Sacred Music in the Middles Ages

Influence of the Christian Church

Music of the Middle Ages also known as Medieval music, flourished from 400 to 1450.
Medieval church music, most pieces of which are still preserved, are traditionally considered by music
historians as the foundation of what is now known as classical music.

Historical Background
Because of the domination of the early Catholic Church during this period, sacred music was
the most prevalent. The Church was able to dictate the progress of arts and letters according to
its own strictures and employed all the scribes, musicians and artists. At this time, western
music was almost the sole property of the Catholic Church.

3  Historical Background
Beginning with Gregorian Chant, sacred music slowly developed into a polyphonic music called
organum performed at Notre Dame in Paris by the twelfth century. Secular music flourished,
too, in the hands of the French trouvères and troubadours, until the period culminated with the
sacred and secular compositions of the first true genius of Western music, Guillaume de
Machaut.

4  Gregorian Chant

The early Christian church derived their music from existing Jewish and Byzantine religious
chant. Like all music in the Western world up to this time, plainchant was monophonic. The
melodies are free in tempo and seem to wander melodically, dictated by the Latin liturgical
texts to which they are set.

5  Gregorian Chant

As these chants spread throughout Europe, they were embellished and developed along many
different lines in various regions and according to various sects. Many years later, composers of
Renaissance polyphony very often used plainchant melodies as the basis for their sacred works.

Significant Developments During the Period

Advent of Notation

In order to disseminate and duplicate their correct performance, musicians started developing
and writing notation, adding to its signs called Neumes.

A Neume is a musical symbol which designates one to four notes to a single syllable.
Neumes written in ascending and descending direction above the texts so as to indicate
melodic outline and pitch variations.
Guido D’ Arezzo (991-1050)
- Italian monk and musical theorist
- Was credited for devising a system of writing music on several parallel horizontal lines
representing a fixed pitch, which evolved into what is now called the staff or staves

Solmization
Another innovation by Arezzo to help musicians memorize and sight-sing chants was to assign
a syllable to each tone of the scale. This method is called solmization.
He used the syllables UT-RE-MI-FA-SOL-LA that corresponds to C-D-E-F-G-A od the scale. The
syllable was taken from the scale chant “Hymm to St. John the Baptism” Guido’s system has six
syllables only, the SI or TI was added later on and the UT was also changed to DO.

(Ut Queant Laxis)

Organum
The Musical style in the Middle Ages were steadily monophonic. But around the tent and
eleventh century, church musicians began singing four or five notes below the melody of the
chant resulting in parallel harmony. This practice of singing and writing additional perfect
fourths and fifths on the melodies of the chant was known as parallel organum.

Church modes
By the tenth century, music theorist had reached that would categorize the melody of the
chants based on a scale-like system known as the church modes. The mode system was the
arrangement of whole tones and half tones, with range not beyond an octave based on the
final note of the melody Greek names were used to label the eight church modes.

1. Dorian
2. Phrygian
3. Lydian
4. Mixolydian
5. Hypodorian
6. Hypophrygian
7. Hypolydian
8. Hypomixolydian