Music in the making; Early development of choral music

Music in the making. Produced by Milliken university under a grant from the Educational Television and Radio Center in cooperation with the National Association of educational broadcasters. The really good news music presents Professor Wesley Snyder in the Millikan choir and recorded consideration of the early development of choral music from the 9th through the 16th centuries by way of introduction. Professor Snyder calls attention to the fact that the music of our present day has been a long time in the making. Many centuries in fact and every new idea every innovation from the earliest time to the present has played some part in making music what it is today. The growth and expansion of music through the earliest period is clearest in choral polyphony. The earliest examples of this type of music come from the ninth century when the practice of having two or more vocal lines simultaneously

was a new and exciting idea. The Milliken acapella choir will sing several examples of this early choral polyphony and you'll hear the men of the choir in fragments of choral music from ninth eleventh 13th and 15th centuries. The entire choir then with Professor Snider conducting will sing musical illustrations from the 16th century. Here to take over at this point is Professor Snyder. Isn't that a rather unusual or strange sounding piece of music. What do you suppose it is. Is it just a piece of music that's been run by two groups of singers. Well no it's actually supposed to sound that way. At the time of its composition it was the newest thing in music it represented

the latest IJA. It was very satisfying to the ears of 19th century hearers. Now that is actually the first example of. Vocal polyphony that simply means two tunes sung at the same time and that is the basis of our modern music not meant to be accepted. We take it for granted that that's the way music is. But in in the early days before the ninth century composers didn't know that they could sing to melodies together so they were content to have their singers sing along the same melody at the same pitch and were perfectly content to have that as the end all of music. But along about the ninth century there began an idea. Which said that perhaps we can put the same tune at different pitch levels and that's

what they did. Now they took a melody which sounded like this. Thing also had another group saying the same melody at a lower pitch like this. Then they put them both together. And sang it like this. The only interval in there the only harmonic interval is that of the fifth and the fifth. The early minds in music considered consonant as it is today of course but they considered only consonants other than they are. Now.

Within a few hundred years after the music had been sung in this manner. There crept in another new idea that I have contrary motion. The country in motion is what we have today. We accepted but it was a new idea to Mayans in the tenth or eleventh century. Now they began singing perhaps at a fourth a melody the same in both voices but at the end they came together in country motion to end on a unison in this fashion. That seems a little bit better at the end than this first example but still is not satisfying to our ears. All of this music you understand was without regular metrical

rhythm. The next idea which came in about eleven fifty or twelve hundred was the idea of putting down on paper pitch and rhythm in music and this weakening we can experience through an old composition called Mirror Mirror. It's true of course that's the only thing they excepted from 13:00. The only trip but of course some of the new trick of having And they

also added to the voices we have now three voices the 14th century 14th century voices and example. Uh. Uh. Now this example music sounds a little weird yet to modern ears is quite satisfying too. Late 14th century and early 15th century listeners the voices in this composition were all at the same pitch level. There's

no extremely high voice no extremely low voice but. In the middle and the sixteenth century and during the 15th century there was being worked out the use of high voices and low voices in the same composition. Let's pause and listen for a moment to the Millikan acapella choir as it sings composition by just kind a prey to pulp the. I am.

What. I think you would agree that that music is beginning to sound modern to our ears. I will go on into the 16th century and take a an example of music by Palestrina Palestrina was perhaps the greatest composer of the 16th century. He was strictly a church musician. Let's listen to his panis on Jellicoe as sung by the Vatican acapella choir. Ya orig

org org a on. Professor Wesley Sneider and the Millikan University Choir have brought here recorded consideration of the early development of choral music. Music in the making was produced by American University under a grant from the Educational Television and Radio Center. This program is distributed by the National Association of educational broadcasters. This is the end of the tape network.