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Polyphony
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In music, polyphony is one type of musical texture, where a


texture is, generally speaking, the way that melodic, rhythmic,
and harmonic aspects of a musical composition are combined to
shape the overall sound and quality of the work. In particular,
polyphony consists of two or more simultaneous lines of
independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just
one voice, monophony, or a texture with one dominant melodic
voice accompanied by chords, which is called homophony.

Within the context of the Western musical tradition, the term A bar from J.S. Bach's "Fugue
polyphony is usually used to refer to music of the late Middle
No.17 in A flat", BWV 862, from
Ages and Renaissance. Baroque forms such as fugue, which
Das Wohltemperierte Clavier
might be called polyphonic, are usually described instead as
(Part I), a famous example of
contrapuntal. Also, as opposed to the species terminology of
contrapuntal polyphony.
counterpoint, polyphony was generally either "pitch-against-
Play
pitch" / "point-against-point" or "sustained-pitch" in one part
with melismas of varying lengths in another.[1] In all cases the
conception was probably what Margaret Bent (1999) calls "dyadic counterpoint",[2] 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.

The term polyphony is also sometimes used more broadly, to describe any musical texture that is
not monophonic. Such a perspective considers homophony as a sub-type of polyphony.[3]

Contents
1 Origins
2 European polyphony
2.1 Historical context
2.2 Western Europe and Roman Catholicism
2.2.1 Notable works and artists
2.3 Protestant Britain and the United States
2.4 Balkan region
3 Caucasus region
3.1 Georgia
3.2 Chechens and Ingushes

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4 See also
5 References
6 External links

Origins
Traditional (non-professional) polyphony has a wide, if uneven, distribution among the peoples of
the world. Most polyphonic regions of the world are in sub-Saharan Africa, Europe and Oceania. It
is believed that the origins of polyphony in traditional music vastly predate the emergence of
polyphony in European professional music. Currently there are two contradictory approaches to the
problem of the origins of vocal polyphony: the Cultural Model, and the Evolutionary Model.[4]
According to the Cultural Model, the origins of polyphony are connected to the development of
human musical culture; polyphony came as the natural development of the primordial monophonic
singing; therefore polyphonic traditions are bound to gradually replace monophonic traditions.[5]
According to the Evolutionary Model, the origins of polyphonic singing are much deeper, and are
connected to the earlier stages of human evolution; polyphony was an important part of a defence
system of the hominids, and traditions of polyphony are gradually disappearing all over the world.
[6]:198–210

Although the exact origins of polyphony in the Western church traditions are unknown, the treatises
Musica enchiriadis and Scolica enchiriadis, both dating from c. 900, are usually considered the
oldest extant written examples of polyphony. These treatises provided examples of two-voice
note-against-note embellishments of chants using parallel octaves, fifths, and fourths. Rather than
being fixed works, they indicated ways of improvising polyphony during performance. The
Winchester Troper, from c. 1000, is the oldest extant example of notated polyphony for chant
performance, although the notation does not indicate precise pitch levels or durations.[7]

European polyphony
Historical context

European polyphony rose out of melismatic organum, the earliest harmonization of the chant.
Twelfth-century composers, such as Léonin and Pérotin 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,
or the sacred text might be placed within a familiar secular melody. The oldest surviving piece of
six-part music is the English rota Sumer is icumen in (c. 1240).[8]

These musical innovations appeared in a greater context of societal change. After the first

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millennium, European monks decided to start translating the works of Greek philosophers into the
vernacular. Western Europeans were aware of Plato, Socrates, and Hippocrates 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). Once these ancient works started being translated thus becoming accessible, the
philosophies had a great impact on the mind of Western Europe. This sparked a number of
innovations in medicine, science, art, and music.

Western Europe and Roman Catholicism

European polyphony rose prior to, and during the period of the Western Schism. Avignon, the seat
of the antipopes, was a vigorous center of secular music-making, much of which influenced sacred
polyphony.[9]

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 spoke in his 1324 bull Docta Sanctorum Patrum
warning against the unbecoming elements of this musical innovation.[10] Pope Clement VI,
however, indulged in it.

The oldest extant polyphonic setting of the mass attributable to one composer is Guillaume de
Machaut's Messe de Nostre Dame, dated to 1364, during the pontificate of Pope Urban V.

