What is Notre Dame organum?
Notre Dame Organum sets the solo sections of the responsorial chants of the Mass and Office. The organum is highly melismatic; can be for 2, 3, or 4 voices; chant is always in the lowest voice called the Tenor. Long held notes in the Tenor except for places where a melisma appears in the chant (see Clausula below).
Who was a great composer of the Notre Dame style of organum?
Léonin, Latin Leoninus, (flourished 12th century), leading liturgical composer of his generation, associated with the Notre Dame, or Parisian, school of composition. The details of Léonin’s life are not known. To him is attributed the Magnus liber organi (c.
What are the 3 types of organum?
Organum purum is one of three styles of organum, which is used in section where the chant is syllabic thus where the tenor can not be modal. As soon as the chant uses ligatures, the tenor becomes modal and it will have become discant, which is the second form. The third form is copula (Lat.
What is a organum in music?
Organum is a genre of Medieval polyphonic music (music with two or more simultaneous, different voice parts) that reached the peak of its sophistication during the late 1100s-early 1200s in France. In organum, new music would be composed and sometimes improvised on top of the “fixed” music of older Gregorian chant.
What purpose do Neumes serve?
Neumes were used for notating other kinds of melody than plainchant, including troubadour and trouvère melodies, monophonic versus and conductus, and the individual lines of polyphonic songs.
Is organum a type of polyphony?
Two main types of polyphony were organum and the motet.
What music did Léonin compose?
According to Anonymous IV, “Magister Leoninus (Léonin) was the finest composer of organum; he wrote the great book (Magnus Liber) for the gradual and antiphoner for the sacred service.” All of the Magnus Liber is for two voices, although little is known about actual performance practice: the two voices were not …
What is organa plainchant?
Plural: organa. -Léonin and Pérotin. -Polyphonic work of the 9th-12th centuries consisting of an original plainchant melody in one voice along with at least one additional voice above or below. -based on original plainchant pieces. -earliest form of polyphonic compositions.
Is organum a polyphony?
organum, plural Organa, originally, any musical instrument (later in particular an organ); the term attained its lasting sense, however, during the Middle Ages in reference to a polyphonic (many-voiced) setting, in certain specific styles, of Gregorian chant.
How many rhythmic modes were there?
six rhythmic modes
In most sources there were six rhythmic modes, as first explained in the anonymous treatise of about 1260, De mensurabili musica (formerly attributed to Johannes de Garlandia, who is now believed merely to have edited it in the late 13th century for Jerome of Moravia, who incorporated it into his own compilation).
What is organum and its importance?
Organum is a musical style based on plainchant. While one voice sings the primary chant melody, at least one other voice sings along to enhance the harmony. This style is important to musicians, particularly music theorists, because it served as the basis for the development of true counterpoint.