Glarean’s Dodecachordon

(1999-2000)
For SATB Choir

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!
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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