HWM CH.

2
I. The Diffusion of Christianity
A. Jesus of Nazareth, Jew and subject of Roman Empire
1. apostles traveled, brought Christianity to Near East, Greece, and Italy
2. promise of salvation in afterlife, community and equality between social
classes
a. drew many converts
b. women played major role in its growth
3. Roman subjects must worship Roman gods and emperors
a. Christians gather in secret, at times persecuted, martyred
B. Emperor Constantine I (r. 310–17), 313 Edict of Milan
1. legalized Christianity
2. allowed church to own property
C. 392 Emperor Theodosius I (r. 374–95)
1. made Christianity the official religion of Roman empire
2. suppressed others, except Judaism
3. Roman empire as model for church organization
4. church patriarchs in Jerusalem, Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, and
Alexandria
D. By 600 entire area once controlled by Rome was Christian
II. The Judaic Heritage
A. Elements of Christian observances sprang from Jewish tradition
1. chanting of Scripture
2. singing of psalms
B. Temples, place for public worship
1. observance centered around a sacrifice (usually a lamb)
2. performed by priests, assisted by Levites, witnessed by worshipers
a. Levites: members of priestly class, including musicians
 3. choir of Levites sang psalms accompanied by harp and psaltery, trumpets and
cymbals
C. Synagogue: centers for readings and homilies
1. public reading from Scripture performed in chant
2. ​cantillation​: chanting sacred texts based on melodic formulas
3. certain readings assigned to particular days or festivals
D. Parallels between Temple rites and Christian Mass
1. symbolic sacrifice
2. singing psalms assigned to certain days
3. gathering in a meeting house to hear Scripture readings and public
commentary
4. Mass commemorates Last Supper, imitates Passover meal
5. Christian melodies may have drawn from Jewish cantillation
III. Music in the Early Church
A. Earliest recorded musical activity, Biblical references
1. Jesus and his followers sang hymns
2. communal meals: sang psalms and hymns
B. 4th century: number of converts grew
1. public meetings in basilicas
a. sung words carried better than spoken word
2. monasteries: devout believers lived in isolation
a. singing psalms central to monastic life
i. pleasures of music discipline the soul
ii. turn the mind to spiritual things
iii. build the Christian community
3. late 4th century: standardized format in Christian observance
a. singing was regular feature: Books of Psalms and nonbiblical hymns
b. codified in rites of medieval church, continue to this day
C. “Church fathers” interpret Bible, set down principles
 1. similar to ancient Greeks
a. value of music: power to influence ethos
b. held to Plato’s principle: beautiful things exist to remind us of divine
beauty
2. music was servant of religion: instrumental music condemned
a. lyres accompanied hymns and psalms at home only
b. entire tradition 1,000 years: unaccompanied singing
c. elaborate singing, large choruses, instruments, dancing: associated with
pagan festivals
3. Christian community set off from pagan society
IV. Divisions in the Church and Dialects of Chant
A. 395, Division of Roman Empire
1. Western Empire ruled from Rome or Milan
a. Germanic invasions; 476 decline and collapse
b. bishop of Rome asserted control of western church
c. after 3rd century Latin used in Rome
2. Eastern Empire centered at Constantinople
a. church under control of the emperor
b. continued use of Greek language of early Christian apostles
3. 1054 division became permanent
a. Western Church became Roman Catholic Church
b. Eastern Church became Byzantine Church
4. Christianity diversified: each region evolved its own rite
a. church calendar
b. liturgy: body of texts, ritual actions to each service
c. repertory of plainchant or chant: unison song
B. Byzantine chant
1. Scriptural readings chanted using formulas reflecting phrasing of the text
2. hymns and psalms sung to fully developed melodies
 3. melodies classified into 8 modes (​echoi)​
a. served as model for Western Church modes
4. hymn most characteristic Byzantine chant
a. more prominent in the liturgy
b. more highly developed than in the West
c. hymn melodies notated from 10th century on
d. still sung in Greek Orthodox services today
C. Western dialects
