which are beautiful - soon.

[PeterWillem]

I don't think we have any surviving polyphonic music earlier or even contemporaneous with Léonin or Pérotin that you are looking for.

Few recordings come to my mind actually:

[Mandryka]

The Aquitaine material is interesting. Here's an example from Peres

https://www.youtube.com/v/PbRivbCWooI&ab_channel=Sarma230

I think (but I'm not sure!) that this is an example of what I called above neo-monophony: two singers singing the same melodic material more or less simultaneously, but embellishing differently. What I would really love to understand better is how the performing edition was prepared -- what we have either in the manuscripts or in the commentaries on performance style which led Peres to this interpretation.

[Mandryka]

This is Marcel Peres's essay on Aquitaine

In this music, more than in any other, the movement issues from the phenomenon of attraction and repulsion created by the play of consonances (fourths, fifths, octaves) and dissonances.

The consonant intervals are absolutely perfect, i.e. stable in the Pythagorean scale used in the medieval West (an interval is qualified as perfect" when it does not vibrate of "beat").

On the other hand, the other intervals like the third and the sixth are false, that is to say, they generate vibrations and instability.

As Boethius had already proclaimed in the 6th century, "Beauty manifests itself as an equilibrium in which there is a harmony of stabilio and movement, identity and variety, the massive and the light, the low and the high, the equal and the unequal, the one and the many".

It is only with a true understanding of this principle that vocal sound can be suitably modulated (cf. Saint Isidore : "Musi ca est peritia modulationis", eth. Ch. XV).

The notion entertained by the general public of Romanesque music is singularly deformed by false ideas which unfortunately obscure the richness of its extraordinary creative variety. It is only too easy to imagine that Gregorian plainsong was the only authentic musical form of the Romanesque period, due mainly to the curious attitude of 19th and early 20th century music historians who scorned the music of the 11th and 12th centuries which was regarded as a destructive alteration of the pure church plainchant, or as a stumbling attempt at polyphony.

In fact the man of the Middle Ages never ceased composing music and poems intended to be completely integrated into the liturgy by commenting on and decorating the texts and the music fixed by tradition.

Romanesque Aquitanian music is an incredible art of synthesis in which the connoisseur can discern elements of the art of polyphony described by philosophers and theoreticians since the 9th century, as well as visionary intuitions of genius. A little like the work off Bach would be later, this music carries within it all the acquisitions of a tradition that informs and gives life to a creative projection into the future.

The Abbey of St. Martial at Limoges was one of the most fertile artistic centres of the 11th and 12th centuries. An outstanding meeting place because of its position on the pilgrim's way to Santiago de Compostela, it was a nursery of monodic and polyphonic musical composition and of the art of liturgical verse that constitutes one of the summits of medieval Latin poetry.

In resuscitating these chants we present a modest reflection of the splendour, the abundance and the vitality of a period when all creative activity converged on the liturgy. But, more than anything else, this music that has been dormant.* almost eight centuries, bears within it the testimony to these medieval men, monks, poets, and musicians who never cease to surprise us by the ease with which they were able to render in concrete terms their creative energy while remaining firmly rooted in an authentic tradition.

[Mandryka]

Laude iocunda melos is also treated in a neo-monophonic way by Peres on that Aquitaine CD (and it's nice!) But here's a youtube of a more recent live performance, which may well show the manuscript.

https://www.youtube.com/v/ZPKNtolbUAM&ab_channel=CorMusicum

[Mandryka]

And this seems more like genuine polyphony, taken from Peres's Aquitaine CD

https://www.youtube.com/v/YiD6yuH-eLs&ab_channel=Callixtus

and here's Vellard with the same text -- is it the same source? Is the source clearly polyphonic? It would be nice to understand the sources (which Vellard says in the Laurenziana & Wolfenbüttel Library.)

https://www.youtube.com/v/1z5JD4X5VoU&ab_channel=Classicool

[Mandryka]

Vellard's comments

The nouveau chant (Nova Cantica) of the 12th century represented a new conception of monody and polyphony, the best examples of which appear in the manuscripts of Saint-Martial in Limoges. Although it is difficult
to establish with precision the stages leading from this
"new song" to the School of Notre-Dame, it is nevertheless possible to analyze certain aspects of the latter: first,
in three large manuscripts preserved in the Biblioteca
Medicea-Laurenziana in Firenze and the Herzog August
Library in Wolfenbüttel; second, in treatises on composition such as the one in the Vatican, written in the north
of France around the year 1160 – a complete treatise on
counterpoint and two-part organum; and third, in the
works of theoreticians such as Francon de Cologne, who
taught at the University of Paris, and Anonymous IV of
Coussemaker, and English theoretician who described
the musical practices of the Notre-Dame School at
length. The works of these theoreticians have much to
tell us about the forms used in Notre-Dame and subsequently spread among the various cathedrals and monasteries of Europe, such as the Cistercian nuns Monastery of
Las Huelgas in Spain

First of these forms was the organum duplum – 2 part –
which is passed down to us in the manuscripts as a juxtaposition of two styles, the "florid" and "descant". Wrote
Anonymous IV in 1275: "people say Maître Leonin was
the best composer of Organum (optimus organista), he
composed the Great Organum Book for the gradual and
antiphonary in order to prolong the divine service. This
book remained in use until the time of the great Perotin
who abridged it and composed clausules and sections
that were many in number and better because he was
the best composer of descant (optimus discantor).
The Benedicamus Domino [14] is a good example of
what he said: Benedicamus corresponds to the definition
of the florid style, which was Leonin's, and Domino to the
descant style, which was Perotin's. The piece concludes
with a copula, an exercise in vocalization to be performed
delicatore modo et subtiliore voce (delicately, the voice
relaxed and unemphatic). Performances of organum
duplum should aim to preserve a sense of unity within its
stylistic duality. Although a knowledge of the musical
modes makes it relatively easy to decipher the descant
style, the florid organum style presents problems that are
more acute. Both Francon de Cologne and Anonymus IV
demonstrate how to recognize – using the same written
symbols as with descant – the long and short notes
through the shape of notes, the rests, and the consonant
and dissonant relationship to the tenor line

[PeterWillem]

Laude iocunda melos is also treated in a neo-monophonic way by Peres on that Aquitaine CD (and it's nice!) But here's a youtube of a more recent live performance, which may well show the manuscript.

https://www.youtube.com/v/ZPKNtolbUAM&ab_channel=CorMusicum

Very nice find.
The page below shows the actual fragment with a modern transcription (go down a bit):
https://leventreetloreille.com/moyen-age-1/

Also, a very nice visualization of St.Martial polyphony:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTvMQgfygDY