E15 • History of music: The Rise of Polyphony

From early organum to Palestrina and the Counter-Reformation, the discussion traces the gradual separation between chant as prayerful utterance and music as increasingly complex art. The Council of Trent established rules for chant, not as an enemy of beauty, but as a defender of intelligibility and liturgical purpose. Polyphony brought enrichment and trial: Palestrina becomes emblematic of the effort to preserve beauty without sacrificing clarity. This episode is especially useful for understanding the Church’s criteria in matters of sacred music.

Content

• Polyphony arise historically from chant itself, which means the story is one of development from within rather than an abrupt foreign intrusion.
• The appearance of measured rhythm and increasingly precise notation allowed composers to build elaborate multi-voice structures that went far beyond monophonic practice.
• Early organum and later Notre-Dame polyphony reveal the creative possibilities that emerged once a chant line could function as a cantus firmus beneath other voices.
• The episode repeatedly returns to the danger of obscured text, because the more complex the musical web became, the more the intelligibility of sacred words could suffer.
• Named authorship and musical prestige are presented as cultural novelties that changed the place of music within ecclesial life and public memory.
• The Counter-Reformation response, especially in the figure of Palestrina, is an attempt not to destroy beauty but to subordinate complexity to liturgical clarity and reverence.
  
  

Guests

• Loz Kaye

Sponsors

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠National Lottery Heritage Fund⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: 
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• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠University of Lancashire⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

External Links

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Welcome to Beyond the Spire, a podcast of the Save Our Sacretons project here in Preston at the Catholic Shrine of St. Wahburg, supported by the National Lottery. In each episode, we go beyond what you see from the street. We explore the story and the sound of Gregory and chant the church's own voice so that this treasure of faith and culture is not just preserved, but lived and loved again. I am Canon Bennens. Whether you are a musician, a member of a parish choir, or simply someone curious about the Catholic faith heritage, you came to the right place. Let's begin. In today's episode, I am very pleased to welcome Los K from County of Songs.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

Hello. So so uh so great to be here with you. Um I'm Los Kaye, I'm director of County of Song, which is a project which supports um community singing across Lancashire. My background is as a composer, as a musical director, and choir leader. So that's very much my perspective on what we're going to be talking about today. I'm very passionate about the um the power of the human voice to communicate.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

It's impressive because um, well, we talk about Gregor and Shent in all these episodes, but we haven't talked about choir leading. And as we need to talk about the shift between Gregory and Shent and uh polyphonical uh works, I think you're uh the right person to have here. Lovely. Can you can you um tell us about Gregory and Shant and your experience?

SPEAKER_01 1:57

Well, in particular, I was first became fascinated um with Gregorian Chant's role in our shared heritage um when I was starting to teach um music history, which was actually at a an academy in in Denmark. Um I think what what's fascinating, I was um tasked with um teaching kind of history of Western music, and essentially you're kind of um left with the question about well, what where do you start? What is your first lesson and where and where does it begin? And the really obvious answer is Gregorian chant, not least because that's um an onward and clear heritage which is continuously communicated, but also it's very much the beginning point of how music is articulated and how singing is articulated, and the heritages that um and a vast number of heritages that we still share today, um, but that beginning with the sense of a line, but a line that can communicate to us, that can communicate to us emotionally, that can communicate to us spiritually.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Well, Gregory Insenti is obviously a line, a melody, and so polyphonical works were beginning as the music started to be written, and it was each voice on one sheet, on I mean just one line on every sheet, and then put them all together as a stack, maybe, and this is how we we are used today to have um those uh stacked staves for reading, but yes, there is a whole development here from the single line, the melody, um the unique melody of Gregor and Schant, and then all those uh harmonical um um journeys that we have in polyphonical works.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Yeah, well this has been was a really significant development. I think what one can trace is also um uh is the beginning of the kind of the role of the composer. Um, and that had already started with composers like Hildegard of Bingen, sort of in the end of um 11th century. So, but she's working with one line, but of but something like O U Kari, you can absolutely see almost the personality of a composer. It opens uh with this um going EB and top E, there's a fifth and a fourth. Um there's a there's a decisive musical gesture there, and that's about how we communicate the sense of communicating something to both those taking part in singing but also listening. Um but I think the really significant significant moment is the shift between notation from being something was essentially as an aid to memory. Um, that there is there was a the chant being essentially an oral tradition, but also as a body of work that you're you that you need to be able to remember what you're doing. But a shift from that notation to being um that aid to memory to something which also an individual um composer or an individual choir leader could could work with. So sort of starting off, we see we we see a development of kind of organum where we're where we've we've got parts working in parallel, but not true polyphony in the sense that we would understand it of voices working on top of each other um or across each other. But then we're seeing with kind of Léon Periton that that a kind of development that notation makes something possible which is also more complex structures. So we're we're here so that there so there are the fluid voices that go over longer um longer uh held notes. So this kind of shift to making structure, which is very much in a way sets the scene for everything that happens within Western classical music, because so much of Western classical music is about structure, how we organize the music, but also to how to find a different expressive possibility. But as you said, um you can see that there's that there's this gradual transition because now we're very used to we I find it as a choir leader, I find it quite hard to imagine how you would work with people just with their own one part by themselves. But that's still showing that the line is what's leading rather than um rather than a sense of a vertical whole, which is what we come come to next, with the sense of harmony being a leading um a leading force within what is expressive within vocal music.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

