138-633: Eric Alfred Leslie Satie (17 May 1866 – 1 July 1925), who signed his name Erik Satie after 1884, was a French composer and pianist. He was the son of a French father and a British mother. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire , but was an undistinguished student and obtained no diploma. In the 1880s he worked as a pianist in café-cabaret in Montmartre , Paris, and began composing works, mostly for solo piano, such as his Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes . He also wrote music for
276-530: A Rosicrucian sect to which he was briefly attached. After a spell in which he composed little, Satie entered Paris's second music academy, the Schola Cantorum , as a mature student. His studies there were more successful than those at the Conservatoire. From about 1910 he became the focus of successive groups of young composers attracted by his unconventionality and originality. Among them were
414-400: A chivalric esoteric play (two Préludes du Nazaréen ), had a hoax published (announcing the premiere of his non-existent Le bâtard de Tristan , an anti-Wagnerian opera), and broken away from Péladan, starting that autumn with the " Uspud " project, a "Christian Ballet", in collaboration with Latour. He challenged the musical establishment by proposing himself – unsuccessfully – for
552-448: A "symphonic drama". Its composition was interrupted in 1917 by a libel suit brought against him by a music critic, Jean Poueigh, which nearly resulted in a jail sentence for Satie. When Socrate was premiered, Satie called it "a return to classical simplicity with a modern sensibility", and among those who admired the work was Igor Stravinsky , a composer whom Satie regarded with awe. In his later years Satie became known for his prose. He
690-505: A Dog)", 1912), Croquis et agaceries d'un gros bonhomme en bois ("Sketches and Exasperations of a Big Wooden Man", 1913) and Sonatine bureaucratique ("Bureaucratic Sonata", 1917). In his neat, calligraphic hand, Satie would write extensive instructions for his performers, and although his words appear at first sight to be humorous and deliberately nonsensical, Nichols and Griffiths comment, "a sensitive pianist can make much of injunctions such as 'arm yourself with clairvoyance' and 'with
828-435: A Dog)", 1912), Croquis et agaceries d'un gros bonhomme en bois ("Sketches and Exasperations of a Big Wooden Man", 1913) and Sonatine bureaucratique ("Bureaucratic Sonatina", 1917). Most of his works are brief, and the majority are for solo piano. Exceptions include his "symphonic drama" Socrate (1919) and two late ballets Mercure and Relâche (1924). Satie never married, and his home for most of his adult life
966-635: A close friend of Claude Debussy , who proved a kindred spirit in his experimental approach to composition. Both were bohemians , enjoying the same café society and struggling to survive financially. At the Auberge du Clou Satie first encountered the flamboyant, self-styled "Sâr" Joséphin Péladan , for whose mystic sect, the Ordre de la Rose-Croix Catholique du Temple et du Graal, he was appointed composer. This gave him scope for experiment, and Péladan's salons at
1104-512: A complex system expressed by cheironomic hand-gestures. This approach prevailed during the twentieth century, propagated by Justine Ward 's program of music education for children, until the liturgical role of chant was diminished after the liturgical reforms of Pope Paul VI , and new scholarship "essentially discredited" Mocquereau's rhythmic theories. Common modern practice favors performing Gregorian chant with no beat or regular metric accent, largely for aesthetic reasons. The text determines
1242-444: A decorated leap from G to C to establish this tonality. Similar examples exist throughout the repertory. The earliest notated sources of Gregorian chant (written c. 950 ) used symbols called neumes (Gr. sign, of the hand) to indicate tone-movements and relative duration within each syllable. A sort of musical stenography that seems to focus on gestures and tone-movements but not the specific pitches of individual notes, nor
1380-462: A diet of exclusively white food (including bones and fruit mould), or to drink boiled wine mixed with fuchsia juice, or to be woken by a servant hourly throughout the night to have his temperature taken; he wrote in praise of Beethoven 's non-existent but "sumptuous" Tenth Symphony, and the family of instruments known as the cephalophones, "which have a compass of thirty octaves and are absolutely unplayable". Satie grouped some of these writings under
1518-588: A feeling for harmony is to have a feeling for tonality… the melody is the Idea, the outline; as much as it is the form and the subject matter of a work. The harmony is an illumination, an exhibition of the object, its reflection. Among his earliest compositions were sets of three Gymnopédies (1888) and his Gnossiennes (1889 onwards) for piano. They evoke the ancient world by what the critics Roger Nichols and Paul Griffiths describe as "pure simplicity, monotonous repetition, and highly original modal harmonies". It
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#17327801826601656-468: A five-month liaison with the painter Suzanne Valadon . After their first night together, he proposed marriage. The two did not marry, but Valadon moved to a room next to Satie's at the rue Cortot. Satie became obsessed with her, calling her his Biqui and writing impassioned notes about "her whole being, lovely eyes, gentle hands, and tiny feet". During their relationship Satie composed the Danses gothiques as
1794-643: A four-line staff with a clef, as in the Graduale Aboense pictured above. In square notation, small groups of ascending notes on a syllable are shown as stacked squares, read from bottom to top, while descending notes are written with diamonds read from left to right. When a syllable has a large number of notes, a series of smaller such groups of neumes are written in succession, read from left to right. The oriscus , quilisma , and liquescent neumes indicate special vocal treatments, that have been largely neglected due to uncertainty as to how to sing them. Since
1932-407: A free rhythm of equal note values, although some notes are lengthened for textual emphasis or musical effect. The modern Solesmes editions of Gregorian chant follow this interpretation. Mocquereau divided melodies into two- and three-note phrases, each beginning with an ictus , akin to a beat, notated in chantbooks as a small vertical mark. These basic melodic units combined into larger phrases through
2070-457: A later Carolingian synthesis of the Old Roman chant and Gallican chant . Gregorian chants were organized initially into four, then eight, and finally 12 modes . Typical melodic features include a characteristic ambitus , and also characteristic intervallic patterns relative to a referential mode final , incipits and cadences , the use of reciting tones at a particular distance from
2208-481: A local organist, Gustave Vinot, a former pupil of Louis Niedermeyer . Vinot stimulated Satie's love of old church music, and in particular Gregorian chant . In 1878 Satie's grandmother died, and the two boys returned to Paris to be informally educated by their father. Satie did not attend a school, but his father took him to lectures at the Collège de France and engaged a tutor to teach Eric Latin and Greek. Before
2346-568: A means of calming his mind, and Valadon painted his portrait, which she gave him. After five months she moved away, leaving him devastated. He said later that he was left with "nothing but an icy loneliness that fills the head with emptiness and the heart with sadness". In 1895 Satie attempted to change his image once again: this time to that of "the Velvet Gentleman". From the proceeds of a small legacy, he bought seven identical dun -coloured suits. Orledge comments that this change "marked
