Music of the Gothic Era — 1. Notre Dame Period
The Early Music Consort of London, David Munrow

[LP 1]
Notre Dame Period

[Side 1]
LÉONIN. Organa 2 vocum
Source / Editions: W. G. Waite, The Rhythm of XIIth Century Polyphony, New Haven 1954

1. Viderunt omnes  [9:02]
James Bowman, choir (unisono), bells

2. Alleluya Pascha nostrum  [5:53]
Martyn Hill, choir (unisono), bells

3. Gaude Maria Virgo  [6:51]
Paul Elliott, choir (unisono), bells

4. Locus iste  [5:57]
Charles Brett, choir (unisono), bells


[Side 2]
PEROTIN. Organa 4 vocum
Source / Editions: The Works of Perotin, ed. E. Thurston, New York 1970

5. Viderunt omnes  [11:49]
Paul Elliott, Rogers Covey-Crump, Martyn Hill,choir (unisono), positive organ

6. Sederunt principes  [11:14]
choir, positive organ

The Notre Dame Period

The age in which Léonin and Pérotin lived has rightly been described as one of intellectual ferment. Men had finally emerged from the Dark Ages and were looking back for inspiration to the art, architecture and literature of the Greek and Roman civilizations. The so called "Renaissance of the 12th century" which witnessed such important musical developments also saw the establishment of universities at Paris, Montpellier, Oxford, Bologna and Salerno, a new learning and literature in Latin and the flowering of troubadour poetry and the drama of the medieval Church. Although music was still something of a beginner amongst these other arts, it was an important academic subject just as it had been in Classical times. Together with arithmetic, geometry and astronomy it made up the quadrivium, the higher division of the seven liberal arts studied at the universities. And the close association between Church and university in Paris naturally fostered the development of Church music. Writing of the Paris of 1210, the historian William of Armorica has this to say of the university:

In that time letters flourished at Paris. Never before in any time or in any part of the world, whether in Athens or in Egypt had there been such a multitude of students. The reason for this must be sought not only in the admirable beauty of Paris, but also in the special privileges which King Philip and his father before him conferred upon the scholars. In that great city the study of the trivium and the quadrivium ... [was] held in high esteem. But the crowd pressed with a special zeal about the chairs where Holy Scripture was taught, or where problems of theology were solved.

The University of Paris, which became pre-eminent amongst the medieval universities, developed around the great Cathedral of Notre Dame, begun in 1163. Tantalizingly little is known about the school of composers whose music was performed there. In a brief sketch written in about 1280 an Englishman (Coussemaker, Scriptores, Anonymous IV) tells us:

Magister Leoninus was the best composer of organum, who made the Magnus liber organi de Gradali et Antiphonario in order to increase the divine service. This was in use until the time of the great Perotinus who shortened this book and made many better clausulae or puncta [substitute sections], since he was the best composer of discantus and better than Leoninus, although he cannot be said to reveal the subtlety of [Léonin's] organum. This Magister Perotinus wrote the best quadrupla [four-part organa] such as Viderunt and Sederunt with an abundance of 'colours' in the art of harmonic music ... The book or books of Magister Perotinus were in use both in the choir of the church of Notre Darne in Paris until the time of Magister Robertus de Sabilone, and from his time until the present day ...

It is difficult to overestimate the achievements of these two composers. Léonin's Magnus liber consisted of 34 polyphonic pieces for the Canonical hours and 59 for the Mass throughout the ecclesiastical year. Pérotin revised the book and composed new organa, conductos and motets. The impact of the new polyphonic repertory they provided was enormous: their works were performed all over Europe and copies of them were still being made at the beginning of the 14th century. Before Léonin and Pérotin, the development of polyphony had been held back by the absence of any rhythmic organization in musical notation; between the earliest written polyphony, the simple organa of Musica enchiriadis (c. 850), and the florid school of St. Martial (12th century) comparatively little progress in fixing the rhythm had been made. Writing measured part-music is a fundamental process of composition which might be compared to learning to paint in colour, to write in verse, or to construct a stone archway. Yet when Léonin and Pérotin evolved the technique of modal rhythm (basically the application of a series of rhythmic modes derived from classical prosody) and established an adequate method of musical notation, they not only laid the foundation for the subsequent notational advances of the next two centuries but produced magnificent works of art, grandly conceived and finely executed. The organa of the Magnus liber and the other compositions of the Notre Dame School are in no sense historical relics or mere academic excercises. They do however, present a number of problems for the 20th century performer (as well as editor) which perhaps accounts for their comparative neglect today.