1. control of western Europe distributed, all converted to Christianity
a. local and regional rites emerged each with its own liturgy and chant
b. Gallican chant, Celtic chant, Mozarabic, Beneventan, and Ambrosian
2. 8th to 11th century: centralized control, popes and secular rulers
standardized church services
a. local chant dialects disappeared over time; authority from Rome
D. The creation of Gregorian chant
1. Schola Cantorum (School of Singers), established late 7th century
a. sang when Pope officiated
b. role in standardizing texts
2. 752 to 754 Pope Stephen II sojourned in Frankish kingdom with Schola
Cantorum
3. Pippin the Short (r. 751–68) king of Franks
a. imported Roman liturgy and chant
b. consolidated diverse kingdom; political and religious goals
4. Charlemagne (Charles the Great, r. 768–814), son of Pippin the Short
a. expanded territory through conquests
b. continued policy of common liturgy
c. crowned emperor by Pope Leo III in 800; initiated Holy Roman Empire
d. melodies brought from Rome to Frankish lands
i. not written down; melodies later preserved
 ii. some chants altered by Franks
iii. some drawn from Gallican chant
iv. new melodies developed after 8th century
5. Pope Gregory I (St. Gregory the Great, r. 590–604)
a. English revered Gregory as founder of their church
b. development of chant repertory attributed to him; Gregorian chant
c. legend: Holy Spirit in the form of a dove dictated chants to Pope Gregory
V. The Development of Notation
A. Oral transmission of chant
1. words written down, melodies learned by rote, sung from memory
2. simple chants passed down with little change
3. other chants improvised, composed orally; strict conventions appropriate to
text, place in the liturgy
a. standard patterns developed, use of formulas
4. variations preserved later through notation
B. Stages of notation
1. Roman chants brought to Frankish lands, notation needed to stabilize chants
2. 850, first definitive references to notation
a. strive for and perpetuate uniformity
3. neumes placed above words indicate melodic gesture; not specific pitches or
intervals
a. serve as reminders of melodic shape
b. heightened neumes, 10th and 11th centuries
i. indicate size and direction of intervals
ii. sacrificed subtle performance indications
4. horizontal lines scratched into parchment
a. musical sign that did not represent a sound
b. line corresponded to particular note, neumes oriented around the line
 c. other manuscripts: line labeled with letter for note it represented
(evolved into clef signs)
5. Guido of Arezzo (ca. 991–after 1033), 11th century monk
a. colored lines: red ink for F, yellow for C
b. other lines scratched in parchment, letters in margins identify lines
c. scheme widely adopted: neumes reshaped to fit arrangement
d. 4-line system evolved, staff of 4 lines each a third apart
e. pitch was still relative
6. notation freed music from dependence on oral transmission
a. oral transmission continued alongside written transmission
b. notation valuable tool for memorization
7. rhythm
a. staff notation with neumes convey pitch, not duration
b. some signs for rhythm, meaning unknown
c. all notes of chant sung with same basic value; notes grouped in 2s or 3s,
combined into larger units
d. practice approved by the Catholic Church
C. Solesmes chant notation
1. Benedictine monks of Solesmes in France prepared modern editions of chant
a. 1903 Pope Pius X proclaimed Solesmes official Vatican edition
2. modernized form of chant notation
a. 4-line staff, C or F clef designated
b. notes and note groups called neumes
c. neumes read left to right
d. variants: oblique neumes, quilisma
3. Solesmes edition includes interpretive signs not found in medieval
manuscripts
VI. Music Theory and Practice
A. The transmission of Greek music theory
 1. Greek music theory transmitted to West by Martianus Capella and Boethius
a. Boethius (ca. 480–ca. 524) most revered music authority in Middle Ages
2. Martianus Capella ​The Marriage of Mercury and Philology​, early 5th century
a. 7 liberal arts
i. trivium: grammar, dialectic, rhetoric
ii. quadrivium: geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and harmonics (music)
​ y Aristides Quintilianus
b. music section: modified translation of ​On Music b
3. ​De institutione musica ​(The Fundamentals of Music) by Boethius