And is harmony uh, in your opinion, the major thing different from Gregor Vincent that leads all the choirs to sing that new way of making music.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

Well, yes, it is because it's a it's also a fundamental shift about how um we perceive music. So um talking about the line, which is, I mean, very literally horizontal when it's and when it's written out, um, to a sense of vertical, which is with harmony, and particularly in terms of how Western harmony develops with the sense of chords that is also built up on this idea of the triads, um, that you need a vertical texture to be able to have um have harmony itself. And again, this is already implicit within what say Peritans doing, that you're starting to develop more part voices. But then you but then as we're coming in, um as we're as we're coming in towards something like kind of later on, Monteverdi, that we're seeing the kind of the classification of of harmony as a kind of leading idea, but also significantly as a force of communication and a way to move um to move both um the listener and the performer. And I'm I'm gonna just grab my I've got my big book of history of music here. There was um that how um how old this idea is that um that was um there's a uh writer called Zarlino writing in 1558, it's about also already in that point in the 16th century have we've got ideas about how you're about right how you write harmony to suit words. So Zarline writes, when a composer wishes to express harshness, bitterness, and similar things, he will do best to arrange the parts of the composition so they perceive with movements that are without the semitone, such as those of the whole tone and the ditone. So again, that's technical, but what I think is fascinating is that we'd haven't in that 16th century point, we're already having ideas of how you use harmony to communicate rather than how you shape the line, as how Hildegard of Bingham would uh did.

SPEAKER_00 10:28

And when we mix the both uh methods, vertical, harmonical, and line melody, you have the famous counterpoint, which is so uh so amazing to sing because you are addressing a question to someone who answers you, but you still have to move all together, and sometimes you rest while other well, it's like a game.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

Yes, but well, I think what's b because what starts to happen is because of that, of what I referred to as that innovation of also composers and writers becoming interested in structure, but also the possibility to manipulate music on the page is also how it starts to become possible to work out counterpoint as different lines on top of each other. I mean, uh we always have to go back to Bach for that in terms of the Neplus Ultra. Um but again that that's also about again, Bach is always using that to for communicate uh for its purpose of communication and about um particularly about points of tension and relaxing. Um and also in fact, all I mean that's the whole that's the whole arc of the passions of the B minor mass.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

It's like a droney, yes. Um well, maybe a tough question. Good. Uh so we see how well a single line the Gregor is transformed, and yes, this is the whole purpose of our episode rise of polyphony, and uh how it is um uh absorbed by the choirs, but Gregor is still something very different. And and with the time passing by, it's still as um as this own single line with just one voice and so it's a different kind of chant. So why does he does it fade? Does it fade out?

SPEAKER_01 12:50

Um well yes, that I think that's a very good good question. I think often the answer is about taste. Um, but it's also about where I about where excitement seems to lie, um, that which is and about always the sense about what's what seems to communicate in any one given era. Um and but there are kind of there but there are dangers inherent in all of these things. Um I think because also in terms of what notation makes possible is complexity. Um but I think it's possible to become too um obsessed with uh complexity for its own sake. It's also sometimes it's uh you end up looking at the scores of um a composer like Brian Farnihoe, for example, and and and you go, I think it's more important to you how it looks on the page than it actually sounds. But uh because I think it's about I think a lot of the answer is about what the idea of the composer becomes, and that the the idea of the composer as this author and this genius, and and it's always about doing something impressive and complex, and the role of the choir leader conductor also as this kind of leader. Um and often the the yes, the music in so many ways, the history of music over the last few centuries has been about things which are about different types of prowess. Um whether it's um you know the the speed of Paganini or it's about um the complexity of Messia. Um but also I I think there are other but there are always um instincts that go in other directions too. I mean there's been very obvious kind of pull in a different direction in terms of particularly in terms of 20th century complexity, to um then um moments of rejection of that, about when we're asking for something that's that speaks in a more more direct voice and a more contemplative voice. Um the music of Avo Peat, for example, is does does that and has struck chords with people um widely across the globe. Um but the but interestingly, of course, the that um that also Gregorian chant remains very much part of the the fabric of our shared traditions. It's constantly referred to by musicians of all types. Um and so Benjamin Britton, I mean so what you know, one of the famous favourite Christmas works is Britain's Ceremony car um carols, which begins with Hodie, Christus and Artist. Um but I think what he does in a piece like Curly River, which is a um it's just a which he calls a church parable, it's a sort of mini opera, which is based on a no a Japanese no theatre play, but he recreates it um in a Western tradition, and he's again starts with plain chart. Um and the obvious and the obvious point that Britain is making is that this is the equivalent to um a you know the a thousand-year tradition in Japan, though this is our tradition here, and even into something, you know, the world of musical theatre, for example, could would seem to be as far away as you might imagine from from what we're talking about, but um but Stephen Sondheim weaves the DAZ array throughout his hit musical Sweeney Tot again to make a point about um about his characters. So even if things sometimes seem to fade from obvious um from something which is really obviously part of our everyday musical texture, what do you hear? It's also omnipresent.

