Beyond Plainsong: Tropes and Polyphony in the Medieval Church

Anonymous (Composer), Gregorian Chant (Composer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Composer: Anonymous, Gregorian Chant
• Audio CD (September 22, 1995)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Focus
• ASIN: B000004A7J
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #546,459 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Te Deum Laudamus

2. In seculum

3. Alleluia: Te martyrum

4. In seculum

5. Alleluia: Justus ut Palma

6. Helysei manubrio

7. Rex omnia tenens

8. He Ha!

9. Gaude Roma

10. Nostrum

11. Sanctus

12. Le Moulin de Paris

13. Benedicamus Patrem

14. Tre doulz regard

15. Ecce Quod Natura

16. Ecce nunc benedicite, prayer for vespers with antiphon (Psalm 133)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful piece of musical history, October 13, 2005

By 

FrKurt Messick "FrKurt Messick" (Bloomington, IN USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Beyond Plainsong: Tropes and Polyphony in the Medieval Church (Audio CD)

One of the glorious aspects of living in Bloomington, Indiana, is being close to the music school, one of the better music schools in the world. Because of this, there is never a time when a rich fare of musical offerings is not available, and one of the more wonderful of these is the Early Music Institute, which has an annual conference/series of performances, and supports many ancient and medieval music enterprises.

One of these is the Pro Arte Singers, under the direction of Thomas Binkley. He also plays the lute on this recording, with Wendy Gillespie on the vielle. The singers on this recording include Elisabeth Honn, Kelly Landerkin, David Meyer, Amanda Simmons, David Stattelman, Susannah Teegarden, and Jay White. Their singing is absolutely wonderful, and their performance is in one of the local churches in Bloomington (First Baptist Church) rather than a studio (churches in Bloomington are often used in by music school performers for concerts and recitals, as well as recording sessions).

The most dominant form of music in the early Middle Ages was plainchant. According to scholar Patrick Kavanaugh, 'there are no parallels to chant in the history of music in terms of longevity, importance or influence.' There has been a resurgence of interest in chant in the past decade, but as often as not, what people are being drawn to is not technically chant.

This recording shows developments that came after chant - the introduction of polyphony (multiple voices or tones) as opposed to the monophonic nature of chant was very important, and led in diverse ways to the various styles of Western music. The music recorded here is just a step away from plainchant, with simple polphonies and tropes. 'In the Medieval era, troping was an important compositional technique. There were two basic types of tropes: textual and musical. A textual trope involved the assigning of a new text to an existing musical melisma. A musical trope was the insertion of new notes into a piece of music, creating or extending a melisma.'

This is a wonderful piece of history, and a beautiful performance.