2484-496: A musical iconoclast, and encourager of modernism, Satie was uninterested to the point of antipathy about innovations such as the telephone, the gramophone and the radio. He made no recordings, and as far as is known heard only a single radio broadcast (of Milhaud's music) and made only one telephone call. Although his personal appearance was customarily immaculate, his room at Arcueil was in Orledge's word "squalid", and after his death
2622-473: A practice called centonization . Tracts are melismatic settings of psalm verses and use frequent recurring cadences and they are strongly centonized. Gregorian chant evolved to fulfill various functions in the Roman Catholic liturgy. Broadly speaking, liturgical recitatives are used for texts intoned by deacons or priests. Antiphonal chants accompany liturgical actions: the entrance of the officiant,
2760-420: A remarkably uniform state across Europe within a short time. Charlemagne , once elevated to Holy Roman Emperor , aggressively spread Gregorian chant throughout his empire to consolidate religious and secular power, requiring the clergy to use the new repertory on pain of death. From English and German sources, Gregorian chant spread north to Scandinavia , Iceland and Finland . In 885, Pope Stephen V banned
2898-418: A renowned monastic reformer, praised the intellectual and musical virtuosity to be found in chant: For in these [Offertories and Communions] there are the most varied kinds of ascent, descent, repeat..., delight for the cognoscenti , difficulty for the beginners, and an admirable organization... that widely differs from other chants; they are not so much made according to the rules of music... but rather evince
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#17327801826603036-439: A rival to the conservative Société nationale de musique . Satie was suddenly seen as "the precursor and apostle of the musical revolution now taking place"; he became a focus for young composers. Debussy, having orchestrated the first and third Gymnopédies , conducted them in concert. The publisher Demets asked for new works from Satie, who was finally able to give up his cabaret work and devote himself to composition. Works such as
3174-534: A seventh than a full octave, so that melodies rarely travel from D up to the D an octave higher, but often travel from D to the C a seventh higher, using such patterns as D-F-G-A-C. > Gregorian melodies often explore chains of pitches, such as F-A-C, around which the other notes of the chant gravitate. Within each mode, certain incipits and cadences are preferred, which the modal theory alone does not explain. Chants often display complex internal structures that combine and repeat musical subphrases. This occurs notably in
3312-508: A single compound neume, abound in the text. Melismatic chants are the most ornate chants in which elaborate melodies are sung on long sustained vowels as in the Alleluia, ranging from five or six notes per syllable to over sixty in the more prolix melismata. Gregorian chants fall into two broad categories of melody: recitatives and free melodies. The simplest kind of melody is the liturgical recitative. Recitative melodies are dominated by
3450-461: A single pitch, called the reciting tone . Other pitches appear in melodic formulae for incipits , partial cadences , and full cadences. These chants are primarily syllabic. For example, the Collect for Easter consists of 127 syllables sung to 131 pitches, with 108 of these pitches being the reciting note A and the other 23 pitches flexing down to G. Liturgical recitatives are commonly found in
3588-500: A specific homage to Satie's music in his 1996 Century Rolls . Satie wrote extensively for the press, but unlike his professional colleagues such as Debussy and Dukas he did not write primarily as a music critic. Much of his writing is connected to music tangentially if at all. His biographer Caroline Potter describes him as "an experimental creative writer, a blagueur who provoked, mystified and amused his readers". He wrote jeux d'esprit claiming to eat dinner in four minutes with
3726-476: A tetrachord that corresponds to the four finals of chant, D, E, F, and G. The disjunct tetrachords in the Enchiriadis system have been the subject of much speculation, because they do not correspond to the diatonic framework that became the standard Medieval scale (for example, there is a high F ♯ , a note not recognized by later Medieval writers). A diatonic scale with a chromatically alterable b/b-flat
3864-455: A waltz; La Diva de l'Empire , text by Dominique Bonnaud/Numa Blès; Le Picadilly , a march; Légende californienne , text by Contamine de Latour (lost, but the music later reappears in La belle excentrique ); and others. In his later years Satie rejected all his cabaret music as vile and against his nature. Only a few compositions that he took seriously remain from this period: Jack in
4002-403: A warbling of pitches between the notes E and F, outside the hexachord system, or in other words, employing a form of chromaticism . Early Gregorian chant, like Ambrosian and Old Roman chant, whose melodies are most closely related to Gregorian, did not use the modal system. The great need for a system of organizing chants lies in the need to link antiphons with standard tones, as in for example,
4140-582: Is extraordinary. He's a mischievous and cunning old artist. At least, that's how he thinks of himself. Myself, I think the opposite! He's a very susceptible man, arrogant, a real sad child, but one who is sometimes made optimistic by alcohol. But he's a good friend, and I like him a lot. Throughout his adult life Satie was a heavy drinker, and in 1925 his health collapsed. He was taken to the Hôpital Saint-Joseph in Paris, diagnosed with cirrhosis of
4278-488: Is possible that their simplicity and originality were influenced by Debussy; it is also possible that it was Satie who influenced Debussy. During the brief spell when Satie was composer to Péladan's sect he adopted a similarly austere manner. While Satie was earning his living as a café pianist in Montmartre he contributed songs and little waltzes. After moving to Arcueil he began to write works with quirky titles, such as
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4416-458: Is regarded by some writers as an influence on minimalism , which developed in the 1960s and later. The musicologist Mark Bennett and the composer Humphrey Searle have said that John Cage 's music shows Satie's influence, and Searle and the writer Edward Strickland have used the term "minimalism" in connection with Satie's Vexations , which the composer implied in his manuscript should be played over and over again 840 times. John Adams included
4554-466: Is scarce. Around 410, St. Augustine described the responsorial singing of a Gradual psalm at Mass. At c. 520, Benedict of Nursia established what is called the rule of St. Benedict, in which the protocol of the Divine Office for monastic use was laid down. Around 678, Roman chant was taught at York . Distinctive regional traditions of Western plainchant arose during this period, notably in
4692-429: Is seen as an influence on more recent composers such as John Cage and John Adams . His harmony is often characterised by unresolved chords, he sometimes dispensed with bar-lines , as in his Gnossiennes , and his melodies are generally simple and often reflect his love of old church music. He gave some of his later works absurd titles, such as Veritables Preludes flasques (pour un chien) ("True Flabby Preludes (for
4830-544: Is the central tradition of Western plainchant , a form of monophonic , unaccompanied sacred song in Latin (and occasionally Greek ) of the Roman Catholic Church . Gregorian chant developed mainly in western and central Europe during the 9th and 10th centuries, with later additions and redactions. Although popular legend credits Pope Gregory I with inventing Gregorian chant, scholars believe that it arose from
