Organum
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- This article is about a style of music. For the musical instrument, see organum (musical instrument). For the experimental music group, see David Jackman
Organum (pronounced /ˈɔrgənəm/, though the stress is now sometimes incorrectly put on the second syllable) is a technique of singing developed in the Middle Ages, and is an early form of polyphonic music. In its earliest stages, organum involved two musical voices: a Gregorian chant melody, and the same melody transposed by a consonant interval, usually a perfect fifth or fourth. In these cases often the composition began and ended on a unison, maintaining the transposition only between the start and finish (although see below). Organum was originally improvised; while one singer performed a notated melody (the vox principalis), another singer—singing "by ear"—provided the unnotated second melody (the vox organalis). Over time, composers began to write added parts that were not just simple transpositions, and thus true polyphony was born.
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[edit] History
[edit] Early organum
The first document to describe organum specifically, and give rules for its performance, was the Musica enchiriadis (c. 895), a treatise traditionally (and probably incorrectly) attributed to Hucbald of St. Amand. In its original conception, organum was never intended as polyphony in the modern sense; the added voice was intended as a reinforcement of the singers, who were normally in unison. It is also made clear in the Musica enchiriadis that octave doubling was acceptable, since such doubling was inevitable when men and boys sang together; and it was also acceptable to double parts with instruments. The 9th-century treatise Scolica enchiriadis treats the subject in greater detail.
For parallel singing, the original chant would be the upper voice, vox principalis; the vox organalis was at a parallel perfect interval below, usually a fourth. Thus the melody would be heard as the principal voice, the vox organalis as an accompaniment or reinforcement.
This kind of organum is now usually called parallel organum, although terms such as sinfonia were used in early treatises.
[edit] Debate about origins
The Musica enchiriadis documented a practice which was already going on, although it has not been possible to establish a beginning date for the practice, which may go back hundreds of years. Both of the Enchiriadis treatises are primarily works on the concept of a mathematical derivation of the gamut and the modes from theories of conjunct and disjunct tetrachords (series of four pitches involving fixed tone and semitone relationships within them). To some extent it is probable that the treatment given to organum was a treatment designed to explain it in the terms of the evolving theory of the gamut (not least by the observation that parallel fourths outline tetrachords), and was not a descriptive or prescriptive manual of practical organum (rather like the concept of "sonata form" was derived at a much later date in the 19th century in order to describe much Classical period music, irrespective of the fact that most "sonata form" works of that period are not in an invariantly strict sonata form at all, and that the composers and performers of that period certainly would not have recognised the concept in its restrictive sense once it was propounded).
It is also worth noting that strict parallel organum does not generally occur in either of these early treatises as an end in itself. The treatises begin from a premise of parallelism and then move on to suggest better ways of making the organum, involving boundary tones, and the vast majority of musical examples in the treatises in fact use intervals of 2nds, 3rds, 4ths, 5ths and 6ths (by inversion/octave doubling), to create a more artistic result. The aesthetic underpinning the use of these other intervals (usually to do with the concept of a "boundary tone" to preserve the modal integrity, or in order to avoid harmonic tritones or accidentals foreign to the mode) was explored in more detail by Guido d'Arezzo in his Micrologus of around 1020 AD. Scholars have tended to describe this more varied organum as "free organum" (see below).
Scholarship has not yet established whether this early organum was chronologically derived from a more primitive strict parallelism, or from a kind of modally-constrained heterophony. The most pervasive examples of strict "parallel organum" in fact occur only in insular Germanic repertories of the 13th century onwards, and not in the very much earlier Enchiriadis treatises, the works of Guido, or in the various interpretations of the Winchester Troper (in which can be found passages which appear to be notated heterophony at the unison, although transcription problems confound absolute certainty in this).
[edit] Free organum
After parallel organum the next development to arise in the practice of organum is postulated to be that of free organum. The earliest examples of this style dating from around 1020-1050 (the Micrologus of Guido d'Arezzo and the Winchester Troper) utilise parallel motion and oblique motion (one voice moving while the other stays still), but the introduction of contrary motion (voices moving in opposite directions) as well as similar motion (voices moving in the same direction, but to different intervals) led to progressively freer musical lines — a prerequisite element of counterpoint. There are a number of manuscript fragments of the later 11th century and into the 12th century which document the changing styles, from the works of Johannes Cotto(also referred to as John Cotton or Joannes of Liege) to the so-called Chartres fragments. Although free organum is mostly still in note-against-note style, towards the end of its lifetime (some time in the 11th century) there are examples of more than one note of the organal voice against one note in the cantus firmus — another precursor of contrapuntal techniques.