More recently, the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) stated: "Gregorian chant, other things
being equal, should be given pride of place in liturgical services. But other kinds of sacred music,
especially polyphony, are by no means excluded.... Religious singing by the people is to be
skillfully fostered, so that in devotions and sacred exercises, as also during liturgical services, the
voices of the faithful may ring out”.[11]

Notable works and artists

Johann Sebastian Bach, List of famous compositions


Tomas Luis de Victoria
William Byrd, Mass for Five Voices
Thomas Tallis
Orlandus Lassus, Missa super Bella'Amfitrit'altera
Guillaume de Machaut, Messe de Nostre Dame

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Jacob Obrecht
Palestrina, Missa Papae Marcelli
Josquin des Prez, Missa Pange Lingua
Gregorio Allegri, Miserere

Protestant Britain and the United States

English Protestant west gallery music included polyphonic multi-melodic harmony, including
fuguing tunes, by the mid-18th century. This tradition passed with emigrants to North America,
where it was proliferated in tunebooks, including shape-note books like The Southern Harmony and
The Sacred Harp. While this style of singing has largely disappeared from British and North
American sacred music, it survived in the rural Southern United States, until it again began to grow
a following throughout the United States and even in places such as Ireland, the United Kingdom,
Poland, Australia and New Zealand, among others.

Balkan region

Polyphonic singing in the Balkans is traditional folk singing


of this part of southern Europe. It is also called ancient, archaic
or old-style singing.[12][13]

Byzantine chant
Ojkanje singing, in Croatia
Ganga singing, in Croatia, Montenegro and Bosnia and
Herzegovina
Epirote singing, in northern Greece and southern Albania
Albanian polyphonic folk group
(see below)
wearing qeleshe and fustanella in
Iso-polyphony in southern Albania (see below)
Skrapar.
Gusle singing, in Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Croatia and Albania
Izvika singing, in Serbia
Woman choirs of Shopi (Bistritsa Babi) and Pirin, in Bulgaria

Incipient polyphony (previously primitive polyphony) includes antiphony and call and response,
drones, and parallel intervals.

Balkan drone music is described as polyphonic due to Balkan musicians using a literal translation
of the Greek polyphōnos ('many voices'). In terms of Western classical music, it is not strictly
polyphonic, due to the drone parts having no melodic role, and can better be described as
multipart.[14]

The polyphonic singing tradition of Epirus is a form of traditional folk polyphony practiced among
Aromanians, Albanians, Greeks, and Macedonian Slavs in southern Albania and northwestern
Greece.[15][16] This type of folk vocal tradition is also found in the Republic of Macedonia and

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Bulgaria. Albanian polyphonic singing can be divided into two major stylistic groups as performed
by the Tosks and Labs of southern Albania. 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 (Albanian iso-polyphony) has been proclaimed
by UNESCO a "Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity". The term iso refers
to the drone, which accompanies the iso-polyphonic singing and is related to the ison of Byzantine
church music, where the drone group accompanies the song.[17][18]

Caucasus region
Georgia

Polyphony in the Republic of Georgia is arguably the oldest polyphony in the Christian world.
Georgian polyphony is traditionally sung in three parts with strong dissonances, parallel fifths, and
a unique tuning system based on perfect fifths. Georgian polyphonic singing has been proclaimed
by UNESCO an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.[19] Polyphony plays a crucial role in
Abkhazian traditional music. Polyphony is present in all genres where the social environment
provides more than one singer to support the melodic line. Readers might remember (from the very
beginning of this book) the recollection of I. Zemtsovsky, when a dozing Abkhazian started singing
a drone to support an unknown to him singer. Abkhazian two and three-part polyphony is based on
a drone (sometimes a double drone). Two part drone songs are considered by Abkhazian and
Georgian scholars the most important indigenous style of Abkhazian polyphony. Two-part drone
songs are dominating in Gudauta district, the core region of ethnic Abkhazians. Millennia of
cultural, social and economic interactions between Abkhazians and Georgians on this territory
resulted in reciprocal influences, and in particular, creation of a new, so-called “Georgian style” of
three-part singing in Abkhazia, unknown among Adighis. This style is based on two leading
melodic lines (performed by soloists - akhkizkhuo) singing together with the drone or ostinato base
(argizra). Indigenous Abkhazian style of three-part polyphony uses double drones (in fourths, fifths,
or octaves) and one leading melodic line at one time. Abkhazians use a very specific cadence:
tetrachordal downwards movement, ending on the interval fourth.[6]:55

Chechens and Ingushes

Both Chechen and Ingush traditional music could be very much defined by their tradition of vocal
polyphony. As in other North Caucasian musical cultures, Chechen and Ingush polyphony is based
on a drone. Unlike most of the other North Caucasian polyphonic traditions (where two-part
polyphony is the leading type), Chechen and Ingush polyphony is mostly three-part. Middle part,
the carrier of the main melody of songs, is accompanied by the double drone, holding the interval
of the fifth “around” the main melody. Intervals and chords, used in Chechen and Ingush
polyphony, are often dissonances (sevenths, seconds, fourths). This is quite usual in all North