4968-495: Is the sequence, whose origins lay in troping the extended melisma of Alleluia chants known as the jubilus , but the sequences, like the tropes, were later officially suppressed. The Council of Trent struck sequences from the Gregorian corpus, except those for Easter , Pentecost , Corpus Christi and All Souls' Day . Not much is known about the particular vocal stylings or performance practices used for Gregorian chant in
5106-403: The 9th arrondissement . By this time he had started what was to be an enduring friendship with the romantic poet Contamine de Latour , whose verse he set in some of his early compositions, which Satie senior published. His lodgings were close to the popular Chat Noir cabaret on the southern edge of Montmartre where he became an habitué and then a resident pianist. The Chat Noir was known as
5244-615: The Communist Party ), but adopted a thoroughly bourgeois image: the biographer Pierre-Daniel Templier, writes, "With his umbrella and bowler hat , he resembled a quiet school teacher. Although a Bohemian, he looked very dignified, almost ceremonious". Satie earned a living as a cabaret pianist, adapting more than a hundred compositions of popular music for piano or piano and voice, adding some of his own. The most popular of these were Je te veux , text by Henry Pacory; Tendrement , text by Vincent Hyspa; Poudre d'or ,
5382-525: The Franco-Prussian War Alfred Satie sold his business and the family moved to Paris, where he eventually set up as a music publisher. In 1872 Jane Satie died and Eric and his brother were sent back to Honfleur to be brought up by Alfred's parents. The boys were rebaptised as Roman Catholics and educated at a local boarding school, where Satie excelled in history and Latin but nothing else. In 1874 he began taking music lessons with
5520-512: The Introit , and Communion originally referred to chants in which two choirs sang in alternation, one choir singing verses of a psalm, the other singing a refrain called an antiphon . Over time, the verses were reduced in number, usually to just one psalm verse and the doxology , or even omitted entirely. Antiphonal chants reflect their ancient origins as elaborate recitatives through the reciting tones in their melodies. Ordinary chants, such as
5658-624: The Kyrie and Gloria , are not considered antiphonal chants, although they are often performed in antiphonal style. Responsorial chants such as the Gradual , Alleluia , Offertory , and the Office Responsories originally consisted of a refrain called a respond sung by a choir, alternating with psalm verses sung by a soloist. Responsorial chants are often composed of an amalgamation of various stock musical phrases, pieced together in
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5796-705: The Nouvelles pièces froides of 1907". After concluding his studies at the Schola Cantorum in 1912 Satie composed with greater confidence and more prolifically. Orchestration, despite his studies with d'Indy, was never his strongest suit, but his grasp of counterpoint is evident in the opening bars of Parade , and from the outset of his composing career he had original and distinctive ideas about harmony. In his later years he composed sets of short instrumental works with absurd titles, including Veritables Preludes flasques (pour un chien) ("True Flabby Preludes (for
5934-634: The Offertories ; in chants with shorter, repeating texts such as the Kyrie and Agnus Dei ; and in longer chants with clear textual divisions such as the Great Responsories, the Gloria , and the Credo . Chants sometimes fall into melodically related groups. The musical phrases centonized to create Graduals and Tracts follow a musical "grammar" of sorts. Certain phrases are used only at
6072-786: The Sarum Rite displaced Celtic chant . Gregorian coexisted with Beneventan chant for over a century before Beneventan chant was abolished by papal decree (1058). Mozarabic chant survived the influx of the Visigoths and Moors , but not the Roman-backed prelates newly installed in Spain during the Reconquista . Restricted to a handful of dedicated chapels, modern Mozarabic chant is highly Gregorianized and bears no musical resemblance to its original form. Ambrosian chant alone survived to
6210-801: The Slavonic liturgy, leading to the ascendancy of Gregorian chant in Eastern Catholic lands including Poland , Moravia and Slovakia . The other plainchant repertories of the Christian West faced severe competition from the new Gregorian chant. Charlemagne continued his father's policy of favoring the Roman Rite over the local Gallican traditions. By the 9th century the Gallican rite and chant had effectively been eliminated, although not without local resistance. The Gregorian chant of
6348-718: The accentus chants of the liturgy, such as the intonations of the Collect, Epistle , and Gospel during the Mass , and in the direct psalmody of the Office . Psalmodic chants, which intone psalms , include both recitatives and free melodies. Psalmodic chants include direct psalmody , antiphonal chants , and responsorial chants . In direct psalmody, psalm verses are sung without refrains to simple, formulaic tones. Most psalmodic chants are antiphonal and responsorial, sung to free melodies of varying complexity. Antiphonal chants such as
6486-547: The ekphonetic notation of Byzantine chant , punctuation marks, or diacritical accents. Later adaptations and innovations included the use of a dry-scratched line or an inked line or two lines, marked C or F showing the relative pitches between neumes. Consistent relative heightening first developed in the Aquitaine region, particularly at St. Martial de Limoges , in the first half of the eleventh century. Many German-speaking areas, however, continued to use unpitched neumes into
6624-491: The "Arcueil School". In addition to turning against Ravel, Auric and Poulenc in particular, Satie quarrelled with his old friend Debussy in 1917, resentful of the latter's failure to appreciate the more recent Satie compositions. The rupture lasted for the remaining months of Debussy's life, and when he died the following year, Satie refused to attend the funeral. A few of his protégés escaped his displeasure, and Milhaud and Désormière were among those who remained friends with him to
6762-515: The "jeunes" – those associated with Ravel – and then a group known at first as the "nouveaux jeunes", later called Les Six , including Georges Auric , Louis Durey , Arthur Honegger , and Germaine Tailleferre , joined later by Francis Poulenc and Darius Milhaud . Satie dissociated himself from the second group in 1918, and in the 1920s he became the focal point of another set of young composers including Henri Cliquet-Pleyel , Roger Désormière , Maxime Jacob and Henri Sauguet , who became known as
6900-400: The "temple de la 'convention farfelue'" – the temple of zany convention, and as the biographer Robert Orledge puts it, Satie, "free from his restrictive upbringing … enthusiastically embraced the reckless bohemian lifestyle and created for himself a new persona as a long-haired man-about-town in frock coat and top hat". This was the first of several personas that Satie invented for himself over
7038-686: The 10th and 11th centuries. For example, the Credo was added to the Roman Rite at the behest of the Emperor Henry II in 1014. Reinforced by the legend of Pope Gregory, Gregorian chant was taken to be the authentic, original chant of Rome, a misconception that continues to this day. By the 12th and 13th centuries, Gregorian chant had supplanted or marginalized all the other Western plainchant traditions. Later sources of these other chant traditions show an increasing Gregorian influence, such as occasional efforts to categorize their chants into
