Our textbook has finally gotten to the point where it talks about polyphony! Now, I have already had cause to note that the order of events as described in the textbook (sacred monophony then secular monophony then sacred polyphony) is not necessarily chronological, and that the development of notation does not necessarily match up with shifts in musical performance. Furthermore, the development of polyphonic musical styles was not necessarily seen as a step in the right direction by contemporary commentators: as we have already discussed, much early church music was deliberately stripped back and plain in order to cultivate particular attitudes towards religious observance. Today, I have collected together several sources that provide evidence for both of these ideas, one the one hand, evidence of polyphonic performance before polyphonic notation, and on the other, of complaints about polyphonic practice that would prefer the continued use of monophonic or simple music in church.

First, let’s begin with an anonymous scholarly text that was mentioned in the first lecture: the Musica enchiriadis (“Handbook for music”), written ca. 850-890. Almost 50 copies of this survive, indicating that the book was widely read during the medieval period. As was mentioned in class, this book, which was written at the same time as the very earliest musical notations that are decipherable today, includes instructions on how to improvise polyphony. There’s a great video on youtube that you can watch here.

Second, let’s read a description of popular singing in Wales and England, written by Giraldus Cambrensis (otherwise known as Gerald of Wales) in 1191; please note that the original was written in Latin, and this is a translation:

As to their musical euphony, they do not sing uniformly as is done elsewhere, but diversely with many rhythms and tunes, so that in a crowd of singers, such as is the custom among these peo- ple, you will hear as many different songs and differentiations of the voices as you see heads, and hear the organic melody coming together in one conso- nance with the smooth sweetness of B- flat. Moreover, in the northern part of Great Britain, that is across the Humber and on the borders of Yorkshire, the English people who inhabit those parts employ the same kind of symphonious harmony in singing, but in only two parts: one murmuring below and the other in a like manner softly and pleasantly above. Both nations have acquired this peculiarity not by art but by long usage which has made it, as it were, natural. Moreover, it prevails in both countries and is now so deeply rooted there that nothing musical is performed simply, but only diversely among the former people and in two parts among the latter. And what is more remarkable, children scarcely beyond infancy, when their wails have barely turned into songs observe the same musical performance. Since the English in general do not employ this method of musical per- formances but only the northerners, I believe that it was from the Danes and Norwegians, by whom these parts of the island were more frequently invaded and held longer, that they contracted this peculiarity of singing as well as their manner of speaking.

Giraldus/Gerald also was also a fan of Irish instrumental performances, you can read a short excerpt here.

To further support the idea that church practice wasn’t always representative of other musical styles, here are two English clerics (friends, coincidently enough), both complaining about polyphonic church music and how inappropriate they found it. Again, both were originally written in Latin, so these are translation:

John of Salisbury, writing in 1159, argued that music (specifically, from his description, it would seem polyphonic music), dirtied or debased the Divine Service, complaining about the “effete” (or effeminate) “emotings” of the singers--a clearly gendered claim that links musical performance to women, and thus to sex and vanity. He complained that the “before-singing and their after-singing, their singing and their counter-singing, their in-between-singing and their ill-advised singing … to such an extent are the highest notes mixed together with the low or lowest ones. Indeed, when such practices go too far, they can more easily occasion titillation between the legs than a sense of devotion in the brain.”

The New Grove (now often called Oxford Music Online) provides a slightly different translation of that same section of text:

In a passage frequently quoted, John objected to those who sing in an ‘effeminate fashion’, and whose performances ‘strive to enervate astonished little souls’. These voices display a ‘facility in ascent and descent, in the dividing or doubling of notes, in the repetition of phrases, and in their combination, while … the highest notes of the scale are so mingled with the … lowest, that the ears are almost deprived of their power to distinguish’. Writing of the ‘very smooth singing of those who sing first, and those who follow, of those who sing together, and those who finish, of those who sing in between, and those who sing against others’

John’s friend, Aelred of Rievaulx, an English abbot, writing in the mid 1100s, had this to say:

Why that swelling and swooping of the voice? One person sings tenor, another sings duplum, yet another sings triplum. Still another ornaments and trills up and down on the melody. At one moment the voice strains, the next it wanes. First it speeds up, then it slows down with all manner of sounds. Sometimes--it is shameful to say--it is expelled like the neighing of horses, sometimes, manly strength set aside, it is constricted into the shrillness of a woman’s voice. Sometimes it is turned and twisted in some sort of artful trill. Sometimes you see a man with his mouth open as if he were breathing out his last breath, not singing but threatening silence, as it were, by ridiculous interruption of the melody into snatches. Now he imitates the agonies of the dying or the swooning of persons in pain. In the meantime, his whole body is violently agitated by histrionic gesticulations--contorted lips, rolling eyes, hunching shoulders--and drumming fingers keep time with every single note. And this ridiculous dissipation is called religious observance. And it is loudly claimed that where this sort of agitation is more frequent, God is more honorably served.

Meanwhile, ordinary folk stand there awestruck, stupefied, marveling at the din of bellows, the humming of chimes, and the harmony of pipes; they regard the saucy gestures of the singers and the alluring variation and dropping of the voices with considerable jeering and snickering, until you would think they had come, not an oratory, but to a theater, not to pray, but to gawk.

As you can see from these last descriptive examples, even with lots of detail it is difficult to be sure how the music actually sounded--hence the reliance of music historians on notation, even where it is imprecise. Still, it’s a good reminder to read angry descriptions such as these as a reminder of how important music and musical choices were to people in the past--much as they are to those of us alive in the present.