SPEAKER_00 17:19

I see. And maybe that's why uh at the beginning of the shift nobody was uh very much aware of that shift to happen because when when you hear the vespers of uh Monteverdi for the Beata Virginia, well you have the ver the the beginning is like a Gregoryan beginning, and then comes the melody, but he it pertains to it, so it's like it's not that very that different, uh, because they are blended.

SPEAKER_01 17:57

Yes, well it's well it's it's absolutely what's what's so fascinating is the beginning of that that's that 1610 of Vespers is that there is the the chant and then there is this blazing D major, and it's and it's and it's ostensibly the two contrasting worlds, it's the the the linear and the vertical. Immediately you're presented within seconds of each other. But as you say, it's also that one comes from the other, and what but because this is this is about how how it's different presentations of how you how you use those tones.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

Can we have um nowadays so Gregor and Shint is still in use for the church as the the church's own voice as we said in the introduction, and in it has to be uh to be so because the church wants to but it lets some space for polyphony how can we uh join the two kinds of music in a single spirituality? Can we well in a word can we have a choir singing both and both like perfectly even if it's completely different now?

SPEAKER_01 19:26

Well I I think it but I think it is a fundamental question, which I think that the heart of it is what you say, well what now knowing that we can't unknow what we know, if you see what I mean. It's um so yeah, absolutely those. I mean, because those are it's very interesting because it's about it's it's all sorts of questions are wrapped up in that, which is one is a kind of musical question, which is um we're always looking forward, always exploring musically, um, and that's the history of Western Western music, which is about um in so many ways asking asking about what if. Um but also it's the question about but but what for, which is about what you know, what is to to what end. Um and I think that's always the thing that I I I like choirs when I'm working with as you come come back to, which is you one spends quite a lot of time working on rhythm and harmony and pitching and and but also but but also why? What what are you communicating and what is the best way of communicating? And of course, obviously the history of that has been quite vexed, um, because obviously the one of the the the fundamental questions that came with polyphony, which was about intelligibility, which is about the intelligibility of words, and obviously that was um a significant question is well, if also actually it becomes about putting all of these lines on top of each other, but we don't understand what this is about, what's the point? Um, although I think the composers would say, but actually the this we're using the whole panoply of tools that we have to communicate, but I think it's always coming back to what is what is the essential way of communicating of what you have to share, and that um and I think that's always an important question for um musical directors, for composers, for for choirs, um for individual singers. Is that what you have to return it to? Um so And that that will be the kind of that will be the driving force.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

And that's actually the about the the question asked by Pope Pius V in the Concile of Trent to the modern composers of this um era, the Renaissance one, because their voices were blending altogether and hence liturgy is text. We need to understand, we need to have uh just a single word uh altogether for maybe not for the entire piece, but just for certain uh parts of the liturgy, because for instance at the word Jesus Christus, we need to make a reverence altogether, and if there is multiple Jesus Christus, when should we should we make this that reverence? So that was the purpose. And uh yes, I I think you you understood very well.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

Yes, well I again, I mean I think that's also very well known kind of moment, I think also within um within sort of musical history as well, and and I think it's seen as a kind of tension between you know expression, um and the two and also two ideas of what expression are. Um but it's not but also that that's I think I think it those are questions I think we all continue to ask ourselves actually, um, which is you know, it's read reading um and also what say a contemporary composer like John Adams is um his book Hallelujah Junction, which is about his his work, um, and is struggling with the same questions now, which is about how do you also now we have even more possibilities um because it's um you know we've got we've got so many, we've got instruments, we've got voices, we've got electronics, we've got amplification, what do it, you know, about all so there's a kind of prolifer, you know, we have an even greater proliferation of questions about how we approach vocal music. Um and this is the sort of it also coming back to um balancing um an expressive urge with also what the rest of the world perceives. Um I think that's also that's kind of one of the things which um which which also is kind of very much the history of 20th century music, which is about and about the sense of a um an individual uh an individual struggle as opposed to also what other um a broad audience perceives, and that's what popular music is supposed to be popular. Um but that that you're well, I think that's but all one can do is keep on delving and asked and asking the the questions, but also not not assuming that you can stay in any one place.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

