jimtrue.com : school : MUH1110 : Assignment Four: Plainchant
Posted by Jim True on September 27, 2004 10:31 AM. Last Updated October 22, 2006 9:23 PM
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Unless you are a major fan of Enigma and were caught up in the Gregorian chant revolution of the 90's or you hang around Roman Catholic monasteries just for kicks, chances are you have not heard plainchant. Plainchant, also known as Plainsong, is a monophonic (literally with "one voice") singing style, where all the performers sing the same lyrics, the same melody and the same tonal ranges, without musical accompaniment. The music of the rock group Enigma and the 90's Gregorian chant revival added background music to the chant, or reproduced popular hit songs in a plainchant lyrical style, but the origins of plainchant are quite different.
Primarily used in the liturgical services of the Medieval Christian church, plainchant has its origins as far back as the 5th and 6th century. (Abbey of Solesmes. http://www.solesmes.com/anglais/gregorian/greg_home.html ) The church wished to completely differentiate their liturgy, or religious services involving the public, from the Pagan festivals and practices of the day, and thus defined their liturgy with no playing of instruments, no dancing, no clapping, and by setting the words from the Bible and other sacred Latin texts as lyrics to plainchant. Since the common man of the day did not speak Latin, the church guaranteed a musical repertory that would be considered highly sacred and relegated only for use by the Church.
"How boring if everyone is singing the same notes and the same lyrics", you might say, but you might be wrong. Within the body of the music, there were three recognized melodic styles of chant: syllabic, neumatic and melismatic. (Boynick, http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/g_plainchant.html ) Syllabic meant exactly as it sounds, one note for each syllable of the text. Neumatic referred to singing one syllable to the tune of two to a dozen notes, and melismatic extended that melody for a single syllable to over a dozen notes. In addition to the melodic styles, the arrangements could be varied as well. The choir could be divided in two, one section singing one verse, the second section answering with the next verse, and the two joining together on a repeated verse throughout the text, the refrain; this form was known as antiphonal (from the Greek, "opposite voices"). There could also be a soloist who would sing a verse and the remaining choir would 'respond' (responsorial); or the entire choir could sing the entire verse in the direct method with no common refrain.
A single melody could be repeated for every stanza, or strophe, of the verse in the strophic style, or the melody could be repeated for every two lines of the verse, or couplet, known as sequences. A few religious composers of the day stretched even this narrow musical style to create music some often considered "angelic"; Hildegard von Bingen, a nun with no musical training prior to coming to the monastery, wrote 77 of the most memorable and beautiful chants for the Church and the first ever musical drama in history, all within the narrow confines of plainchant. (Fierro. http://www.uni-mainz.de/~horst/hildegard/music/music.html )
Plainchant fell into disuse and centuries long modification by the church after the Renaissance; the Church felt it had to make music more "accessible to the masses" by adopting more contemporary forms and musical stylings to match the music of the day. In the 19th Century, the Benedictine monks of Solesmes undertook a restoration effort to bring back the "purity" of the original texts and musical performance of Gregorian Chant. Working from recovered centuries old manuscripts from some of the oldest monasteries throughout Europe, their work continues on as a legacy and a preservation effort to some of the most deceptively simple religious music of Medieval times. The Abbey maintains a website where you can listen to digital recordings of several of the specific services performed by their monks during Mass and the Hours of the Divine Office of the Roman Catholic Church. (Abbey of Solesmes, http://www.solesmes.com/anglais/gregorian/greg_home.html )
Boynick, Matthew. The Classical Music Pages: Plainchant. http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/g_plainchant.html Accessed 9/23/2004.
Fierro, N. Hidegard of Bingen: Symphony of the Harmony of Heaven. http://www.uni-mainz.de/~horst/hildegard/music/music.html Accessed 9/24/2004.
The Story & Musical Forms of Gregorian Chant. The Abbey of Solesmes. http://www.solesmes.com/anglais/gregorian/greg_home.html Accessed 9/25/2004.
A Selection of Chant Recordings. Medieval Music & Arts Foundation (Early Music FAQ). http://www.medieval.org/emfaq/beginlst/chant.htm Accessed 9/25/2004.
Cantus: A Database for Latin Ecclesiastical Chant, University of Western Ontario. http://publish.uwo.ca/~cantus/ Accessed 9/25/2004.
The Gregorian Association, London, England. http://www.beaufort.demon.co.uk/chant.htm Accessed 9/25/2004.
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