Polyphony

POLYPHONY. - From the Greek πολός = much and φωνή = sound, voice, it is music based on the simultaneous association of two or more parts having or not having a thematic relationship. The great trunk of polyphony divides into two luxuriant branches: vocal polyphony and instrumental polyphony, which in turn are both subdivided into sacred and profane. By another criterion, in polyphonic music one may distinguish the so-called imitative style, that is, based on the mutual imitation of the parts (thematic imitation — "canonic" when it is prolonged), the homophonic style, in which verticality prevails, and the free style, more suited to instrumental counterpoint.

I. ORIGINS

From the 9th to the 13th century the forms of the ars antiqua arose. The Irish philosopher Scotus Eriugena, Ubald of St-Amand, Regino of Prüm are the earliest theorists on the threshold of polyphony, before Guido d'Arezzo. It was within ecclesiastical culture that the initial forms of the new musical era were devised. They are: the organum (to the given chant, Gregorian, a part is added in oblique motion or in similar motion); discant (which inaugurates contrary motion; its theoretical statement is found in the treatise Quiconquex cent desechanter, of the 13th century); faburden (a series of 3rds and 6ths: originating, it seems, from the English gymel or cantus gemellus). But up to this point one remained in the realm of note against note. Mensuralism did not take long to introduce proportional figures, maxima, longa, brevis, etc., bringing about the fall of the old 6 rhythmic modes (constant series of iambs, trochees, dactyls, etc.) and permitting the evolution of polyphony properly so called. All this converged in the most elaborate of the ancient polyphonic forms, namely the motet, which united not only different rhythms but even different texts: as many texts as voices. Other primitive forms of polyphony were the conductus (with the tenor freely invented, derived from Gregorian chant), the clausulae (compositions based on the incipit of graduals or of other liturgical melodies), the copula (with melismatic parts), the rondellia (with reciprocal inversions of the various parts). Since, however, all this had generated drawbacks for sacred art, the Church rose in defense of the latter. The bull Docte sanctorum of John XXII (Avignon 1324), without banning polyphony, deplores and excludes from the music of the Mass and the Hours the accentuated and constant rhythms, the sobbing breaks (hoqueti), the double and profane texts, the corruption of melodies disfigured by rapid passages and sometimes even commented upon by gestures of the singers. Ancient polyphony, according to the specialists, was probably soloistic. The school of Notre-Dame in Paris would have been the first to adopt triple meter.

II. RENEWAL

Although it destroyed the Gregorian rhythm, ancient polyphony had intensified and externalized the feeling of the text. A vigorous renewing impulse came to it, in the 14th century, from the forms of music set to texts versified in the vernacular, such as the madrigal, the ballata, and the "caccia." The madrigal has two melodic motifs, one for the stanzas, the other for the refrain. The ballata is, musically, ternary (scheme a-b-a). In the "caccia," two of the three voices chase each other in canon. In the Italian Ars nova the consonances on long notes prevail, along with the slenderness of the rhythms and the freshness of melodic invention; often the measure is binary; rapid figurations increase, the descriptive sense is very vivid, and the instruments (psaltery, viola, portative organ, etc.) are associated with it gracefully. Gherardello da Firenze, Giovanni da Cascia, Casella, remembered by Dante, and others, illustrate the Italian Ars nova; Guillaume de Machaut is the greatest exponent of the French one. The latter elaborates the forms of the virelai and of the ballade notée, which has its 1st stanza divided into the ouvert and the clos (Machaut introduced an instrumental contratenor in addition to the tenor, which was also instrumental).

III. MATURITY

In the 15th century, Flanders (Holland, Belgium, northern France) possessed a fervor of culture that resulted from centuries of commercial exchanges and that permitted a great development of music. On the one hand the maltrises (one of the most illustrious was that of Cambrai), on the other the chapels of the princes, among which that of the Duke of Burgundy stands out, simultaneously contributed to favoring the unfolding of the technical means and expressive possibilities lying within polyphony. An erroneous judgment has been passed on the production of these masters, accusing it of cerebralism and arid technicality; the judgment simply demonstrates that these musics have not been heard. If certain cases justify the accusation, such as combinations of inversion and canonic retrogradation, only by exception were such procedures employed coldly, and enormous is the majority of examples in which they are conscious forms of an intense religious sentiment. Skilled in overcoming the most arduous difficulties of thematic counterpoint, the Flemish gave polyphony an admirable depth and suppleness. An excess resulted from this, and it cannot be denied, with regard to the texts, which became unclear for the listener: and the Council of Trent concerned itself with this. Flemish polyphony is generally divided into periods corresponding to the generations of the most representative composers: 1st generation with Guillaume Dufay (1440?-74) and Gilles Binchois (d. 1460); 2nd with Antoine Busnois (d. 1492) and Jean Okeghem (1430?-95); 3rd with Jacob Obrecht (1450-1505) and Josquin des Prés (1450-1521). The simple reading of these authors (to whom not a few others would need to be added) is fruitful in joys, and one remains surprised not only by the skillful workmanship, but also by the evocative power and the linear beauty. As the theorist M. de Menehou declared in 1558, the fundamental requirement of counterpoint was «to make the parts sing as pleasantly as possible».

IV. APOGEE

The values of vocal polyphony were combined, with various ideal attitudes and various expressive preferences, but with equal enviable mastery and unsurpassed ardor of religious feeling, in the work of Andrea Gabrieli (1510?-86), of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525?-94), of Orlando di Lasso (1532-94) and of Tomás Luis de Victoria (1540-1613). Attempts have been made, out of an anti-Italian tendency, to deny Palestrina the rank and importance that historical tradition attributed to him. But anyone who approaches his immense output with a serene mind and without polemical aims cannot fail to acknowledge it. He stands out with royal pre-eminence in the "Roman school," above Festa, Animuccia, the two Nanino, the two Anerio, Cifra, Allegri, Soriano, Giovannelli. Similarly A. Gabrieli stands out above Willaert, above C. Porta, above G. Croce.

After these great masters vocal polyphony rapidly declined toward its sunset. But the symptoms of polyphony's decadence (the 4th and 6th chord, the diminished thematic interest of the parts, the prominence of the upper voice) are also the symptoms of the new age, the tonal and monodic age.

V. INSTRUMENTAL POLYPHONY

An instrumental polyphony with its own technical-expressive requirements, although derived from vocal polyphony, appears from the time when, in the German lands, the organ drew inspiration from chorale melodies and then intertwined with them together with the strings; that is, from the first quarter of the seventeenth century. The organ music of Scheidt, of G. Gottfried Walther, of Pachelbel, of Buxtehude, the sacred compositions with orchestra of Buxtehude himself, of Ahle, Weckman, the oratorios of Sebastiani and of Schütz are the premises of that perfect contrapuntal independence and melodious flexibility of the instrumental parts, which finds its full and glorious affirmation in the art of G. S. Bach.

Edgardo Carducci Agostini