Discant

DISCANT. - By this term, which is meant to be regarded as a translation of the Greek term Sixquola, is indicated an ancient form of polyphony (v. ARS ANTIQUA) that superseded the primitive organum or diaphonia.

Besides the contrary motion of the parts, a genuine mensuralism also becomes established in this compositional genre (the diaphonia was a simple note-against-note counterpoint, without measure or unmeasured in all its parts), whereby one arrives at a measured counterpoint, originally for two parts, then for three or four (Franco of Cologne), which move in contrary motion with the same words (cantilenae, rondelli, copulae, ocheti, etc.) or different words (motets) at intervals of a 5th and an 8th. The true d. differs from the conductus, a subspecies of it, in that, whereas in the latter all the parts are freely invented by the same musician, it is composed on a given cantus. Many anonymous theorists give rules for this form: the so-called Catton, the two Francos of Cologne and of Paris, Petrus de Cruce, I. de Garlandia, etc.; their treatises on the d. are found at the Ambrosiana in Milan (ed. M. 17 dup. 12th cent.), at the National Library in Paris (Fonds Sorbonne 1817, St-Victor 813, 12th cent.), etc., while musical examples (13th cent.) are found in the aforementioned codex of the Ambrosiana, in one from Chartres (bibl. de la Ville 130 [148]) and in one from Cambridge (Corpus Christi College 473, Winchester Troper).

Luisa Cervelli