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In music
Music

Music is an art form whose media is sound organized in time. Common elements of music are pitch , rhythm , dynamics , and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture ....
, polyphony is a texture
Texture (music)

Texture is one of the basic elements of music. People use texture to describe the amount of rhythms played at a specific time. In music, texture also means the overall quality of sound of a piece , most often indicated by the number of melody in the music and by the relationship between these voices ....
 consisting of two or more independent melodic voices
Voice (polyphony)

In a polyphony context the term voice is used to denote a single melody line or texture layer. The term is generic, and is not meant to imply that the line should necessarily be singing in character....
, as opposed to music with just one voice (monophony) or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chord
Chord (music)

In music and music theory a chord is a set of two or more different note that sound simultaneously. Most often, in European-influenced music, chords are tertian Sonority that can be constructed as stacks of thirds relative to some underlying musical scale....
s (monody).

Within the context of Western music tradition the term is usually used in reference to music of the late Middle Ages
Medieval music

The term medieval music encompasses European music written during the Middle Ages. This era begins with the fall of the Roman Empire and ends in approximately the middle of the fifteenth century....
 and Renaissance
Renaissance music

Renaissance music is European music written during the Renaissance, approximately 1400 - 1600. Dates of classical music eras, given the lack of abrupt shifts in musical thinking during the 15th century....
. Baroque
Baroque music

Baroque music describes a period or style of European classical music approximately extending from Dates of classical music eras. This era is said to begin in music after the Renaissance music and was followed by the Classical music era....
 forms such as the fugue
Fugue

In music, a fugue is a type of counterpoint composition or technique of composition for a fixed number of melody, normally referred to as "voices"....
 which might be called polyphonic are usually described instead as contrapuntal
Counterpoint

In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more Register that are independent in contour and rhythm, and interdependent in harmony....
.






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In music
Music

Music is an art form whose media is sound organized in time. Common elements of music are pitch , rhythm , dynamics , and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture ....
, polyphony is a texture
Texture (music)

Texture is one of the basic elements of music. People use texture to describe the amount of rhythms played at a specific time. In music, texture also means the overall quality of sound of a piece , most often indicated by the number of melody in the music and by the relationship between these voices ....
 consisting of two or more independent melodic voices
Voice (polyphony)

In a polyphony context the term voice is used to denote a single melody line or texture layer. The term is generic, and is not meant to imply that the line should necessarily be singing in character....
, as opposed to music with just one voice (monophony) or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chord
Chord (music)

In music and music theory a chord is a set of two or more different note that sound simultaneously. Most often, in European-influenced music, chords are tertian Sonority that can be constructed as stacks of thirds relative to some underlying musical scale....
s (monody).

Within the context of Western music tradition the term is usually used in reference to music of the late Middle Ages
Medieval music

The term medieval music encompasses European music written during the Middle Ages. This era begins with the fall of the Roman Empire and ends in approximately the middle of the fifteenth century....
 and Renaissance
Renaissance music

Renaissance music is European music written during the Renaissance, approximately 1400 - 1600. Dates of classical music eras, given the lack of abrupt shifts in musical thinking during the 15th century....
. Baroque
Baroque music

Baroque music describes a period or style of European classical music approximately extending from Dates of classical music eras. This era is said to begin in music after the Renaissance music and was followed by the Classical music era....
 forms such as the fugue
Fugue

In music, a fugue is a type of counterpoint composition or technique of composition for a fixed number of melody, normally referred to as "voices"....
 which might be called polyphonic are usually described instead as contrapuntal
Counterpoint

In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more Register that are independent in contour and rhythm, and interdependent in harmony....
. Also, as opposed to the species terminology of counterpoint, polyphony was generally either "pitch-against-pitch" / "point-against-point" or "sustained-pitch" in one part with melisma
Melisma

Melisma, in music, is the singing of a single syllable of text while moving between several different notes in succession. Music sung in this style is referred to as melismatic, as opposed to syllabic, where each syllable of text is matched to a single note....
s of varying lengths in another (van der Werf, 1997). In all cases the conception was likely what Margaret Bent (1999) calls "dyadic counterpoint", with each part being written generally against one other part, with all parts modified if needed in the end. This point-against-point conception is opposed to "successive composition", where voices were written in an order with each new voice fitting into the whole so far constructed, which was previously assumed.

