FALSE BORDUNE. – A name given to a primitive form
of polyphony, characterized by the exclusive use of thirds and sixths as well as by the parallel motion of all its parts.
The false bordune resembles the two other principal primitive forms of polyphony, namely organum and discant, in that the vocal theme accompanied is drawn from Gregorian melodies and treats each note with the movement of the added parts above or below.
It differs from them in that organum (and its variant, “diafonia”) as well as discant employ exclusively the consonances of fifth and fourth, at least in the organum of Ubaldo, whereas the false bordune uses these consonances only at the beginning and end.
The false bordune was sung “by ear” without need of being written. Were it written, it would appear as a succession of third-and-fifth chords in root position where the given chant stood either in the middle or in the upper part. Sung, the false bordune was heard as a succession of thirds and sixths, since the note written apparently as bass (bordune, from the French bourdon) was carried by the singer to the octave above and thus became a sixth, no longer a true “bordune” but a “false bordune.” It seems that in some cases not only the bass but also the third was carried to the octave above, and then the false bordune resulted for the ear almost as a succession of sixth-and-fourth chords. These various ways of performing the false bordune were called sigils (Gulielmus Monachus, Chilston).
Historically, the false bordune 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 first traces of polyphonic singing go back, even in England, to the time of Scotus Eriugena (d. 886 – De divisione naturae, I. V, 4), the appearance of the false bordune may be placed at the beginning of the 13th century: the first allusions to this form of composition are found, according to Riemann, in Johannes de Garlandia (d. 1240). The earliest treatises on the false bordune date from the 15th century and are due to the Englishmen Lionel Power and Chilston.
The false bordune represents an evolution of a simpler two-voice form, the glymel, “cantus gemellus,” of Scandinavian origin according to Lederer, in which the cantus firmus is accompanied by a third above or below, which may be carried to the octave above, so that the ear perceives a succession of harmonic intervals of sixth or tenth. This two-voice parallel polyphony is indicated in the Descriptio Cambriae by Giraldus Cambrensis, who would be the first theorist of this genre; a manuscript of Uppsala from the end of the 13th century preserves an ancient example on the antiphon “O beata Maria, Nobilis, humilis, Magno martyr stabilis…”
The false bordune, an embryonic popular polyphony, has the great merit of having opened new paths to polyphony, struggling in practice against the claims of theorists who excluded harmonic intervals of thirds and sixths as dissonances: these dissonances, called by some “imperfect consonances,” found in England, besides the consecration of use, also theoretical legitimation: Walter Odington was the first to attempt in his De speculatione musicis to give a mathematical account of these intervals condemned by the severe Pythagorean traditions. With the practice of the false bordune, the concept of chord inversions was approached.
Undoubtedly the false bordune exerted a great influence on the period and on the work of Dufay: a certain number of his