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#17327801826607176-476: The 1970s, with the influential insights of Dom Eugène Cardine [ fr ] (see below under 'rhythm'), ornamental neumes have received more attention from both researchers and performers. B-flat is indicated by a "b-mollum" (Lat. soft), a rounded undercaste 'b' placed to the left of the entire neume in which the note occurs, as shown in the "Kyrie" to the right. When necessary, a "b-durum" (Lat. hard), written squarely, indicates B-natural and serves to cancel
7314-605: The Benedictine Abbey of St. Pierre, Solesmes , has turned into a huge undertaking to restore the allegedly corrupted chant to a hypothetical "original" state. Early Gregorian chant was revised to conform to the theoretical structure of the modes . In 1562–63, the Council of Trent banned most sequences . Guidette's Directorium chori , published in 1582, and the Editio medicea , published in 1614, drastically revised what
7452-545: The Box , music to a pantomime by Jules Depaquit (called a " clownerie " by Satie); Geneviève de Brabant , a short comic opera to a text by "Lord Cheminot" (Latour); Le poisson rêveur ( The Dreamy Fish ), piano music to accompany a lost tale by Cheminot, and a few others that were mostly incomplete. Few were presented, and none published at the time. A decisive change in Satie's musical outlook came after he heard
7590-604: The British Isles ( Celtic chant ), Spain (Mozarabic), Gaul (Gallican), and Italy ( Old Roman , Ambrosian and Beneventan ). These traditions may have evolved from a hypothetical year-round repertory of 5th-century plainchant after the western Roman Empire collapsed. John the Deacon , biographer (c. 872) of Pope Gregory I , modestly claimed that the saint "compiled a patchwork antiphonary", unsurprisingly, given his considerable work with liturgical development. He reorganized
7728-556: The Catholic Church no longer persists with this ban. Vatican II officially allowed worshipers to substitute other music, particularly sacred polyphony, in place of Gregorian chant, although it did reaffirm that Gregorian chant was still the official music of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, and the music most suitable for worship in the Roman Liturgy. Gregorian chant is, as 'chant' implies, vocal music. The text,
7866-895: The Christian liturgy since the earliest days of the Church. It is widely accepted that the psalmody of ancient Jewish worship significantly influenced and contributed to early Christian ritual and chant. Christians read Scriptures and sang chants, as their Jewish predecessors had done. Although new Christian liturgy was developed, the source of much of this Christian liturgy was Jewish psalmody. The source materials for newly emergent Christian chants were originally transmitted by Jews in sung form. Early Christian rites also incorporated elements of Jewish worship that survived in later chant tradition. Canonical hours have their roots in Jewish prayer hours. " Amen " and " alleluia " come from Hebrew , and
8004-501: The Communion Circuibo was transcribed using a different mode in each. Several features besides modality contribute to the musical idiom of Gregorian chant, giving it a distinctive musical flavor. Melodic motion is primarily stepwise . Skips of a third are common, and larger skips far more common than in other plainchant repertories such as Ambrosian chant or Beneventan chant. Gregorian melodies are more likely to traverse
8142-680: The Conservatoire". In 1882 he was expelled from the Conservatoire for his unsatisfactory performance. In 1884 Satie wrote his first known composition, a short Allegro for piano, written while on holiday in Honfleur. He signed himself "Erik" on this and subsequent compositions, though continuing to use "Eric" on other documents until 1906. In 1885, he was readmitted to the Conservatoire, in the intermediate piano class of his stepmother's former teacher, Georges Mathias . He made little progress: Mathias described his playing as "Insignificant and laborious" and Satie himself "Worthless. Three months just to learn
8280-500: The Conservatoire, Satie volunteered for military service, and joined the 33rd Infantry Regiment in November 1886. He quickly found army life no more to his liking than the Conservatoire, and deliberately contracted acute bronchitis by standing in the open, bare-chested, on a winter night. After three months' convalescence he was invalided out of the army. In 1887, at the age of 21, Satie moved from his father's residence to lodgings in
8418-474: The Conservatoire, which he described as "a vast, very uncomfortable, and rather ugly building; a sort of district prison with no beauty on the inside – nor on the outside, for that matter". He studied solfeggio with Albert Lavignac and piano with Émile Decombes , who had been a pupil of Frédéric Chopin . In 1880 Satie took his first examinations as a pianist: he was described as "gifted but indolent". The following year Decombes called him "the laziest student in
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#17327801826608556-536: The Gregorian modes . Similarly, the Gregorian repertory incorporated elements of these lost plainchant traditions, which can be identified by careful stylistic and historical analysis. For example, the Improperia of Good Friday are believed to be a remnant of the Gallican repertory. The first extant sources with musical notation were written around 930 (Graduale Laon). Before this, plainchant had been transmitted orally. Most scholars of Gregorian chant agree that
8694-572: The Middle Ages. On occasion, the clergy was urged to have their singers perform with more restraint and piety. This suggests that virtuosic performances occurred, contrary to the modern stereotype of Gregorian chant as slow-moving mood music. This tension between musicality and piety goes far back; Gregory the Great himself criticized the practice of promoting clerics based on their charming singing rather than their preaching. However, Odo of Cluny ,
8832-486: The Roman Rite began to appear in the 3rd century. The Apostolic Tradition , attributed to the theologian Hippolytus , attests the singing of Hallel (Jewish) psalms with Alleluia as the refrain in early Christian agape feasts . Chants of the Office, sung during the canonical hours, have their roots in the early 4th century, when desert monks following St. Anthony introduced the practice of continuous psalmody, singing
8970-427: The Schola Cantorum and established a more uniform standard in church services, gathering chants from among the regional traditions as widely as he could manage. Of those, he retained what he could, revised where necessary, and assigned particular chants to the various services. According to Donald Jay Grout , his goal was to organize the bodies of chants from diverse traditions into a uniform and orderly whole for use by
9108-572: The Solesmes chant – now compiled as the Liber usualis – as authoritative. In 1904, the Vatican edition of the Solesmes chant was commissioned. Serious academic debates arose, primarily owing to stylistic liberties taken by the Solesmes editors to impose their controversial interpretation of rhythm. The Solesmes editions insert phrasing marks and note-lengthening episema and mora marks not found in
9246-490: The academically sound 'Paleo' was intended to be a war-tank, meant to abolish once and for all the corrupted Pustet edition. On the evidence of congruence throughout various manuscripts (which were duly published in facsimile editions with ample editorial introductions) Solesmes was able to work out a practical reconstruction. This reconstructed chant was academically praised, but rejected by Rome until 1903, when Pope Leo XIII died. His successor, Pope Pius X , promptly accepted