[edit] Florid organum
Organum as a musical genre reached its peak in the twelfth century with the development of two very different schools of organum composition: the St. Martial School of florid organum, which may have been centered around the monastery of St. Martial in Limoges, and the Notre Dame school of organum of Paris (see: rhythmic mode), which included composers such as Léonin and Pérotin, and out of which grew most of the later forms such as the motet.
The Basic principal for Florid Organum is that there are anywhere from two to six notes in the main voice, while the tenor is sustained on the same note. This is similar to Melismatic Organum, except much shorter, and sometimes incorporates more than one syllable.
[edit] Melismatic Organum or Organum purum
Mid 12th Century. The use of groups of notes in the added part against a single note of the original part, the length of such a group varying from a few notes to long melismas, anywhere from six notes and up, and is usually done on one syllable. The original part becomes a succession of long held notes and comes to be called "tenor" from the Latin tenere meaning "to hold".. This newer style became known as "organum", "organum duplum", or "organum purum" and the older note-against-note style became known as "discantus style".
Organum purum was introduced in the 12th Century and may have developed in Limoges at the monastery of St. Martial. We are not sure exactly when it was but some believe it was around 50 years after the death of Guido d'Arezzo (an Italian monk - wrote Micrologus; a book about polyphony). It is quite a significant style of music as it shows some of the earliest signs of musical improvisation .
Organum purum is one of three styles of organum. Others were named discant and copula. We are also unclear of the order in which these came about. The only chronological analysis so far has been based on the contrast of the simplicity and the detail of the different styles i.e. organum purum was said to be the first as it had free rhythm and no measure, leading people to believe that more advanced music such as copula and discant must have been later. This is of course untrustworthy information.
There was a signififcant difference between copula and organum purum. Copula had a system where the solo voice (organal or duplum) was the top end, singing free melismata, either composed or improvised, with the tenor (vox organalis) accompanying with long sustained notes giving a drone like effect (usually a fourth or a fifth below). Organum purum gave the tenor more freedom, allowing them to not just sing long sustainable notes but allowed them to accompany with more challenging and creative harmony, often by memory.
The discant style was different with regard to measure and rhythmic mode as firstly, discant used measure with both voices whereas organum purum used no measure in the sustained tenor notes. Secondly with organum purum, although the extent of the allowed irregularities are uncertain, and the notation remained the same, the soloist was also able to free themselves from modal rhythm. This gave them the choice of lengthening and shortening notes at their personal preference. Although this allowed more personal expression in music it lacked rhythmic organization.
There are arguments that support improvisatory freedom but some that argue against, saying that the interpretation of the music should be according to modal or Franconian principles. Two researchers Apel and Waite insisted upon a rigorously modal interpretation and even went as far as transcribing the entire Magnus Liber into modal rhythm. Apel argued that the rhythms in the piece, due to the rules of consonance is clearly non-modal. To this day we are still trying to find a solution in transcribing these old manuscripts.
Medieval Music - Richard H. Hoppin
Antiquity and the Middle Ages - Edited By James McKinnon
http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-432244/organum-purum
[edit] Notre Dame school
Cultural and intellectual leadership shifted from Limoge to Paris gradually during the 12th century. 13th century theorists describe the organum of the Notre Dame school as being either discant style, in which both voices are measured, or organum purum, in which the sustained notes of the tenor are measured.By about 1250 composers established a fixed set of six rhythmic patterns or modes based on the ternary division of beat corresponding to the metrical feet of French or Latin verse. This way singers could cope with more complex parts
[edit] See also
- Medieval music
- Gregorian chant
- Musica enchiriadis
- Johannes Cotto
- St. Martial School
- Notre Dame school
- Motet
[edit] Further reading
- Various articles, including "Organum," "Musica enchiriadis", "Hucbald", "St Martial" in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. ISBN 1-56159-174-2
- Richard H. Hoppin, Medieval Music. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1978. ISBN 0-393-09090-6
- The Organa of the Winchester Troper -- The Organa of the Winchester Troper: consonance, rhythm and the origins of organum (good bibliography here too)
- Appendix to The Organa of the Winchester Troper -- Appendix to 'The Organa of the Winchester Troper': Musical transcriptions
- Gustave Reese, "Music in the Middle Aages" W.W. Norton & Co., ISBN 0-393-09750-1
- Donald J Grout & Claude V. Palisca "A History of Western Music" W.W. Norton & Co., ISBN 0-393-97527-4
- Oliver Strunk "Source Readings In Music History W.W. Norton & Co., ISBN 0-393-09742-0cs:Organum
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