Characteristics

Two treatises, both dating from ca. 900, are usually considered the oldest surviving part-music though they are note-against-note, voices move mostly in parallel octaves, fifths, and fourths, and they were not intended to be performed. The 'Winchester Troper
Winchester troper

The Winchester Troper includes perhaps the oldest large collections of two-part music in Europe, along with the Chartres Manuscript which is approximately contemporaneous or a little later....
s', from c. 1000, are the oldest surviving example of practical rather than pedagogical polyphony, though intervals, pitch levels, and durations are often not indicated. (van der Werf, 1997)

Historical context

European polyphony rose out of melismatic organum
Organum

Organum in general is a plainchant melody with at least one added voice to enhance the harmony, developed in the Middle Ages. Depending on the mode and form of the chant, a supporting bourdon may be sung on the same text, or the melody is followed in parallel motion or a combination thereof....
, the earliest harmonization of the chant. Twelfth century composers, such as Léonin
Léonin

L?onin is the first known significant composer of polyphony organum. He was probably France, and he probably lived and worked in Paris at the Notre Dame de Paris, and was the earliest member of the Notre Dame school of polyphony who is known by name....
 and Pérotin
Pérotin

P?rotin , also called Perotin the Great, was a European composer, believed to be France, who lived around the end of the 12th century and beginning of the 13th century....
 developed the organum that was introduced centuries earlier, and also added a third and fourth voice to the now homophonic chant. In the thirteenth century, the chant-based tenor was becoming altered, fragmented, and hidden beneath secular tunes, obscuring the sacred texts as composers continued to play with this new invention called polyphony. The lyrics of love poems might be sung above sacred texts in the form of a trope
Trope (music)

The term trope derives from Greek language "turn, turning", from - tropos "turn, direction, way" related to the root of - trepo, "to turn, to direct, to alter, to change"....
, or the sacred text might be placed within a familiar secular melody.

These musical innovations appeared in a greater context of societal change. After the first millennium, European monks decided to start translating the works of Greek philosophers into the vernacular, following in the footsteps of the Muslims who did that 500 years earlier. Western Europeans were aware of Plato
Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greece Greeks philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Platonic Academy in Ancient Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world....
, Socrates
Socrates

Socrates was a Classical Greece Philosophy. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known only through the classical accounts of his students....
, and Hippocrates
Hippocrates

Hippocrates of Cos II or Hippokrates of Kos - ancient Greek: ; Hippokr?tes was an Ancient Greece physician of the Age of Pericles, and was considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine....
 during the Middle Ages. However they had largely lost touch with the content of their surviving works because the use of Greek as a living language was restricted to the lands of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium
Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire and Eastern Roman Empire are conventional names used to describe the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on its capital of Constantinople....
). The ancient works, as well as Muslim
Muslim

:A Muslim , , is an adherent of the religion of Islam. The feminine form is Muslimah . Literally, the word means "one who submits "....
 commentaries, started then being translated. Once they were accessible, the philosophies had a great impact on the mind of Western Europe
Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
. Faced with new ideas, society was forced to view itself in a different light as secular ideas competed with the doctrine of the Roman church.

This sparked a number of innovations in medicine, science, art, and music.

The oldest surviving piece of six-part music is the English rota
Rota (music)

A rota is a type of vocal round of the 13th and 14th centuries, probably only in England.In the rota, as opposed to the rondellus, the voices entered one at a time, each singing precisely what the previous voice sang, exactly as in the modern round....
 Sumer is icumen in
Sumer Is Icumen In

"Sumer Is Icumen In" is a traditional English round , and possibly the oldest such example of counterpoint in existence. The title might be translated as "Summer has come in" or "Summer has arrived."...
 (ca. 1240). (Albright, 2004)

Church

European polyphony rose prior to, and during the period of the Western Schism
Western Schism

The Great Schism of Western Christianity or Papal Schism was a split within the Roman Catholic Church from 1378 to 1417. By its end, three men simultaneously claimed to be the true pope....
. Avignon
Avignon

Avignon is a Communes of France in the Vaucluse Departments of France in southeastern France with an estimated mid-2004 population of 89,300 in the city itself and a population of 290,466 in the aire urbaine at the 1999 census....
, the seat of the antipope
Antipope

An antipope is a person who, in opposition to a sitting Bishop of Rome, makes a widely accepted claim to be the Pope. In the past, antipopes were typically those supported by a fairly significant faction of cardinal and kingdoms....
s, was a vigorous center of secular music-making, much of which influenced sacred polyphony.