9384-406: The accent while the melodic contour determines the phrasing . The note lengthenings recommended by the Solesmes school remain influential, though not prescriptive. Dom Eugène Cardine [ fr ] (1905–1988), a monk from Solesmes, published his 'Semiologie Gregorienne' in 1970 in which he clearly explains the musical significance of the neumes of the early chant manuscripts. Cardine shows
9522-472: The authority and validity... of music. True antiphonal performance by two alternating choruses still occurs, as in certain German monasteries. However, antiphonal chants are generally performed in responsorial style by a solo cantor alternating with a chorus. This practice appears to have begun in the Middle Ages. Another medieval innovation had the solo cantor sing the opening words of responsorial chants, with
9660-486: The b-mollum. This system of square notation is standard in modern chantbooks. Gregorian chant was originally used for singing the Office (by male and female religious) and for singing the parts of the Mass pertaining to the lay faithful (male and female), the celebrant (priest, always male) and the choir (composed of male ordained clergy, except in convents). Outside the larger cities, the number of available clergy dropped, and lay men started singing these parts. The choir
9798-493: The beginnings of chants, or only at the end, or only in certain combinations, creating musical families of chants such as the Iustus ut palma family of Graduals. Several Introits in mode 3, including Loquetur Dominus above, exhibit melodic similarities. Mode III (E authentic) chants have C as a dominant, so C is the expected reciting tone. These mode III Introits, however, use both G and C as reciting tones, and often begin with
9936-471: The boys returned to Paris from Honfleur, Alfred had met a piano teacher and salon composer, Eugénie Barnetche, whom he married in January 1879, to the dismay of the twelve-year-old Satie, who did not like her. Eugénie Satie resolved that her elder stepson should become a professional musician, and in November 1879 enrolled him in the preparatory piano class at the Paris Conservatoire . Satie strongly disliked
10074-503: The chant to transition smoothly into the next section, such as the psalm verses that are sung between the repetition of antiphons, or the Gloria Patri. Thus we find models for the recitation of psalmverses, Alleluia and Gloria Patri for all eight modes. Not every Gregorian chant fits neatly into Guido's hexachords or into the system of eight modes. For example, there are chants – especially from German sources – whose neumes suggest
10212-594: The collection of offerings, and the distribution of the Eucharist. Responsorial chants expand on readings and lessons. The non-psalmodic chants, including the Ordinary of the Mass , sequences , and hymns , were originally intended for congregational singing. The structure of their texts largely defines their musical style. In sequences, the same melodic phrase is repeated in each couplet. The strophic texts of hymns use
10350-545: The complete cycle of 150 psalms each week. Around 375, antiphonal psalmody became popular in the Christian East; in 386, St. Ambrose introduced this practice to the West. In the fifth century, a singing school, the Schola Cantorum, was founded at Rome to provide training in church musicianship. Scholars are still debating how plainchant developed during the 5th through the 9th centuries, as information from this period
10488-631: The core liturgy of the Roman Mass and promoted its use in Francia and throughout Gaul. Willi Apel and Robert Snow assert a scholarly consensus that Gregorian chant developed around 750 from a synthesis of Roman and Gallican chants, and was commissioned by the Carolingian rulers in France. Andreas Pfisterer and Peter Jeffery have shown that older melodic essentials from Roman chant are clear in
10626-480: The cycle Sports et divertissements (1914) were published in de luxe editions. The press began to write about Satie's music, and a leading pianist, Ricardo Viñes , took him up, giving celebrated first performances of some Satie pieces. Satie became the focus of successive groups of young composers, whom he first encouraged and then distanced himself from, sometimes rancorously, when their popularity threatened to eclipse his or they otherwise displeased him. First were
10764-522: The development of music notation assisted the dissemination of chant across Europe. The earlier notated manuscripts are primarily from Regensburg in Germany, St. Gall in Switzerland, Laon and St. Martial in France. Gregorian chant has in its long history been subjected to a series of redactions to bring it up to changing contemporary tastes and practice. The more recent redaction undertaken in
10902-459: The earliest manuscripts pose difficulties on the interpretation of rhythm. Certain neumes such as the pressus , pes quassus, strophic neumes may indicate repeated notes, lengthening by repercussion, in some cases with added ornaments. By the 13th century, with the widespread use of square notation, most chant was sung with an approximately equal duration allotted to each note, although Jerome of Moravia cites exceptions in which certain notes, such as
11040-460: The end of his Rose+Croix period and the start of a long search for a new artistic direction". In 1898, in search of somewhere cheaper and quieter than Montmartre, Satie moved to a room in the southern suburbs, in the commune of Arcueil-Cachan , eight kilometres (five miles) from the centre of Paris. This remained his home for the rest of his life. No visitors were ever admitted. He joined a radical socialist party (he later switched his membership to
11178-402: The end of your thought'". His Sonatine bureaucratique anticipates the neoclassicism soon adopted by Stravinsky. Despite his rancorous falling out with Debussy, Satie commemorated his long-time friend in 1920, two years after Debussy's death, in the anguished "Elégie", the first of the miniature song cycle Quatre petites mélodies . Orledge rates the cycle as the finest, though least known, of
11316-414: The entire western region of the Church. His renowned love for music was recorded only 34 years after his death; the epitaph of Honorius testified that comparison to Gregory was already considered the highest praise for a music-loving pope. While later legends magnified his real achievements, these significant steps may account for why his name came to be attached to Gregorian chant. The Gregorian repertory
11454-661: The fashionable Galerie Durand-Ruel gained Satie his first public hearings. Frequently short of money, Satie moved from his lodgings in the 9th arrondissement to a small room in the rue Cortot not far from Sacre-Coeur , so high up the Butte Montmartre that he said he could see from his window all the way to the Belgian border. By mid-1892, Satie had composed the first pieces in a compositional system of his own making ( Fête donnée par des Chevaliers Normands en l'honneur d'une jeune demoiselle ), provided incidental music to
11592-415: The final notes of a chant, are lengthened. While the standard repertory of Gregorian Chant was partly being supplanted by new forms of polyphony, the earlier melo-rhythmic refinements of monophonic chant seem to have fallen into disuse. Later redactions such as the Editio medicaea of 1614 rewrote chant so that melismata, with their melodic accent, fell on accented syllables. This aesthetic held sway until
11730-533: The final, around which the other notes of the melody revolve, and a vocabulary of musical motifs woven together through a process called centonization to create families of related chants. The scale patterns are organized against a background pattern formed of conjunct and disjunct tetrachords , producing a larger pitch system called the gamut . The chants can be sung by using six- note patterns called hexachords . Gregorian melodies are traditionally written using neumes , an early form of musical notation from which
