The Middle Ages: Gregorian chant and the development of notation

MUS 4
Winter 2022
Outline of today’s material:

1. Examine the general characteristics of all Gregorian chant.

2. Consider specific examples of Gregorian chant in relation to each’s religious function.
3. Analyze the approach to text-setting, range and alternation in each example.
4. Investigate the development of written musical notation in relation to the
standardization of Gregorian chant.
Learning objectives:

By the end of class you will be able to:

1. Understand and hear, general characteristics of Gregorian chant.

2. Identify the musical texture of an excerpt of chant.
3. Distinguish between different approaches to text-setting.
4. Follow the development of written notation through the Middle Ages.
5. Understand the connection between the development of notation, the standardization of
of chant styles in the Catholic church and the assertion of power on the part of the
church and associated political rulers.
The Middle Ages

-Time period in Europe lasting from the fall of Rome in 476 CE until the beginning of the
Renaissance
-Also referred to as the “medieval period”
-The Catholic Church was the most powerful institution and strongest source of authority in
Western Europe
-Feudalism governed society, creating a highly stratified culture
-Over time, innovations such as the plow made farming more efficient, and decreased the
work needed from peasants/farm workers
-Majority of the population was illiterate (especially true for women)
-The Crusades (began in 1095)
Music of the Middle Ages

-Art, architecture and music focused on religious subject

matter
-Secular music also existed
-Majority of the music of the Middle Ages that has been
preserved was created and performed in the context of
the Catholic Church
-The Catholic church developed a system of musical
notation, which preserved music in written form, while
secular music did not

Palatine Chapel of Charlemagne, Aachen, Germany, 792-805

Source: Spanswick, “A guide to Romanesque Architecture”
Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, France (construction began in 1163)
Ravenna, S Apollinare Nuovo, mosaic showing the Betrayal of Christ, c. 500; Credit: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY
What is Gregorian chant?

-Liturgical chant used in religious services of the Catholic

Church
-A form of prayer, NOT musical performance
-A tool for the declamation of text
-Functional, rather than aesthetic
-First recorded in written notation in the 9th century
-Anonymous in creation

Let’s listen to an example!

Credit: the Norton Anthology of Western Music
Musical characteristics of (all) Gregorian Chant:

-Monophonic: a single, unaccompanied melodic line

Musical texture: The combination of elements in a piece or passage, such as the
number and relationship of independent parts

-Fluid (no pulse, no rhythm)

-Generally smooth contour, few leaps in vocal part

Function of Gregorian chant

-The Office: A cycle of 8 services celebrated daily at specific times in the Roman Catholic Church; a
central focus of liturgical life in monasteries and convents

-The Mass: The most important religious service in the Roman Catholic Church
The Office

- Psalm: A sung poem of praise to God, the simplest

form of Gregorian chant.

- Antiphon: A liturgical chant that precedes and

follows a Psalm in the Office.

Source: Global Christian Worship

Follow along with the text:
Guided Listening: Tecum Principium (antiphon)

Questions to consider while listening:

-What is the relationship between text and music? Are the syllables of the text stretched out over
many notes?
Text setting: How the words and syllables of a text is set to music (ex: syllabic,
neumatic, melismatic)
Text-setting is primarily syllabic: One note sung to each syllable of text

-What is the range of the vocal line?

Modest vocal range and melodic movement
Guided Listening: Dixit Dominus (psalm)

Questions to consider while listening:

-What is the relationship between text and music? Is the text-setting syllabic? Or are the syllables stretched
out over many notes?
Text-setting is syllabic

-What is the range of the vocal line?

Very narrow vocal range, little melodic movement, centered on one central pitch
The Mass

-Chants are generally more ornate and more complex than those of the Office

-Characteristics of particular chant depend on its place within the church service
Gradual

-Part of the “Liturgy of the Words,” which contains readings

from the Bible and church teachings

-No ritual is taking place

-The most ornate chant included in the Mass

Follow along with the text:
Guided Listening: Gradual from Mass for Christmas Day

Questions to consider while listening:

-What is the relationship between text and music? Are the syllables stretched out over many notes?
Neumatic: One to six notes per syllable of text
Melismatic: More than six notes per syllable of text

-What is the range of the vocal line?

Wider vocal range
Western music and the development of notation
Music and notation in Ancient Greece

-The culture of Ancient Greece developed a sophisticated system of written musical notation
-Despite the existence of a notational system, the musical traditions of the culture relied
primarily on oral transmission
-Only approximately 45 fragments of notation have survived from Ancient Greece
-Scholars have used these fragments of notation to reconstruct musical works of the culture
-The music of Ancient Greece was lost entirely until its partial recovery beginning in the
Renaissance
Example: The Epitaph of Seikilos (first century C.E.)
Beginning in the late 8th century:

-Attempts to standardize the practices of churches across the Western Roman Empire began

-Part of an effort to consolidate power and authority on the part of popes and the secular
rulers associated with them

-The vast majority of regional chant styles disappeared and a uniform chant style (Gregorian
chant) was imposed
The development of notation

-Chant practices had been preserved through oral transmission for up to a century before the
standardization of Gregorian Chant and development of notation

-Oral transmission always leads to variation in material!

-The decision to codify religious practice across the empire and impose a uniform style of
chant necessitated the invention of a system of written notation
“Notation seems to have arisen at the very time, the end of the eighth and beginning of the
ninth century, when Charles, King of the Franks, and from 800, Holy Roman emperor ,
known to us as Charlemagne, tried to unify his diverse and polyglot empire in a number of
ways.”
-Thomas Forrest Kelly, Capturing Music
The Gradual “Viderunt Omnes” in neumatic
notation, from around 900.

The neumes indicate general melodic direction.

The Gradual “Viderunt Omnes” in heightened neumes,
from the second half of the 11th century.

The relative height of the neumes over the text indicates

the relative pitch. A line scratched in the manuscript
indicates the note a.
The Gradual “Viderunt Omnes” in Guidonian notation, from ca. 1105.

The note f is indicated with a red line, c with a yellow line, and spaces are identified with
letters in the left margin (f, a, c, and e).
A modern-day five line staff:
What important element is missing from Guido’s
notation?

-The notation does not provide any information about time, duration (how long each note is
held), or rhythm.

-Guidonian notation established a system for notating pitch, but not for notating time,
duration or rhythm.

-Temporal elements of the music were still handled through the oral transmission of a
performance practice.
Notating rhythm

-Between 1160 and 1250 composers working at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris
developed an approach to notating rhythm
-The music being written by these composers was of unprecedented complexity which
necessitated the development of a rhythmic notation
-Music written by the Notre Dame composers was the first music to likely have been
composed using, and performed from, notation, without the extensive use of modes of oral
transmission
-The two most important composers associated with the Notre Dame cathedral at this time
were Léonin and Pérotin
The rhythmic modes

-The Notre Dame composers developed a system of rhythmic modes

A system of six patterns of long-short (“breve”) rhythms used by the Notre Dame
composers.

Credit: Ian Pittman

-To indicate these combinations of long and short durations, ligatures were used to indicate
groupings
Example: Léonin and colleagues, Viderunt Omnes (ca. 1150-1201)

-A setting of the Gradual Viderunt Omnes from the Mass for Christmas Day
-Listen for the use of the rhythmic modes!