It was not merely polyphony that offended the medieval ears, but the notion of secular music merging with the sacred and making its way into the papal court. It gave church music more of a jocular performance quality removing the solemn worship they were accustomed to. The use of and attitude toward polyphony varied widely in the Avignon court from the beginning to the end of its religious importance in the fourteenth century. Harmony was not only considered frivolous, impious, and lascivious, but an obstruction to the audibility of the words. Instruments, as well as certain modes, were actually forbidden in the church because of their association with secular music and pagan rites. Dissonant clashes of notes give a creepy feeling that was labeled as evil, fueling their argument against polyphony as being the devil’s music. After banishing polyphony from the Liturgy in 1322, Pope John XXII
Pope John XXII

Pope John XXII , born Jacques Du?ze , was pope from 1316 to 1334. He was the second Pope of the Avignon Papacy , elected by a Papal conclave in Lyon assembled by Philip V of France....
 spoke in his 1324 Bull Docta Sanctorum Patrum warning against the unbecoming elements of this musical innovation. Pope Clement VI
Pope Clement VI

Pope Clement VI , bornPierre Roger, the fourth of the Avignon Papacy, was pope from May 1342 until his death....
, however, indulged in it.

It was in 1364, during the pontificate of Pope Urban V
Pope Urban V

Blessed Pope Urban V , born Guillaume Grimoard, was Pope from 1362 to 1370....
, that composer and priest Guillaume de Machaut
Guillaume de Machaut

Guillaume de Machaut, sometimes spelled Machault, , was an important Middle Ages France poet and composer. He is one of the earliest composers for whom significant biographical information is available....
 composed the first polyphonic setting of the mass called La Messe de Nostre Dame
Messe de Nostre Dame

Messe de Nostre Dame is a polyphony Mass composed before 1365 by the France poet, composer and cleric Guillaume de Machaut . One of the great masterpieces of medieval music and of all religious music, it is the earliest complete setting of the Ordinary of the Mass attributable to a single composer....
. This was the first time that the Church officially sanctioned polyphony in sacred music.

Notable works and artists

  • Johann Sebastian Bach
    Johann Sebastian Bach

    Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and organ whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque music period and brought it to its ultimate maturity....
    , List of famous compositions
    List of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach

    There are over 1000 known compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach. Listed here are about half of these in the order of the BWV catalog, including the spurious works in the BWV Anhang ....
  • Tomas Luis de Victoria
    Tomás Luis de Victoria

    Tom?s Luis de Victoria, sometimes Italianised da Vittoria , was a Spain composer of the late Renaissance music. "The Spanish Palestrina", as he is known, was the most famous composer of the 16th century in Spain, and one of the most important composers of the Counter-Reformation, along with Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina and Orlando di...
  • William Byrd
    William Byrd

    William Byrd was an English composer of the Renaissance music. He cultivated many of the forms current in England at the time, including various types of sacred and secular polyphony, Keyboard instrument and consort music...
    , Mass for Five Voices
  • John Dowland
    John Dowland

    John Dowland was an England composer, singer, and lutenist. He is best known today for his melancholia songs such as "Come, heavy sleep" , "Come Again ", "Flow my tears", "I saw my Lady weepe" and "In darkness let me dwell", but his instrumental music has undergone a major revival, and has been a source of repertoire for classical guitarists...
    , Flow, My Teares, My Lord Willoughby's Welcome Home
  • Orlandus Lassus, Missa super Bella'Amfitrit'altera
  • Guillaume de Machaut
    Guillaume de Machaut

    Guillaume de Machaut, sometimes spelled Machault, , was an important Middle Ages France poet and composer. He is one of the earliest composers for whom significant biographical information is available....
    , Messe de Nostre Dame
    Messe de Nostre Dame

