Organum

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This article is about a style of music. For the musical instrument, see organum (musical instrument). For the experimental music group, see David Jackman

Organum (pronounced /ˈɔɹgənəm/, though the stress is now sometimes incorrectly put on the second syllable) is a technique of singing developed in the Middle Ages, and is an early form of polyphonic music. In its earliest stages, organum involved two musical voices: a Gregorian chant melody, and the same melody transposed by a consonant interval, usually a perfect fifth or fourth. In these cases often the composition began and ended on a unison, maintaining the transposition only between the start and finish. Organum was originally improvised; while one singer performed a notated melody (the vox principalis), another singer—singing "by ear"—provided the unnotated second melody (the vox organalis). Over time, composers began to write added parts that were not just simple transpositions, and thus true polyphony was born.

Contents

1 History

1.1 Early organum
1.2 Free Organum
1.3 Florid organum
1.4 Melismatic Organum
1.5 Notre Dame school

2 See also
3 References and further reading

History

Early organum

The first document to describe organum specifically, and give rules for its performance, was the Musica enchiriadis (c. 895), a treatise traditionally (and probably incorrectly) attributed to Hucbald of St. Amand. In its original conception, organum was never intended as polyphony in the modern sense; the added voice was intended as a reinforcement of the singers, who were normally in unison. It is also made clear in the Musica enchiriadis that octave doubling was acceptable, since such doubling was inevitable when men and boys sang together; and it was also acceptable to double parts with instruments. The 10th-century treatise Scholia enchiriadis treats the subject in greater detail.

The Musica enchiriadis documented a practice which was already going on, although it has not been possible to establish a beginning date for the practice, which may go back hundreds of years. Since the treatise was written slightly before the reinvention of standardised musical notation around 900, its descriptions of organum are verbal only, and it is not known how closely they were followed.

For parallel singing, the original chant was the upper voice; the vox organalis was at a parallel perfect interval below, usually a fourth. Thus the melody would be heard as the principal voice, the vox organalis as an accompaniment or reinforcement.

This kind of organum is now usually called parallel organum, although terms such as sinfonia were used in early treatises.

Free Organum

After parallel organum the next development to arise in the practice of organum was that of free organum. Early examples of this style of organum use only contrary motion (voices moving in opposite directions) as well as parallel motion, but the introduction of similar motion (voices moving in the same direction, but to different intervals) and oblique motion (one voice moving while the other stays still) led to progressively freer musical lines - a prerequisite element of counterpoint. Although free organum is mostly still in note-against-note style, towards the end of its lifetime (some time in the 11th century) there are examples of more than one note of the organal voice against one note in the cantus firmus - another precursor of contrapuntal techniques.

Florid organum

Organum as a musical genre reached its peak in the twelfth century with the development of two very different schools of organum composition: the St. Martial School of florid organum, which may have been centered around the monastery of St. Martial in Limoges, and the Notre Dame school of organum of Paris (see: rhythmic mode), which included composers such as Léonin and Pérotin, and out of which grew most of the later forms such as the motet.

Melismatic Organum

Notre Dame school

References and further reading

Various articles, including "Organum," "Musica enchiriadis", "Hucbald", "St Martial" in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. ISBN 1561591742
Richard H. Hoppin, Medieval Music. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1978. ISBN 0393090906
[The Role of the Drone] -- organum and the development of harmony
[The Organa of the Winchester Troper] -- The Organa of the Winchester Troper: consonance, rhythm and the origins of organum (good bibliography here too)
[Appendix to The Organa of the Winchester Troper] -- Appendix to 'The Organa of the Winchester Troper': Musical transcriptions

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