The Church Fathers saw how closely related instrumentation was to pagan rituals, war, and idolatry, so instruments became discouraged from playing, and then altogether banned from the church.(1) All that was left was a capella chanting music. Congregational singing came into play more as the worship service became more universally defined. They were often led by a cantor and sung in call and response. Or one half of the congregation would sing followed by the other half. Simple melodies were assigned to the congregation and complex melodies to the cantor. Singing was now the preferred form of music, but not in harmony, for that was also too Pagan, too Jewish, and too sensual.
Church Fathers started to favor singing in one voice. This became a theological practice based upon the scriptural reading of Isaiah 6:3, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.”(2) This is a recitation of the multitude of the angels. “The union of many,” as Clement Bishop of Rome (c. 96) recites, “which the divine harmony has called forth out of a medley of sounds and division, becomes one symphony, following one leader of the choir and the teacher of the word…”(3) In other words, singing in unison is singing as one conjoined church across heaven and earth. This is the dawning of the age of plainsong, or plainchant. Plainchant is defined as a monophonic unison chant.(4) It is a melody that is sung by one or more people. It is a broad term, though many regard it to be understood to explain Gregorian Chants which we will take a closer look at shortly.
So now as the church was limited to plainchant, there were now Canticles, that is, a simple song taken from the lyrical parts of the Old Testament and New Testament; Psalms, from the Old Testament, usually chosen to depict more Christianly themes of salvation; and new hymns composed by Church leaders and composers who wanted to teach doctrine.
The Church took another great leap into conservative traditionalism by excluding women from singing in the early fourth century, as decided by a Synod.(5) As women were no longer allowed to sing, more boys' choirs were being developed, the congregational singing started to fade as well. The boys’ choirs took the place of the cantor. There would often be two choirs for responsive singing.
The fourth century was a critical era for the church. No longer would Christians have to go underground in the shadows in fear of persecution. With Constantine crowned as Emperor and legislating Christianity in 313 A.D., Christians were now able to travel openly with their faith, carrying with them their doctrines and their hymns.(6) At this point, it became easier for Greek to transition into Latin. This transition took about three hundred years to solidify, slowly and gradually, and without the full Latin mass until the sixth century. Latin hymns began to unfold in the late fourth century around the time of Augustine.(7)
The fourth century birthed the earliest forms of Latin hymns that were eventually added into the Latin rites. A Latin hymn “was more often found in the form of strophic hymnody than the hymns of today.”(8) The first Latin hymnist is Hilary Bishop of Poiters (c. 310-366), gathering his influences from the East in modern day Yugoslavia, acrostics, and the rhythms of Roman marching.(9) However, Ambrose of Milan is considered to be the Father of Latin Hymnary. Ambrose wrote plainchants primarily for the monks in his monastery to lift their spirits. It had stemmed from a movement called “biblicism,” which recited doctrine, yet it also had so much fervor and a folk nature to them they, were accompanied with dancing and clapping hands.(10) They were apparently quite mesmerizing as Saint Augustine of Hippo has claims to his baptism from listening to these Ambrosian Chants.
The hymns that came to light in developing the basic rites—whether they be eastern or western—all have stemmed from the same bible verse as mentioned before, Isaiah 6:3. This passage was used as an elaboration to express God’s glory and honor. The primary rites in the east and west are as follows:
- Sanctus—"Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God Sabaoth, heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is He one who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.” It is likely written from the east in Egypt, Syria, or Ethiopia in the fourth century. There is also a possibility it stems from Mat 21:9 as opposed to only Is 6:3.(11)
- Trisagion— “Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us.” Also known as the thrice holy. It appears in almost every eastern service, yet very sparingly in the western services. It was written primarily to fight off the Monophysite heresy.(12)
- Cherubim Hymn—“Let all mortal flesh keep silence.” It ends with saying Alleluia three times. This one is almost exclusively an Eastern Byzantine hymn. It was written as a liturgy for Saint James, and it is sung as the Eucharist is processed to the altar.(13)
- Te Deum—“Help us whom you have redeemed with your blood.” This prayer to Christ stems from a sequence that was added onto a Sanctus in a longer form in the sixth century. It is a Latin hymn that is believed to have been written by Ambrose and Augustine at the time of his baptism.(14)
There is, unfortunately, very little music recorded down from the fifth century. However, the sixth century started to embrace a new kind or music. You may know it by name—The Gregorian Chant. The Gregorian Chant, though starting its roots in the sixth century, truly took its true form in the ninth century when notation was finally able to be written. This notation is known as neumes. They are small signs placed above the words to indicate a visual representation of the rise and fall of the melodies. They do not teach you the melody, but rather show you how the melody moves up and down as a reminder as you are performing it. The music, therefore, was to be learned by rote. It was not the best form of notation, but certainly the most innovative at the time. There are four lines, and each neume is represented as a square or diamond. I had to learn how to sing with neumes in music school. It is not easy. However, it is very satisfying to look at.