Léonin's Organa

[1]-[4] The Magnus liber of Léonin consists of a series two-part compositions known as organum duplum or purum, in which the lower voice (the tenor) consists of a pre-existing plainchant and the upper voice (the duplum) is newly composed. As was the practice of the Notre Dame School, only those sections of chant normally sung by soloists are set polyphonically, the remaining sections being left unadorned to be sung by the choir. This balance between plainsong and polyphony is an essential feature of Notre Dame organa. Further contrast is achieved within the polyphonic sections by the use of two contrasting styles of writing:
a) the "sustained-tone" style, in which the tenor part holds very long notes against a rapidly moving duplum
b) the "discant" style, in which both parts move at roughly the same speed. In the later Notre Dame pieces the discant sections became known as clausulae (from the Latin clausula = ending) because the part of the melody on which they are based usually comes at the end of the chant.

Although Léonin limited himself to a two-part texture, he obtained great variety within it by exploiting the contrast between these two styles. In the sustained-tone sections the duplum part demands great virtuosity of execution: Léonin alternates sequential melodic phrases with the fast running passages or currentes which are so characteristic of his solo writing. The opening of Viderunt omnes [1] includes a quick downward scale of an octave and a fourth, demanding the sort of vocal technique we associate more with Baroque opera than medieval Church music. Léonin's discant sections are much simpler, and the preponderance of the first rhythmic mode (derived from the trochaic metre and normally transcribed in 6/8 in modern notation) inevitably produces a dance-like lilt. It is worth noting, in view of the subsequent development of the motet, that Léonin occasionally repeats the plainchant tenor in these sections, presumably in order to give them more weight, as for instance in the second discant section of Viderunt omnes.

Besides demanding an accomplished vocal technique, Léonin's organa present interesting problems of range. The soloist is normally expected to cope with a compass of at least an octave and a half, and, taking the pitch as it stands, this often lies uncomfortably in between normal tenor and alto ranges. Whilst pitch was anything but standardized in the Middle Ages, these pieces do not easily lend themselves to transposition, since accommodating the soloist all too often takes the unaccompanied plainchant sections out of the normal range of the choir. Accordingly, the four organa from the Magnus liber recorded here have been performed at the written pitch. Two of the duplum parts have been assigned to countertenors and two to tenors so that the listener may compare the use of "normal" and "falsetto" techniques. There can be little doubt that falsetto singing was used by some of the singers in the Notre Dame choir: mention is made of the taste for very high-pitched singing (acutissimis vocibus) in Pérotin's time.


Pérotin's Quadrupla

Perhaps the most surprising feature of Léonin's organa is the length of the pieces: long melismas turn a single line of plainsong into several pages of polyphony. Yet Léonin's time-scale is brief compared to that of Perotin, whose massive musical structures seem to bestride the history of medieval church music like a colossus. The two monumental organa included on this record are justly famous. [5] Viderunt omnes, probably written for the Christmas season of 1198, and [6] Sederunt principes probably first performed on the Feast of St. Stephen in 1199 are the earliest known examples of four-part music in the history of European music. Both seem to share the architectural grandeur of Notre Dame itself. If the hallmark of Léonin's style is the virtuoso treatment of a solo voice, that of Pérotin is the skilful manipulation of small choral forces. Where Léonin exploited vocal brilliance and decoration, Pérotin relied on repetition and exchange of parts (Stimmtausch) between voices. Where Léonin produced a constant flow of new melodic ideas, Pérotin preferred to limit himself to a handful of short phrases which he could work into a pattern at once ever changing yet basically constant. In the two organa quadrupla, the sustained notes of the tenor have become so extended that each syllable of text becomes a complete section, and a change of note or syllable in the tenor part heralds the introduction of a new group of ideas in the upper parts. Yet the fact that the three upper parts sing virtually continuously over a sustained note which is so long that it acquires the permanence of a drone should not suggest monotony. Perotin's vocal writing is eloquent, imaginative, and full of delicate effects. It is certainly no more instrumental in character than that of Léonin, and the presence of instruments doubling the voices can only make the singers' job harder rather than easier.


