# Latest news about the birth of polyphony.



## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Reported in today's Telegraph:



> A manuscript showing the "birth" of 1,000 years of musical tradition has been discovered by an intern at the British Library.












More detail here.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

This is so exciting - not just because it pushes polyphony back to 900 AD from 1000 AD, but because it shows that even at this late stage, discoveries can be made in the basements of libraries and museums. 

In our modern day world, more is known than it was about the whole history of music. The number of fans of classical music may be small in overall terms, but in global terms, the numbers start to count, and there are more good performers and more music scholars than ever before.

Or am I talking through my hat? KenOC will tell me!


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

This is very fascinating, but I was a little curious about this [somewhat overblown?] statement in the article


> Typically, polyphonic music is seen as having developed from a set of fixed rules and almost mechanical practice. This changes how we understand that development precisely because whoever wrote it was breaking those rules.


Weren't those rules developed a few centuries after.....? Are these "rules" the rules of isorhythmic motets or organum or what? Even in medieval modal music there were no "rules" as to what pitches to use within the mode, clashes and other intervals that were later termed as "dissonances" abounded freely back in the day, as long as the music started and ended together. Or are there some other rules that I am unaware of? And how do they relate to an example of music which they predate? To me it looks like a fine example of _discantus._


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

^^^^ Oh good - a subject to talk about! Thanks, CoAG. :tiphat: I hope someone else will have a view on this. _(My lips are sealed, from ignorance.)_


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> This is very fascinating, but I was a little curious about this [somewhat overblown?] statement in the article
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I presume the gentleman was referring to the Musica enchiriadis of about the same date as the music.


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## Guest (Dec 17, 2014)

Fascinating news there, thanks Taggart. 
Must say the piece absolutely rocks !!!!!!!

[... not!]


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Taggart said:


> I presume the gentleman was referring to the Musica enchiriadis of about the same date as the music.


Thanks, Taggart! Some really cool stuff here that I didn't know about.


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## The nose (Jan 14, 2014)

It seems to me really weird to begin with an interval of a third. I would like to see the manuscript.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Several grains of salt:

This is an extremely important discovery. But, in general, this music has nothing discernible to do with "the birth of polyphony." Polyphony is assumed to have been already thriving at the time this hymn was notated. It might mark the birth of notated polyphony, but given the survival rate of documents from that period, this would be a silly and reckless conclusion. The most that can be said is that it is the earliest example of a thriving practice that historical accident has yet put in our hands.

Ingélou: It pushes back the written record for practical polyphony, but not the practice. Scholars believe there was a long-standing tradition of improvised organum before anyone notated it (just as Gregorian Chant was improvised for centuries before it was codified and committed to parchment), and the mentioned theoretical treatises from the same period were, in part, instruction manuals on how to improvise it. The fact that someone chose to commit an example to parchment is neither here nor there, given that music of this kind was apparently being regularly and widely performed at the time. What is interesting to me is that it offers an example of how actual practice seems to depart from the prescriptions of the contemporary theoretical treatises.

COaC: The rules are from "how to" manuals for improvising organum. I think it is dangerous and presumptuous to extrapolate a set of universal rules from a tiny set of sources, and the fact that this little hymn "breaks the rules" just proves the point. We don't know how well, for example, the Musica enchiriadis actually reflected contemporary practice. And now the only surviving practical score of the day seems to be saying "not very well."



The nose said:


> It seems to me really weird to begin with an interval of à third. I would like to sée thé manuscript.


It starts with a second, which is weirder still.
Edit: It is in fact a third.


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## The nose (Jan 14, 2014)

EdwardBast said:


> It starts with a second, which is weirder still.


The image has low definition but I read C and E.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Sorry about the definition. The whole thing is "breaking news". The Telegraph piece went up 6 hours ago and these are two hours old according to Google.



















These are from phys.org with the permission of the British Library.

Thanks to EdwardBast for an excellent post! :tiphat:

Here is the Cambridge take on the discovery and there is an abstract of Giovanni Varelli's article here which refers to



> a second notated antiphon, Rex caelestium terrestrium, provides elements for a reconstruction of a further, 'hidden', organum.


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## The nose (Jan 14, 2014)

^^^ Thanks a lot for this christmas gift in advance.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

The nose said:


> The image has low definition but I read C and E.


Yes, you are right!


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