7.2 - Gregorian Chant

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Del curso dictado por Yale University

Introduction to Classical Music

1444 calificaciones

Yale University

Introduction to Classical Music

1444 calificaciones

Using a simple and enjoyable teaching style, this course introduces the novice listener to the wonders of classical music, from Bach fugues to Mozart symphonies to Puccini operas.

De la lección

Music Back in the Day

We will cover a thousand years in musical evolution during this modules lectures! We'll start with the Middle Ages taking a look at its functional chants and dance music, then we’ll move to the period of the Renaissance, and finish off by listening to the ornate melodies of opera heard throughout the early Baroque period. From this, you’ll begin to see how advances in musical notation allowed compositions to become both more specific and more complex. These advances are ultimately responsible for focus being shifted away from the performers and towards the composers themselves.Along the way, we’ll highlight some of these musical inventors and innovators, such as Hildegard of Bingen and Johann Pachelbel. We’ll also have the unique opportunity to see (and in some cases even hear) many of the instruments that were popular during these different time periods. This will be a real treat, made possible with help from Yale instructor, Grant Herreid. Many thanks are owed to him!

7.1 - Introduction to the Middle Ages4:57

7.2 - Gregorian Chant7:09

7.3 - Monasteries and Convents6:06

7.4 - The Chant of Hildegard of Bingen4:43

7.5 - Early Polyphony7:14

7.6 - Polyphony at the Cathedral of Reims: Machaut's Messe de Nostre Dame8:17

7.7 - Dance Music of the Court12:54

Conoce a los instructores

Craig Wright
Henry L & Lucy G Moses Professor of Music
Department of Music

[MUSIC]

What you heard in the background, is Gregorian Chant.

Gregorian Chant was and is the music of the Roman Catholic Church.

It was first created in the time of the Apostles of Christ and

continued to be created, until the late 16th century, 1500 years.

Well obviously Pope Gregory the Great,

who sat on the throne of Saint Peter from 590 to 605, didn't write all of this.

Indeed he wrote little, if any chant, but he had

an influential biographer who gave him a lot more credit than he actually deserved.

[LAUGH] In a way, this was typical of the Middle Ages,

to ascribe to a single male authority figure the works of many individuals,

male and female that transpired over time.

Anyway, we have surviving from the Middle Ages thousands and

thousands of chants for the service of the church.

Let's look at a couple more of these chant manuscripts.

As you can see, this is one-line music, monophonic music.

Also, all the notes look pretty much the same.

There are no flags or stems on them to indicate rhythm,

because generally speaking, there is no meter and no rhythm in Gregorian chant.

We just float along smoothly, and more or less, in equal durations.

Well, what's the notation doing here then?

Well it's simply trying to indicate the ups and downs of the voice.

So this manuscript that we see here is of the 13th century.

Now we turn to one of the 14th century,

a salter hymnal from the Italian city of Verona.

A now a 15th century, century manuscript and

en tifinagh, inviting the singing of the magnificat at vespers.

And finally from the extraordinary piccolomini library in Siena Italy.

A book for the Mass, an Introit for the Mass.

All right, now let's focus on how this chant was used in the liturgy.

Liturgy is simply a fancy sounding word for religious service.

It had two functions.

One, to send out the word, the word of God in rapid fire delivery,

and two, to offer a psychologically slower kind of chant designed to

encourage the listener, to reflect upon Christ and the Christian story.

To present this, we'll turn to a class video.

Here you'll see me, dressed as a monk.

Actually, I've lived in monastery three times in my life.

But only for short durations.

Never more than 10 days.

But I wanted to dress like a monk for this class and turn out the lights, so

that the students would feel that they had been transported elsewhere.

To a different time and place back to the middle ages.

Accomplished and generally speaking in the middle ages there was this tendency to

ascribe to a single or

a couple of male authority figures, a lot more than they actually did.

The point here is the Gregorian chant was being composed 500 years before

Gregory set foot on this Earth, and nearly a 1000 years after that.

What's the purpose of Gregorian chant?

What did it do?

Well, it did two things, one, it communicated the message of the church,

it allowed for the transmission of the word of God,

as they the faithful understood the word and understood God.

And it transmitted the theology, the message of the church.

Chant then, was a medium for the broadcast, literally,

the broadcast of the word, in a resonant acoustical environment, such as a stone or

stucco church, one can project, one can impel a text better.

If you sing it rather than just simply to claim it as usual.

I could say, for

example, now let us read the epistle of the blessed apostle Paul to the Romans.

But the text projects better if I sing it.

[FOREIGN].

In that fashion it goes out better, and it can reverberate better.

Chant used for

direct reading, directly communicating the text was generally syllabic chant.

In syllabic chant, each syllable has just one note.

And in syllabic chant, the musical range tends to be rather narrow.

The second purpose of chant.

Chant also allowed for

a period of reflection upon the subject of the preceding reading.

A sermon or a passage of scripture would be followed by a reflective chant.

Time for contemplation.

This music for reflection upon a preceding religious theme, was generally melismatic.

Now melismatic chant is one in which there are many notes for

just one syllable of text.

And in melismatic chant, the range tends to be a lot broader, it's more virtuosic.

So simple chanting for readings, that's syllabic chant.

More complex chant for moments of personal feeling and

reflection, that's melismatic chant.

Let's take a, an example here, I have my venerable Liber Usualis.

Appear and I'm going to sing the Hallelujah for Easter Sunday.

At least I'm going to try to sing it.

And it's an example of a melismatic chant.

And you'll notice one syllable here is conveyed by probably 30 notes.

[MUSIC]

So that's a melismatic chant.

A moment of joyful celebration associated with the resurrection of Christ.

So that's what chant did and that's what it does today.

It is firstly a medium for a projection of sacred texts.

And secondly a vehicle for spiritual contemplation.

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