11868-462: The four sets of short songs of Satie's last decade. Satie invented what he called Musique d'ameublement – "furniture music" – a kind of background not to be listened to consciously. Cinéma , composed for the René Clair film Entr'acte , shown between the acts of Relâche (1924), is an example of early film music designed to be unconsciously absorbed rather than carefully listened to. Satie
12006-431: The full chorus finishing the end of the opening phrase. This innovation allowed the soloist to fix the pitch of the chant for the chorus and to cue the choral entrance. Given the oral teaching tradition of Gregorian chant, modern reconstruction of intended rhythm from the written notation of Gregorian chant has always been a source of debate among modern scholars. To complicate matters further, many ornamental neumes used in
12144-463: The general headings Cahiers d'un mammifère (A Mammal's Notebook) and Mémoires d'un amnésique (Memoirs of an Amnesiac), indicating, as Potter comments, that "these are not autobiographical writings in the conventional manner". He claimed the major influence on his humour was Oliver Cromwell , adding "I also owe much to Christopher Columbus , because the American spirit has occasionally tapped me on
12282-540: The great diversity of neumes and graphic variations of the basic shape of a particular neume, which can not be expressed in the square notation. This variety in notation must have served a practical purpose and therefore a musical significance. Nine years later, the Graduale Triplex was published, in which the Roman Gradual, containing all the chants for Mass in a Year's cycle, appeared with the neumes of
12420-497: The group known as Les Six . A meeting with Jean Cocteau in 1915 led to the creation of the ballet Parade (1917) for Serge Diaghilev , with music by Satie, sets and costumes by Pablo Picasso , and choreography by Léonide Massine . Satie's example guided a new generation of French composers away from post- Wagnerian impressionism towards a sparer, terser style. Among those influenced by him during his lifetime were Maurice Ravel , Claude Debussy , and Francis Poulenc , and he
12558-503: The last. The First World War restricted concert-giving to some extent, but Orledge comments that the war years brought "Satie's second lucky break", when Jean Cocteau heard Viñes and Satie perform the Trois morceaux in 1916. This led to the commissioning of the ballet Parade , premiered in 1917 by Sergei Diaghilev 's Ballets Russes , with music by Satie, sets and costumes by Pablo Picasso , and choreography by Léonide Massine . This
12696-586: The liver at the age of 59. Satie was born on 17 May 1866 in Honfleur , Normandy, the first child of Alfred Satie and his wife Jane Leslie ( née Anton). Jane Satie was an English Protestant of Scottish descent; Alfred Satie, a shipping broker , was a Roman Catholic anglophobe. A year later, the Saties had a daughter, Olga, and in 1869 a second son, Conrad. The children were baptised in the Anglican church. After
12834-530: The liver. He died there at 8.00 p.m. on 1 July, at the age of 59. He was buried in the cemetery at Arcueil. In the view of the Oxford Dictionary of Music , Satie's importance lay in "directing a new generation of French composers away from Wagner ‐influenced impressionism towards a leaner, more epigrammatic style". Debussy christened him "the precursor" because of his early harmonic innovations. Satie summed up his musical philosophy in 1917: To have
12972-465: The local Gallican Rites in favor of the Roman use, to strengthen ties with Rome. Thirty years later (785–786), at Charlemagne's request, Pope Adrian I sent a papal sacramentary with Roman chants to the Carolingian court. According to James McKinnon , over a brief period in the 8th century, a project overseen by Chrodegang of Metz in the favorable atmosphere of the Carolingian monarchs, also compiled
13110-464: The modern four-line and five-line staff developed. Multi-voice elaborations of Gregorian chant, known as organum , were an early stage in the development of Western polyphony . Gregorian chant was traditionally sung by choirs of men and boys in churches, or by women and men of religious orders in their chapels. It is the music of the Roman Rite , performed in the Mass and the monastic Office . Although Gregorian chant supplanted or marginalized
13248-464: The modes with melodies ending on A, B, and C are sometimes referred to as Aeolian , Locrian , and Ionian , these are not considered distinct modes and are treated as transpositions of whichever mode uses the same set of hexachords. The actual pitch of the Gregorian chant is not fixed, so the piece can be sung in whichever range is most comfortable. Certain classes of Gregorian chant have a separate musical formula for each mode, allowing one section of
13386-582: The modes, rarely used in medieval times, derive from a misunderstanding of the Ancient Greek modes; the prefix " hypo- " (under, Gr.) indicates a plagal mode, where the melody moves below the final. In contemporary Latin manuscripts the modes are simply called Protus authentus /plagalis, Deuterus, Tritus and Tetrardus: the 1st mode, authentic or plagal, the 2nd mode etc. In the Roman Chantbooks the modes are indicated by Roman numerals. Although
13524-479: The monastic tradition in Solesmes. Re-establishing the Divine Office was among his priorities, but no proper chantbooks existed. Many monks were sent out to libraries throughout Europe to find relevant Chant manuscripts. In 1871, however, the old Medicea edition was reprinted ( Pustet , Regensburg) which Pope Pius IX declared the only official version. In their firm belief that they were on the right way, Solesmes increased its efforts. In 1889, after decades of research,
13662-513: The monks of Solesmes released the first book in a planned series, the Paléographie Musicale. The incentive of its publication was to demonstrate the corruption of the 'Medicea' by presenting photographed notations originating from a great variety of manuscripts of one single chant, which Solesmes called forth as witnesses to assert their own reforms. The monks of Solesmes brought in their heaviest artillery in this battle, as indeed
13800-489: The new system of chants were so significant that they have led some scholars to speculate that it was named in honor of the contemporary Pope Gregory II . Nevertheless, the lore surrounding Pope Gregory I was sufficient to culminate in his portrayal as the actual author of Gregorian Chant. He was often depicted as receiving the dictation of plainchant from a dove representing the Holy Spirit , thus giving Gregorian chant
13938-483: The newly understood principles in performance practice. The studies of Cardine and his students (Godehard Joppich, Luigi Augustoni, Johannes B. Göschl, Marie-Noël Colette, Rupert Fischer, Marie-Claire Billecocq, Alexander M. Schweitzer to name a few) have clearly demonstrated that rhythm in Gregorian chant as notated in the 10th century rhythmic manuscripts (notably Sankt Gallen and Laon) manifest such rhythmic diversity and melodic – rhythmic ornamentations for which there
14076-492: The onset of the Solesmes restoration is substantially at odds with musicological evidence. In his motu proprio Tra le sollecitudini , Pius X mandated the use of Gregorian chant, encouraging the faithful to sing the Ordinary of the Mass , although he reserved the singing of the Propers for males. While this custom is maintained in traditionalist Catholic communities (most of which allow all-female scholas as well, though),
14214-412: The original sources. Conversely, they omit significative letters found in the original sources, which give instructions for rhythm and articulation such as speeding up or slowing down. These editorial practices have placed the historical authenticity of the Solesmes interpretation in doubt. Ever since restoration of Chant was taken up in Solesmes, there have been lengthy discussions of exactly what course