    Messe de Nostre Dame is a polyphony Mass composed before 1365 by the France poet, composer and cleric Guillaume de Machaut . One of the great masterpieces of medieval music and of all religious music, it is the earliest complete setting of the Ordinary of the Mass attributable to a single composer....
  • Jacob Obrecht
    Jacob Obrecht

    Jacob Obrecht was a Franco-Flemish School composer of the Renaissance music. He was the most famous composer of mass es in Europe in the late 15th century, being eclipsed by only Josquin Desprez after his death....
  • Palestrina
    Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina

    Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was an Italy composer of the Renaissance music. He was the most famous sixteenth-century representative of the Roman School of musical composition....
    , Missa Papae Marcelli
    Missa Papae Marcelli

    Missa Papae Marcelli, or Pope Marcellus Mass, is a mass by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. It is his most well-known and most often-performed mass, and is frequently taught in university courses on music....
  • Josquin des Prez
    Josquin Des Prez

    Josquin des Prez , often referred to simply as Josquin, was a Franco-Flemish School composer of the Renaissance music. He is also known as Josquin Desprez, a French rendering of Dutch language "Josken Van De Velde", diminutive of "Joseph Van De Velde" , and Latinized as Josquinus Pratensis, alternatively Jodocus Pratens...
    , Missa Pange Lingua
    Missa Pange lingua

    The Missa Pange lingua is a musical setting of the Ordinary of the Mass by Franco-Flemish school composer Josquin des Prez, probably dating from around 1515, near the end of his life....
  • Thomas Robinson, Grisse His Delight
  • Stanley Jordan
    Stanley Jordan

    Stanley Jordan is an United States jazz/jazz fusion guitarist, best known for his development of the touch technique for playing guitar. He was born in Chicago, Illinois, Illinois, and he received a BA in digital music composition from Princeton University in 1981, studying under Computer music luminaries Paul Lansky and Milton Babbitt....
    , "Magic Touch
    Magic Touch

    Magic Touch may refer to:* Magic Touch , the debut album by jazz musician Stanley Jordan* The Magic Touch, a manga series written and illustrated by Izumi Tsubaki...
    "


Other kinds

Incipient polyphony (previously primitive polyphony) includes antiphony and Call and response (music)
Call and response (music)

In music, a call and response is a succession of two distinct phrase usually played by different musicians, where the second phrase is heard as a direct commentary on or response to the first....
, drones
Drone (music)

In music, a drone is a harmony or monophony effect or accompaniment where a note or chord is continuously sounded throughout much or all of a piece, sustain or repetition , and most often establishing a tonality upon which the rest of the piece is built....
, and parallel intervals.

Iso-polyphony is a form of traditional Albanian polyphonic music. It can be divided into two major stylistic groups as performed by the Ghegs of northern Albania and Tosks and Labs living in the southern part of the country. The term iso is related to the drone, which accompanies the iso-polyphonic singing. The drone is performed in two ways: among the Tosks, it is always continuous and sung on the syllable ‘e’, using staggered breathing; while among the Labs, the drone is sometimes sung as a rhythmic tone, performed to the text of the song. It can be differentiated between two-, three- and four-voice polyphony. The phenomenon of Albanian folk iso-polyphony is proclaimed by UNESCO as a "Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible heritage of Humanity".

Also Georgian
Georgian

Georgian may refer to:* Something from or related to Georgia , a country in the Caucasus** Georgian people** Georgian language** Georgian alphabet...
 polyphonic singing - but it is under threat.

See also

  • Micropolyphony
    Micropolyphony

    Micropolyphony is a type of 20th century musical texture involving the use of sustained Consonance and dissonance chord s that shift slowly over time....
  • 3rd Bridge
    3rd Bridge

    The 3rd bridge is an extended technique used on mainly electric guitars such as the Fender Jazzmaster that has the Strings continue through to the tremolo piece....
    , a multiphonic string division sound


Sources

  • Hendrik van der Werf (1997). "Early Western polyphony", Companion to Medieval & Renaissance Music. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-816540-4.
  • Margaret Bent (1999). "The Grammar of Early Music: Preconditions for Analysis", Tonal Structures of Early Music. New York: Garland Publishing. ISBN 0-8153-2388-3.
  • Albright, Daniel (2004). Modernism and Music: An Anthology of Sources. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-01267-0.

External links