MUSIC IN MEDIEVAL PARIS:

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CHAPTER 8

• MUSIC IN MEDIEVAL PARIS
• POLYPHONY AT NOTRE DAME

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Notre Dame

• Notre Dame, the cathedral of Paris, stood in the
  middle of the city and was home to important
  composers of polyphony including Leoninus and
  Perotinus.
• The east end of Notre Dame of Paris, begun around
  1163, with its flamboyant flying buttresses.

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Leoninus (f. 1160-1201)

• Composed the Magnus liber organi (Great Book of
  Organum) which contains nearly a hundred pieces
  of two-voice polyphony.
• Most of the compositions in the Magnus liber
  organi were setting of the solo portions of the
  Gradual and the Alleluia of the Mass. Leoninus
  placed the pre-existing, centuries-old Gregorian
  chant on the bottom voice (tenor) and composed a
  new voice (duplum) against it above.
• Most of Leoninus polyphony is written in a
  sustained-tone style called organum purum (pure
  organum) in which the tenor holds a note of the
  chant while the upper voice provides florid
  embellishment. Occasionally, when there is a
  long melisma, the tenor will move more quickly
  thereby creating discant, a style in which both
  voices move at roughly the same rate. A
  self-contained section of music written in
  discant style is called a clausula.

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A thirteenth-century manuscript preserving
Leoninus organum for Christmas, Viderunt omnes

• The pre-existing chant is on staves 2, 4, 6, 8
  etc. while Leoninus newly created voice is above
  it on staves 1, 3, 5, 7, etc. At the word
  dominus we see a clausula. Here Leoninus
  shifts from organum purum to discant.

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A transcription of the clausula dominus
incorporated in the composition Viderunt omnes
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Modal Notation

• Composers in medieval Paris developed a system
  for notating rhythmthe first such system in the
  history of musicand it was in effect from
  roughly 1150 to 1280. It is called modal
  notation because it involves six rhythmic modes,
  that is to say, six simple but distinctly
  different musical patterns. In modal notation,
  the singer quickly scans a passage to determine
  the sequence of ligatures and accordingly applies
  the correct rhythmic mode.

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Rhythmic modes with their respective ligature
patterns and their resolutions in modern rhythmic
values
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Perotinus the Great (c1160-c1236)

• Took the rhythmic innovations of Leoninus and
  used them to create polyphonic works of
  unprecedented length, complexity, and grandeur.
• Composed not only for two voices, as had
  Leoninus, but for three and four as well, adding
  to the basic structure of tenor and duplum, a
  triplum, and quadruplum voice.
• Replaced what had previously been a
  performer-creator organum in a free improvisatory
  vocal style, with rigidly organized organum.
• In his four-voice organa he incorporates
  interlocking modular units over long spans of
  time, all of which presupposes much a priori
  compositional planning. In this sense Perotinus
  can be called the first modern composer.

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• The beginning of Perotinus four-voice setting of
  the Gradual for high Mass on Christmas Day,
  Viderunt omnes, which makes abundant use of
  interlocking voices.

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Notre Dame School

• Leoninus, Perotinus, and their colleagues in
  Paris created a huge musical repertory, more than
  a thousand pieces, which soon spread around
  Western Europe. So numerous were their
  compositions and so influential their style that
  historians came to speak of these composers
  collectively as the Notre Dame School.