14352-616: The other indigenous plainchant traditions of the Christian West to become the official music of the Christian liturgy, Ambrosian chant still continues in use in Milan, and there are musicologists exploring both that and the Mozarabic chant of Christian Spain. Although Gregorian chant is no longer obligatory, the Roman Catholic Church still officially considers it the music most suitable for worship. Singing has been part of
14490-429: The phrases, words and eventually the syllables, can be sung in various ways. The most straightforward is recitation on the same tone, which is called "syllabic" as each syllable is sung to a single tone. Likewise, simple chants are often syllabic throughout with only a few instances where two or more notes are sung on one syllable. "Neumatic" chants are more embellished and ligatures , a connected group of notes, written as
14628-569: The piece. Cannot sight-read properly". Satie became fascinated by aspects of religion. He spent much time in Notre-Dame de Paris contemplating the stained glass windows and in the National Library examining obscure medieval manuscripts. His friend Alphonse Allais later dubbed him "Esotérik Satie". From this period comes Ogives , a set of four piano pieces inspired by Gregorian chant and Gothic church architecture . Keen to leave
14766-487: The practical art of cantus. The earliest writings that deal with both theory and practice include the Enchiriadis group of treatises, which circulated in the late ninth century and possibly have their roots in an earlier, oral tradition. In contrast to the ancient Greek system of tetrachords (a collection of four continuous notes) that descend by two tones and a semitone, the Enchiriadis writings base their tone-system on
14904-619: The premiere of Debussy's opera Pelléas et Mélisande in 1902. He found it "absolutely astounding", and he re-evaluated his own music. In a determined attempt to improve his technique, and against Debussy's advice, he enrolled as a mature student at Paris's second main music academy, the Schola Cantorum in October 1905, continuing his studies there until 1912. The institution was run by Vincent d'Indy , who emphasised orthodox technique rather than creative originality. Satie studied counterpoint with Albert Roussel and composition with d'Indy, and
15042-506: The present day, preserved in Milan due to the musical reputation and ecclesiastical authority of St. Ambrose . Gregorian chant eventually replaced the local chant tradition of Rome itself, which is now known as Old Roman chant. In the 10th century, virtually no musical manuscripts were being notated in Italy. Instead, Roman Popes imported Gregorian chant from (German) Holy Roman Emperors during
15180-736: The psalmody at the Office. Using Psalm Tone i with an antiphon in Mode 1 makes for a smooth transition between the end of the antiphon and the intonation of the tone, and the ending of the tone can then be chosen to provide a smooth transition back to the antiphon. As the modal system gained acceptance, Gregorian chants were edited to conform to the modes, especially during 12th-century Cistercian reforms. Finals were altered, melodic ranges reduced, melismata trimmed, B-flats eliminated, and repeated words removed. Despite these attempts to impose modal consistency, some chants – notably Communions – defy simple modal assignment. For example, in four medieval manuscripts,
15318-436: The range of pitches used in the melody. Melodies whose final is in the middle of the ambitus, or which have only a limited ambitus, are categorized as plagal , while melodies whose final is in the lower end of the ambitus and have a range of over five or six notes are categorized as authentic . Although corresponding plagal and authentic modes have the same final, they have different dominants. The existent pseudo-Greek names of
15456-406: The re-examination of chant in the late 19th century by such scholars as Peter Wagner [ de ] , Pothier , and Mocquereau , who fell into two camps. One school of thought, including Wagner, Jammers, and Lipphardt, advocated imposing rhythmic meters on chants, although they disagreed on how that should be done. An opposing interpretation, represented by Pothier and Mocquereau, supported
15594-466: The relative starting pitches of each neume. Given the fact that Chant was learned in an oral tradition in which the texts and melodies were sung from memory, this was obviously not necessary. The neumatic manuscripts display great sophistication and precision in notation and a wealth of graphic signs to indicate the musical gesture and proper pronunciation of the text. Scholars postulate that this practice may have been derived from cheironomic hand-gestures,
15732-445: The same melodic phrases in a melismatic chant (repeating an entire Alleluia-melody on a new text for instance, or repeating a full phrase with a new text that comments on the previously sung text) and various forms of organum , (improvised) harmonic embellishment of chant melodies focusing on octaves, fifths, fourths, and, later, thirds. Neither tropes nor organum, however, belong to the chant repertory proper. The main exception to this
15870-418: The same syllabic melody for each stanza. Early plainchant, like much of Western music, is believed to have been distinguished by the use of the diatonic scale . Modal theory, which postdates the composition of the core chant repertory, arises from a synthesis of two very different traditions: the speculative tradition of numerical ratios and species inherited from ancient Greece and a second tradition rooted in
16008-546: The scores of his compositions with all kinds of written remarks became so established that he had to insist that they must not be read out during performances. In 1920 there was a festival of Satie's music at the Salle Erard in Paris. In 1924 the ballets Mercure (with choreography by Massine and décor by Picasso) and Relâche ("Cancelled") (in collaboration with Francis Picabia and René Clair ), both provoked headlines with their first night scandals. Despite being
16146-522: The scores of several important works believed lost were found among the accumulated rubbish. He was incompetent with money. Having depended to a considerable extent on the generosity of friends in his early years, he was little better off when he began to earn a good income from his compositions, as he spent or gave away money as soon as he received it. He liked children, and they liked him, but his relations with adults were seldom straightforward. One of his last collaborators, Picabia, said of him: Satie's case
16284-530: The seat in the Académie des Beaux-Arts made vacant by the death of Ernest Guiraud . Between 1893 and 1895, Satie, affecting a quasi-priestly dress, was the founder and only member of the Eglise Métropolitaine d'Art de Jésus Conducteur . From his " Abbatiale " in the rue Cortot, he published scathing attacks on his artistic enemies. In 1893 Satie had what is believed to be his only love affair,
16422-533: The seven-movement suite Trois morceaux en forme de poire ("Three Pear-shaped Pieces") for piano four-hands (1903), simply-phrased music that Nichols and Griffiths describe as "a résumé of his music since 1890" – reusing some of his earlier work as well as popular songs of the time. He struggled to find his own musical voice. Orledge writes that this was partly because of his "trying to ape his illustrious peers … we find bits of Ravel in his miniature opera Geneviève de Brabant and echoes of both Fauré and Debussy in
16560-433: The shape of a remembered melody. This notation was further developed over time, culminating in the introduction of staff lines (attributed to Guido d'Arezzo ) in the early 11th century, what we know today as plainchant notation. The whole body of Frankish-Roman Carolingian chant, augmented with new chants to complete the liturgical year, coalesced into a single body of chant that was called "Gregorian." The changes made in