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Caucasian traditions of polyphony as well, but in Chechen and Ingush traditional songs more sharp
dissonances are used. In particular, a specific cadence, where the final chord is a dissonant
three-part chord, consisting of fourth and the second on top (c-f-g), is quite unique for North
Caucasia. Only on the other side of Caucasian mountains, in western Georgia, there are only few
songs that finish on the same dissonant chord (c-f-g).[6]:60–61

See also
Micropolyphony
Polyphonic Era

References
1. Hendrik van der Werf (1997). "Early Western polyphony", Companion to Medieval & Renaissance
Music. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-816540-4.
2. 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.
3. DeVoto, Mark (2015). "Polyphony". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 2015-12-01.
4. Jordania, Joseph (2011). Why do People Sing? Music in Human Evolution. Logos. pp. 60–70.
ISBN 978-9941-401-86-2.
5. Bruno Nettl. Polyphony in North American Indian music. Musical Quarterly, 1961, 47:354-362
6. Joseph Jordania (2006). Who Asked the First Question? The Origins of Human Choral Singing,
Intelligence, Language and Speech (PDF). Tbilisi: Logos. ISBN 99940-31-81-3.
7. Riemann, Hugo. History of music theory, books I and II: polyphonic theory to the sixteenth century,
Book 1. Da Capo Press. June 1974.
8. Albright, Daniel (2004). Modernism and Music: An Anthology of Sources. University of Chicago Press.
ISBN 0-226-01267-0.
9. Riemann, Hugo. History of music theory, books I and II: polyphonic theory to the sixteenth century,
Book 2. Da Capo Press. June 1974.
10. Pope John XXII (1879). "Translated from the original Latin of the bull Docta sanctorum patrum as
given in Corpus iuris canonici, ed. a. 1582" (PDF). pp. 1256–1257.
11. Vatican II, Constitution on the Liturgy, 112-118
12. Selected Discography on Multipart Singing in Serbia & Montenegro (http://www.mdw.ac.at/ive/emm
/index.php?id=238)
13. Music-cultures in contact: convergences and collisions (https://books.google.com
/books?id=V9zpAAAAIAAJ)
14. Koço, Eno (27 February 2015). A Journey of the Vocal Iso(n). Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. xx.
ISBN 978-1-4438-7578-3. A free, unpublished version of this passage is available on Google Books
(https://books.google.com/books?id=zoPI3exolloC&pg=PR22).
15. Bart Plantenga. Yodel-ay-ee-oooo (https://books.google.com/books?hl=el&id=3BzBBq48O6AC&
q=polyphonic). Routledge, 2004. ISBN 978-0-415-93990-4, p. 87 Albania: "Singers in Pogoni region
perform a style of polyphony that is also practised by locals in Vlach and Slav communities [in
Albania].
16. Engendering Song: Singing and Subjectivity at Prespa by Jane C. Sugarman,1997,ISBN
0-226-77972-6,page 356,"Neither of the polyphonic textures characteristic of south Albanian singing is

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unique to Albanians. The style is shared with Greeks in the Northwestern district of Epirus (see Fakiou
and Romanos 1984) while the Tosk style is common among Aromanian communities from the Kolonje
region of Albania the so called Farsherotii (see Lortat-Jacob and Bouet 1983) and among Slavs of the
Kastoria region of Northern Greece (see N.Kaufamann 1959 ). Macedonians in the lower villages of the
Prespa district also formerly sang this style "
17. European voices: Multipart singing in the Balkans and the ..., Volume 1 By Ardian Ahmedaja, Gerlinde
Haid page 241 [1] (https://books.google.com/books?id=Iga91qAoeDYC&pg=PA241&
dq=festivali+i+folklorit+gjirokaster+5+years&cd=1#v=onepage&q&f=false)
18. "Albanian Folk Iso-polyphony". UNESCO. Retrieved 31 December 2010.
19. "Georgian Polyphonic Singing". UNESCO.

External links
Thirteenth-Century Polyphony (http://www.medieval.org Wikimedia Commons
/emfaq/harmony/2voice.html) has media related to
Tuning and Intonation in Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century Polyphony.
Polyphony (http://www.gesualdo.co.uk/2011/12/04/tuning-
and-intonation-in-fifteenth-and-sixteenth-century-polyphony/)
World Routes in Albania - Iso-Polyphony in Southern Albania (http://www.bbc.co.uk
/programmes/b016vl5c) on BBC Radio 3
World Routes in Georgia - Ancient polyphony from the Caucasus region
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/worldmusic/onlocation/georgia.shtml) on BBC Radio 3
Aka Pygmy Polyphony (http://www.pygmies.org/aka/music-dance.asp) African Pygmy
music, with photos and soundscapes

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