2. Music of the Middle Ages; Early Organum

Music of the Middle Ages
An Anthology for Performance and Study by
David Fenwick Wilson
ISBN 0-02-872952-8 Schirmer Books

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Part II Early Organum and Free Organum (c. 900-1200)

1. Alleluia: Angelus domini; Respondens (oblique organum) (0:00)
2. Alleluia: Justus ut palma (3:18)
3. Alleluia: Angelus domini (5:42)

Gordon Jones, Paul Hillier and the HIlliard Ensemble

Organum is, in general, a plainchant melody with at least one added voice to enhance the harmony, developed in the Middle Ages. Depending on the mode and form of the chant, a supporting bass line (or bourdon) may be sung on the same text, the melody may be followed in parallel motion (parallel organum), or a combination of both of these techniques may be employed. As no real independent second voice exists, this is a form of heterophony. In its earliest stages, organum involved two musical voices: a Gregorian chant melody, and the same melody transposed by a consonant interval, usually a perfect fifth or fourth. In these cases the composition often began and ended on a unison, the added voice keeping to the initial tone until the first part has reached a fifth or fourth, from where both voices proceeded in parallel harmony, with the reverse process at the end. Organum was originally improvised; while one singer performed a notated melody (the vox principalis), another singer—singing “by ear”—provided the unnotated second melody (the vox organalis). Over time, composers began to write added parts that were not just simple transpositions, thus creating true polyphony.

The first document to describe organum specifically, and give rules for its performance, was the Musica enchiriadis (c. 895), a treatise traditionally (and probably incorrectly) attributed to Hucbald of St. Amand.

After parallel organum, the next development to arise in the practice of organum is postulated to be that of free organum. The earliest examples of this style dating from around 1020–1050 (the Micrologus of Guido of Arezzo and the Winchester Troper) utilise parallel motion and oblique motion (upper voice moving while the tenor holds one note), but the introduction of contrary motion (voices moving in opposite directions) as well as similar motion (voices moving in the same direction, but to different intervals) led to progressively freer musical lines—a prerequisite element of counterpoint.

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