And in well that question is interesting because we'll have so many uh ways to make music, so many different instruments, voices, and and and uh opportunities to to make new songs, new sounds, new even noises. But here with Quagranciant, we just need one voice, or well, altogether singing, just one voice. And it happens to have a really appreciated expression.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

Well, yes, I think I mean obviously there is again now particularly when um that you know all of all of music history and all of the musical world is is kind of is available there, you know, and um particularly now with the through the internet and Spotify and all the rest of it is uh um you know that this how you know how do you even decide what to listen to? And um, and I think that then that that bring brings you back. I think that brings everybody back to a point of going, well perhaps at some point it's worth just clearing things out a bit. Um, and perhaps a kind of new appreciation of um simplicity um and focus um and clarity um and lack of clutter and noise. Um so that's perhaps perhaps also opens up a new a new role and which seems fair fairly sort of obvious in lots of lots of ways, but um but is also the kind of the where we sit with a kind of the sense of a kind of relation to what relation to traditions now and what that what that means for us, um also having also something which has an um a clearly I was talking about the musical line, but also the sense of a historical line.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

For sure. And probably we are better singers if we sing at all the the different periods, if we can sing or even just know what happened from the beginning to our days, because we ni we need to understand what we are doing, not just in a sense in a technical sense or in um um musical or expressive uh way, but also in a in a very rooted history that we have. That we we are a child of the world, we're not not made of nothing.

SPEAKER_01 28:08

Yeah, I do yes, I very much like that. Yeah, we're children of the world. We absolutely, that's absolutely true. Um and I I think it's also absolutely true that I think the broader one's knowledge, the kind of more inform it actually informs what what one does. Um and I so I I think the big because there's lots of different types of of singing traditions now, I'm just that what's kind of so fascinating about working doing the work that I'm doing currently with County of Song, working with um choirs across the county of Lancashire, and so there's everything from uh from um male voice choirs to um gospel choirs, there's um it's the whole world of of that of the world of song out there. But yes, there are there are connections through, and I think it's it's helpful to understand that. I think particularly again for anyone writing music, is also I think we uh we're very we're very much aware of of whose shoulders we're standing on, and that um uh and that also that sometimes that can feel rather daunting. Um but also it is it is a kind of it is of support as well. Um but I think but it it I think it's quite interesting within particularly where we sit here and here we are in England and in the United Kingdom, and um where I think we have quite a fraught relationship to the idea of traditions, our own traditions. Um we're quite embarrassed about our song traditions um or our our our our cultural traditions is like things like Morris dancing, for example, it's a kind of common joke, and in a way that say in Estonia not at all, and or if Estonia or Finland, you know, having having a shared song history. Um, and I think a lot of that, and I think a lot of the reason for actually England's England in particular is our own fraught relationship to kind of cultural to our own cultural traditions is because of the cultural revolution. Um that's what they it's the industrial industrial revolution, not Chinese cultural revolution. Um so it's it's particularly that shift from and that very early shift kind of historically compared to the rest of the world, about into an urban culture, um had also I think gives us sort of very sort of odd relationship. Um so it's about now how we come to thinking about cultural tradition, I think, and particularly the current cultural and political context, I think it's quite fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 31:12

Thank you very much. Well, actually, we we will meet again uh for a sharing um experience with our choir, quagran choir and polyphony.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

Yes, absolutely. Um again looking forward to also sharing that with with others, and I think for me it's been a very interesting experience to to um it's to see to see and hear this in the and also in a the context of what's happening with vocal music across the county. But um I find it fascinating about how many things also seem to exist in in different pockets, even even with a say place like Preston, is that where we're sitting now, we're so close to Sir Warburge, and and also and and um there's a choir, I know there's a choir that meets in this building, and you go, um, again, it's about in a way re repairing some of those threads of how we all connect. Um, back to what you said about you know be us all being children of this world and our shared traditions.

SPEAKER_00 32:28

Thank you very much. Are there any anything you want to to add for our listeners?

SPEAKER_01 32:34

No, no, I th I think we've we've ranged um um very extraordinary extraordinarily broadly, but I think that is the point as well. Um that also coming back to things which and to points which now seem in many ways inconceivably ancient for for many people, you know, Hildegard of Binion and Peratan, but but also this is where where the world that we know is is born in so many ways. Thank you very much.