The performance of Notre Dame Organa

The problem of the use of instruments in the performance of Notre Dame Church music is a vexed one. It should be remembered that, at this point in history, musical instruments were at a comparatively early stage of development in Europe. The art of bowing was only a century old and many of the instruments which were to become so popular and widespread in the 13th and 14th centuries were not yet in use. As far as France is concerned, there is virtually no evidence of the use of the dulcimer, lute, transverse flute, or portative organ at this early period, even though their participation has been suggested. Bearing in mind the complex nature of the music, the use of loud outdoor instruments such as shawms, drums or cymbals seems less likely still. Only two instruments have an undisputed part in medieval Church music since their association with the Church is regularly chronicled from early medieval times onwards: the organ and chime-bells. Of course, as Ethel Thurston has pointed out, we cannot be certain that there actually was an organ in Notre Dame at all in Perotin's time — but if there was, it would certainly seem likely to have been used to double the voices of the long-note tenor parts. It has been suggested that the whole practice of organum came from the organ in the first place, though it must be remembered that the Latin word organum meant any kind of instrument, not just the organ. Chime-bells were used for teaching the scale and its intervals, notably in the choir schools, and it was a natural extension of this practice that they should accompany plainsong during the service too: bells are sometimes depicted hanging by the side of the organ, ready for use.

Accordingly, the only instruments employed in the works by Léonin and Pérotin recorded here are bells and organ. Bells are used to double the tenor part throughout the Léonin organa, and at places to join in the plainsong sections too, where the joyful nature of the occasion seems to warrant it. It seems particularly appropriate, for example, in Alleluya Pascha nostrum, an Alleluya verse of the Mass of Easter Sunday. In the Pérotin quadrupla the organ has been used to double the tenor part throughout. The listener may be interested in the following further details of interpretation.

Ligature (a notational sign combining two or more notes in a single group): Generally speaking, ligatures have been interpreted as guides to phrasing.
Plica (an ornamental note to be inserted between written notes): We have endeavoured to follow the suggestion of the theorist known as pseudo-Aristotle who said that a plica is to be sung "with a partial closing of the epiglottis combined with a subtle repercussion of the throat".
Tremolando (a fluctuation in volume, as opposed to vibrato, a fluctuation in pitch): According to Walter Odington tremolando (tremule teneatur) was an optional addition to the sustained tenor notes of organa. Our experiment with this effect can be heard in the latter part of Pérotin's Sederunt principes.
Florata (a term not clearly understood, mentioned by Anonymous IV as applied to the long notes at the beginnimg of organa): We have interpreted this as a suggestion to emphasize the opening of the organa, (sometimes decorated with an initial dissonance acting like an appoggiatura as in Léonin's Videront omnes and Locus iste.)
Insertion of rests: Franco of Cologne recommends the insertion of occasional rests in the tenor part to avoid excessive dissonance. We have adopted this practice in the Pérotin organa, not only to avoid dissonance but in order to give the singers a chance to breathe.
Tenor parts: Because of the problem of breathing already mentioned, these have been assigned to three singers who are able to take it in turns to breathe and thus produce a continuous sound.

Acknowledgments
Much of the foregoing material is based on the researches of William G. Waite and Ethel Thurston, whose editions, cited in the table of sources, contain much fascinating background information. I am also most grateful for the help of Bruno Turner who kindly provided me with the appropriate plainsong interpolations for the Léonin pieces, and whose advice has been invaluable.

DAVID MUNROW