If you look at the notation I have attached, this is the notation for the Kyrie eleison from the Mass for Christmas Day. The Mass first begins with an Introit, meaning entrance. It is then followed by the Kyrie eleison. The full written words are:
Kyrie eleison. Christe eleison. Kyrie eleison.
It means:
Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy.
“The Kyrie eleison is the only text in the entire Mass that is in Greek, thus showing its origin in the Byzantine Empire.”(15) The Gregorian Chant, attributed to Pope Gregory from 590, was written for the purpose of an entire service encompassed around the bread and the cup to be the sacrificial offering of Christ upon the altar of the church. Therefore, Gregory created a structure that was neatly put together that was based on traditional rites and prayers within the church that had existed for nearly four or five hundred years, along with traditional plainsong chanting.(16) This in turn allowed for new layers of innovation to take form.
In the ninth and tenth century was the dawning of a new age of music within the Abbey of St. Martial of Southern France.(17) A newly composed trope implemented among church choirs singing Gregorian Chant. It is called Organum. In other words, polyphony. It is adding extra voices to the choir. Now instead of one unison vocal line, there are two, or three, or even four parts singing. Sometimes there is a long drone sung, usually on a low tone, while the other voices would sing above it. These other voices would be singing in parallel fifths, fourths, or octaves. Not thirds or sixths, because those are too sensual. Not seconds, sevenths, or tritones, because that is the devil’s music. Now what is also different about these melodies from the Gregorian chants of old are how the melodies are sung out. There are no long tones with only one or two tones per syllable. Now there is a whole line of music, flowing up and down with as many notes as it pleases within one syllable. This is called a melisma.
What I do find so fascinating about this progression into Organum is that it is a natural progression for the human voices to move into as they were all technically singing them before. Let me explain. Though they were all singing in unison, their voices merged together and developed a lovely harmonic series, a scientific phenomenon of physics that is too beautiful to behold. The first interval of it would be the octave. Then the fifth. Then the fourth. So, Organum, in the scientific sense of the word, is still singing in unison, in one voice.
Notes
[1] Paul Westermeyer, Te Deum: The Church and Music. (Minneapolis, MN, Fortress Press, 1998), 66-69.
[2] New Revised Standard Version Bible, Isaiah 6:3.
[3] Westermeyer, Te Deum, 62.
[4] Sadie and Tyrrell, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 825.
[5] William Loyd Hooper, Church Music in Transition. (Nashville, TN, Broadman Press, 1963), 29.
[6] Mark A. Lamport, Benjamin K. Forrest, and Vernon M. Whaley, eds., Hymns and Hymnody: Historical and Theological Introductions, vol. 1 From Asia Minor to Western Europe (Eugene, Oregon, United States of America: Cascade Books, 2019), 95.
[7] Lamport, Forrest, and Whaley, Hymns and Hymnody, 50.
[8] Lamport, Forrest, and Whaley, Hymns and Hymnody, 50.
[9] Hooper, Church Music in Transition, 28.
[10] Hooper, Church Music in Transition, 28.
[11] Lamport, Forrest, and Whaley, Hymns and Hymnody, 97.
[12] Lamport, Forrest, and Whaley, Hymns and Hymnody, 96.
[13] Lamport, Forrest, and Whaley, Hymns and Hymnody, 98.
[14] Lamport, Forrest, and Whaley, Hymns and Hymnody, 99.
[15] J. Peter Burkholder and Claude V. Palisca, Norton Anthology of Western Music, vol. 1 Ancient to Baroque, sixth ed. (New York, NY, W.W. Norton & Company , Inc., 2010), 11.
[16] Hooper, Church Music in Transition, 29.
[17] Westermeyer, Te Deum, 112.
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