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Duration: ca. 10½ minutes
Text by Henricus Loris Glareanus (1488-1563)
Special thanks to
Christopher K. Nissen
Associate Professor, Foreign Language & Literature
Northern Illinois University
who helped decipher Glarean’s Latin.
click here to see the text
This piece has not yet been performed.
You could be the first!
If interested, e-mail me at:
RushYes@aol.com
Program Notes
The odd title of this choral work is named after
a sixteenth-century music treatise and its author, the Dodecachordon
(1547) by the Swiss music theorist Henricus Loris Glareanus (1488-1563)
or simply Glarean. In this writing about modal theory, for which
he is most famous, Glarean clarifies some misconceptions of his
day regarding the church modes, or scales, which form the basis
of such period music. Before the Dodecachordon, it was accepted
that there were 4 authentic modes (dorian, phrygian, lydian and
mixolydian) and their plagal versions (hypodorian, hypophrygian,
hypolydian and hypomixolydian). Each one of these modes, which
span an octave, begins on a given pitch and uses only the natural
notes without altering them with accidentals. For example, a scale
beginning on the pitch D and ending on the pitch D is a dorian
scale, E is phrygian, F is lydian, and G is mixolydian. The plagal
versions use the same basic scale patterns as their authentic
counterparts, but their pitch range is different. In the Dodecachordon
Glarean explained that there were actually two more authentic
modes (aeolian and ionian) and two more plagals (hypoaeolian and
hypoionian), which center around the notes A and C respectively
(our modern day minor and major scales). He further suggests that
there is a B-based key, which is now labeled locrian, a term not
used in Glarean’s day. He mentions that "so far as I know, no
complete example of this mode has been found, but...it can be
composed." This mode is still obscure as it was in the Renaissance.
The Swiss theorist’s main point was ironically not
that he had discovered these new modes, but that they had been
used in practice for some time. It was through "the ignorance
of musicians who could not distinguish such closely related modes"
that these scales were not recognized. Before Glarean, a scale
that ended on D was dorian, on E was phrygian, etc. However, sometimes
the pitches in these scales were altered. For example, a B-flat
was often introduced in dorian melodies, but since it ended on
D, it was dorian. However, by changing the B to a B-flat, the
scale is really changed to the aeolian mode. The substitution
of the B-flat in a lydian melody likewise produces an ionian scale.
The simple semantics of such nomenclature have ensured that Glarean
will be remembered.
Essentially this choral work is a setting of passages
regarding the aforementioned principles from Glarean’s treatise.
Most of the piece is pan-modal polyphony in that a majority of
the notes are natural pitches, but the modes are being used simultaneously.
Each melodic line is based around a different mode, which is set
to text about that mode, and ends on its corresponding final pitch.
In the few places where these pan-modal contrapuntal sections
do not occur, the melodies are usually in the dorian mode; as
Glarean suggests, "it is very common, and many thousands of songs
are found that have been composed according to this mode." In
most cases when aeolian and ionian lines are used, they are based
on D and F respectively as they were in the Renaissance. This
means that there are numerous B-flats in the piece, which adds
even more tonal ambiguity. There are not many recurring themes,
the major exception being the passage, "These are without doubt
twelve genuine modes." Coincidentally, in a sentence preceding
an excerpt from the Dodecachordon about the phrygian mode used
in this piece, was a discussion about the Gregorian chant Pange
Lingua, a tune on which I based a 15-minute work of the same name
for 2 sopranos, piano, 2 marimbas and string trio. As a tribute,
the chant appears set to that text within the pan-modal texture.
View the score
Copyright © 2000 by Kurt Mortensen
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