a. widely copied and cited for next thousand years
b. music as science of numbers; numerical ratios and proportions
determine intervals, consonances, scales, and tuning
c. book compiled from Greek sources: treatise by Nicomachus and
Ptolemy’s ​Harmonics
d. original part of book divides music into 3 types
i. ​music mundana​ (the music of the universe): movements of stars and
planets, seasons, and the elements
ii. ​musica humana​ (human music): harmonizes and unifies body and soul
iii. ​musica instrumentalis​ (instrumental music): audible music
e. emphasized influence of music on character
i. music education as introduction to advanced philosophical studies
ii. music as object of knowledge, not as practical pursuit
B. Practical theory
1. 9th-century treatises: ​Musica enchiriadis​ (Music Handbook) and ​Scolica
enchiriadis​ (Comments on the Handbook)
a. directed students entering clerical orders
b. focus on training singers; mathematical approaches as bridge to the
quadrivium
c. 8 modes described; exercises for locating semitones in chant; explains
consonances
2. Guido of Arezzo’s ​Micrologus​ (ca. 1025–28)
 a. practical guide for singers
b. covers notes, intervals, scales, modes, melodic composition, improvised
polyphony
3. late 10th century, ​Dialogus de musica​ (Dialogue on Music), simpler notation
a. adapted by Guido of Arezzo
b. basis for our modern practice, A to G in every octave
c. Guido extended range beyond 2-octave Greek system
d. new letter notation accommodated note above the mese (whole tone or
semitone higher)
i. “round b” and “square b” evolved into our accidentals
C. The church modes: adapted from eight ​echoi​ of Byzantine chant
1. late 8th century, books (​tonaries​) grouped chants together by mode
2. modal system evolved gradually, completed by 10th century
3. 8 modes identified by number
a. final, range, and reciting tone all characterize a mode
b. modes differentiated by whole and half steps in relation to the final
i. final: main note in mode, usually last note in the melody
c. authentic modes paired with a plagal mode, share final; four finals
i. authentic: odd-numbered modes; range from step below final and
octave above it
ii. plagal: same final, deeper in range; 4th or 5th below the final to 5th or
6th above it
d. one chromatic alteration: B-flat
4. species of fifth or fourth applied to modes (Cleonides)
a. modes divided into two spans:
i. 5th rising above final
ii. 4th above 5th in authentic modes, below in plagal modes
b. medieval melodies were not octave species, extend to 9th or 10th or
more
5. reciting tone: most frequent or prominent note in chant
 a. authentic modes: 5th above final
b. plagal modes: 3rd below
6. modes first codified as means to classify chants
a. arranged in books for liturgical use
b. not all chant melodies conform to modal theory
i. many existed before theory developed
ii. chants after 10th century have different style
7. 9th-century application of Greek names to church modes
a. misread Boethius, mixed up names
b. called lowest mode the highest in Cleonides’s arrangement of octave
species
c. moved through names in rising rather than descending order
d. resulting nomenclature: plagal modes have prefix Hypo- added to
authentic modes
8. poor fit between modes and Greek system
a. modes based on final, reciting tone, ranges exceeding an octave
b. Greek system based on tetrachords, octave species, and tonoi
c. important for medieval scholars to ground work in Greek tradition
D. Solmization
1. facilitated sight-singing
2. introduced by Guido of Arezzo
3. set syllables corresponding to succession of tones and semitones
a. notes in first six phrases of the hymn ​Ut queant laxis
b. initial syllables of each phrase: ​ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la
c. solmization syllables still used; ​do​ for ​ut,​ addition of ​ti
4. later theorists mapped syllables to entire range of notes
a. each note named by its letter and the solmization syllables used with
that note in that octave
5. mutation: melodies exceeding 6-note range required shifting syllable set to
different positions
a. singer renamed a note to fit the new syllable set
6. “Guidonian Hand”
a. mnemonic device to locate pitches of system of hexachords
b. joints stood for one of the notes in the tone-system
c. other notes “outside the hand”