FALSE BORDONE. — Name given to a primitive form of polyphony, characterized by the exclusive use of thirds and sixths, as well as by contrary motion in all its parts.
The f. b. resembles the two other principal primitive forms of polyphony, namely the “organum” and the discant, in that the vocal accompaniment is taken from Gregorian melodies, and treats each note with movement of the added parts below or above II. It differs from them in that the “organum” (and its variant, the “diaphony”), as well as the discant, use exclusively the consonances of the fifth and fourth, at least in Uebaldo’s “organum,” whereas the f. b. uses these consonances only at the beginning and the end.
The f. b. was sung “by heart,” without the need for it to be written down. In written form it would have appeared as a succession of root-position chords of thirds and fifths, in which the given melody stood either in the middle or in the upper part. When sung, the f. b. was heard as a succession of chords of thirds and sixths, since the note apparently written as the bass (bordone, from the French bourdon) was transferred by the singer to the upper octave and thus became a sixth, no longer a true “bordone,” but rather an “f. b.” It seems that in some cases not only the bass but also the third was transferred to the upper octave; the f. b. then sounded to the ear almost like a succession of chords of fourths and sixths. These various ways of performing the f. b. were called sights (Gulielmus monachus, Chilston).
Historically, the f. b. is recognized as a form of English origin. In 1450 Gulielmus monachus still speaks of it as a peculiarity of the great Island: “…nota quod ipsi (Anglici) habent unum modum, qui modus Faulxbourdin nuncupatur”. While the earliest traces of polyphonic singing go back, in England as well, to the time of Scoto Eriugena (d. in 886 — De divisione naturae, I. V, 4), the appearance of the f. b. may date from the beginning of the thirteenth century: according to Riemann, the first allusions to this form of composition are found in Giovanni di Garlandia (d. in 1240). The oldest treatises on the f. b. date from the fifteenth century and are by the Englishmen Lionel Power and Chilston.
The f. b. represents an evolution of a simpler two-part form, the glymel, “cantus gemellus,” of Scandinavian origin according to Lederer, in which the plainchant is accompanied by a third above or below, which may be transferred to the upper octave, so that the ear perceives a succession of harmonic intervals of sixths or tenths. This two-part polyphony in parallel motion is mentioned in Giraldo di Cambrai’s Descriptio Cymbriae, who would be the first theorist of this genre; a manuscript from Uppsala dating from the end of the thirteenth century preserves one of his ancient examples, based on the hymn to St. Magnus, “Nobilis, humilis, Magno martyr subtilis”.
The f. b., an embryonic polyphony of popular character, has the great merit of having opened new paths for learned polyphony, by challenging in practice the claims of the theorists who excluded the harmonic intervals of thirds and sixths as dissonances: these dissonances, called by some “imperfect consonances,” received in England, besides the consecration of usage, theoretical legitimation as well. Walter Odington was the first to attempt, in his De speculatione musices, to account mathematically for these intervals condemned by the learned Pythagorean traditions. Through the practice of the f. b., the concept of chord inversions was approaching.
There is no doubt that the f. b. greatly influenced Dufay’s period and work itself: a certain number of his iani are entirely notated in f. b. As long as Dufay was credited with a predominant role in the development of contrapuntal notation, great importance was consequently attributed to the polyphonic form of the f. b. Instead, after more recent studies demonstrated Ars nova (v.) of the Florentine madrigalists on the evolution of musical technique in the fourteenth century, the role of the f. b., as well as that of the English musicians, was reduced to more just proportions. The flowering of polyphony did not cause the f. b. to disappear: it is still found in Josquin des Prés (the Mass “Mater Patris”), in Brumel (the Mass “Quoniam Tu solus”), and in Palestrina (the Mass “Improperia”). The term f. b. also refers to another form of polyphonic singing in which each note of the given melody likewise receives a different harmonic treatment, but no longer with the obligatory parallel motion of all the parts (Allegri’s Miserere, for example). It is no longer “by heart” counterpoint according to fixed rules: imagination has its part, and one moves toward an original composition.
Finally, in our own day there remains in use a form of f. b. that goes back to the great masters of the sixteenth century: the psalm verses are recited in four or five voices, with florid counterpoint only at the medial and final cadences; the reciting tone of the respective voices changes from the first to the second part of the psalm verse. The first f. b. of this kind are due to Viadana (published in 1506). F. b. composed in this manner by Vittoria and Palestrina are still known and performed.