16698-563: The shoulder and I have been delighted to feel its ironically glacial bite". His published writings include: Conservatoire de Paris Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request from 172.68.168.226 via cp1108 cp1108, Varnish XID 221418713 Upstream caches: cp1108 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Thu, 28 Nov 2024 07:49:42 GMT Gregorian chant Gregorian chant
16836-439: The singing range were organized into overlapping hexachords . Hexachords could be built on C (the natural hexachord, C-D-E^F-G-A), F (the soft hexachord, using a B-flat, F-G-A^B ♭ -C-D), or G (the hard hexachord, using a B-natural, G-A-B^C-D-E). The B-flat was an integral part of the system of hexachords rather than an accidental . The use of notes outside of this collection was described as musica ficta . Gregorian chant
16974-456: The stamp of being divinely inspired. Scholars agree that the melodic content of much Gregorian Chant did not exist in that form in Gregory I's day. In addition, it is known definitively that the familiar neumatic system for notating plainchant had not been established in his time. Nevertheless, Gregory's authorship is popularly accepted by some as fact to this day. Gregorian chant appeared in
17112-417: The synthesized chant repertory. There were other developments as well. Chants were modified, influenced by local styles and Gallican chant, and fitted into the theory of the ancient Greek octoechos system of modes in a manner that created what later came to be known as the western system of the eight church modes . The Metz project also invented an innovative musical notation , using freeform neumes to show
17250-673: The threefold " sanctus " derives from the threefold "kadosh" of the Kedushah . The New Testament mentions singing hymns during the Last Supper : "When they had sung the hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives " ( Matthew 26.30 ). Other ancient witnesses such as Pope Clement I , Tertullian , St. Athanasius , and Egeria confirm the practice, although in poetic or obscure ways that shed little light on how music sounded during this period. Musical elements that would later be used in
17388-465: The twelfth century. Additional symbols developed, such as the custos , placed at the end of a system to show the next pitch. Other symbols indicated changes in articulation, duration, or tempo, such as a letter "t" to indicate a tenuto . Another form of early notation used a system of letters corresponding to different pitches, much as Shaker music is notated. By the 13th century, the neumes of Gregorian chant were usually written in square notation on
17526-416: The two most important manuscripts copied under and over the 4-line staff of the square notation. The Graduale Triplex made widely accessible the original notation of Sankt Gallen and Laon (compiled after 930 AD) in a single chantbook and was a huge step forward. Dom Cardine had many students who have each in their own way continued their semiological studies, some of whom also started experimenting in applying
17664-472: The years. In the late 1880s Satie styled himself on at least one occasion "Erik Satie – gymnopédiste", and his works from this period include the three Gymnopédies (1888) and the first Gnossiennes (1889 and 1890). He earned a modest living as pianist and conductor at the Chat Noir, before falling out with the proprietor and moving to become second pianist at the nearby Auberge du Clou. There he became
17802-545: Was a succès de scandale , with jazz rhythms and instrumentation including parts for typewriter, steamship whistle and siren. It firmly established Satie's name before the public, and thereafter his career centred on the theatre, writing mainly to commission. In October 1916 Satie received a commission from the Princesse de Polignac that resulted in what Orledge rates as the composer's masterpiece, Socrate , two years later. Satie set translations from Plato 's Dialogues as
17940-454: Was a much more conscientious and successful student than he had been at the Conservatoire in his youth. It was not until 1911, when he was in his mid-forties, that Satie came to the notice of the musical public in general. In January of that year Maurice Ravel played some early Satie works at a concert by the Société musicale indépendante , a forward-looking group set up by Ravel and others as
18078-481: Was a single small room, first in Montmartre and, from 1898 to his death, in Arcueil , a suburb of Paris. He adopted various images over the years, including a period in quasi-priestly dress, another in which he always wore identically coloured velvet suits, and is known for his last persona, in neat bourgeois costume, with bowler hat , wing collar, and umbrella. He was a lifelong heavy drinker, and died of cirrhosis of
18216-412: Was categorized into eight modes , influenced by the eightfold division of Byzantine chants called the oktoechos . Each mode is distinguished by its final , dominant , and ambitus . The final is the ending note, which is usually an important note in the overall structure of the melody. The dominant is a secondary pitch that usually serves as a reciting tone in the melody. Ambitus refers to
18354-465: Was considered an official liturgical duty reserved to clergy, so women were not allowed to sing in the Schola Cantorum or other choirs except in convents where women were permitted to sing the Office and the parts of the Mass pertaining to the choir as a function of their consecrated life. Chant was normally sung in unison. Later innovations included tropes , which is a new text sung to
18492-466: Was first described by Hucbald , who adopted the tetrachord of the finals (D, E, F, G) and constructed the rest of the system following the model of the Greek Greater and Lesser Perfect Systems. These were the first steps in forging a theoretical tradition that corresponded to chant. Around 1025, Guido d'Arezzo revolutionized Western music with the development of the gamut , in which pitches in
18630-417: Was further systematized for use in the Roman Rite , and scholars weigh the relative influences of Roman and Carolingian practices upon the development of plainchant. The late 8th century saw a steadily increasing influence of the Carolingian monarchs over the popes. During a visit to Gaul in 752–753, Pope Stephen II celebrated Mass using Roman chant. According to Charlemagne , his father Pepin abolished
18768-702: Was in demand as a journalist, making contributions to the Revue musicale , Action , L'Esprit nouveau , the Paris-Journal and other publications from the Dadaist 391 to the English-language magazines Vanity Fair and The Transatlantic Review . As he contributed anonymously or under pen names to some publications it is not certain how many titles he wrote for, but Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians lists 25. Satie's habit of embellishing
18906-635: Was perceived as corrupt and flawed "barbarism" by making the chants conform to contemporary aesthetic standards. In 1811, the French musicologist Alexandre-Étienne Choron , as part of a conservative backlash following the liberal Catholic orders' inefficacy during the French Revolution , called for returning to the "purer" Gregorian chant of Rome over French corruptions. In the late 19th century, early liturgical and musical manuscripts were unearthed and edited. Earlier, Dom Prosper Guéranger revived
19044-401: Was to be taken. Some favored a strict academic rigour and wanted to postpone publications, while others concentrated on practical matters and wanted to supplant the corrupted tradition as soon as possible. Roughly a century later, there still exists a breach between a strict musicological approach and the practical needs of church choirs. Thus the performance tradition officially promulgated since
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