Are there different types of chant?

[CompSciGuy]

Hi,

I have taken interest in the chants that have been used in the Church; the most common kind is Gregorian. I don’t like Gregorian that much, but there are other polyphonic forms that are very beautiful. I was wondering if there are multiple classifications/genres of chant, and if so what are they called? I also notice that some are sung more in the minor key and some more in the major key. Are there different classifications and sub-classifications of chant or is it just Gregorian and everything else?

 

[marietherese4]

I’m no expert, but I have taken music history classes and I love early Church music as well. Glad to see someone else who likes it!

I want to first clarify that “Gregorian chant” is, by definition, monophonic (one voice), but starting from the late medieval period, many composers started to combine Gregorian chant with other voices, which is how polyphony started in the Western tradition. One of the first types of polyphony like this was called organum, which usually combined a “cantus firmus” (basically a bass line with very long notes) with the chant. Gradually composers branched out more, and the polyphony became more complex.

Now, I’m not exactly sure what type of polyphony you might have been listening to, but settings of the Mass (Kyrie, Gloria, etc.) were pretty common in the late Medieval and Renaissance periods (and beyond), so maybe that was what you heard (just a guess). I agree, it’s very beautiful! If you want to check out different composers’ work and see what you like, some names to recommend are (in chronological order, roughly):

Leotin, Perotin, Machaut, Binchois, DuFay, Josquin des Prez, Ockeghem, Palestrina, Victoria, and de Lassus…and I’m sure there are many more. Palestrina and Josquin are my favorites from this list.

I also would recommend checking out Hildegard von Bingen, a 12th-century mystic and nun who is a saint in the Church as well. She wrote a lot of chant, but she was very original and her style is different from the chant you might normally hear, and I found it to be very beautiful.

Hope this helps! I love early sacred music and I hope you find what you’re looking for!

 

[system]

I’m not EXACTLY sure what you mean by different types of chant. However, a lot of the Eastern Catholic Rites have beautiful music sung by their priests/laity. Being a Maronite Catholic myself, I’ll link one of my personal favorites above. A lot of Eastern chants are sung in Aramaic. Please let me know if that’s what you were looking for.

youtube.com/watch?v=eVzZTNuf57w&feature=related

 

[TrentCath]

Hi,

I have taken interest in the chants that have been used in the Church; the most common kind is Gregorian. I don’t like Gregorian that much, but there are other polyphonic forms that are very beautiful. I was wondering if there are multiple classifications/genres of chant, and if so what are they called? I also notice that some are sung more in the minor key and some more in the major key. Are there different classifications and sub-classifications of chant or is it just Gregorian and everything else?

Yes, in the west there is also Ambrosian and Mozarabic Chant, Ambrosian Chant is fairly well preserved however many suspect that Mozarabic Chant these days bears little resemblance to the Mozarabic chant of the middle ages but is in effect a modified form of Gregorian Chant.

In the East, Orthodox and Eastern Catholic chants are vastly different from Gregorian Chant and in some ways I find them even more beautiful, But I’m no expert so I wouldn’t be able to tell you about all the differences.

You can find examples of all the different types of chant on youtube and I even managed to get a CD of Mozarabic Chant.

 

[CompSciGuy]

I’m no expert, but I have taken music history classes and I love early Church music as well. Glad to see someone else who likes it!

I want to first clarify that “Gregorian chant” is, by definition, monophonic (one voice), but starting from the late medieval period, many composers started to combine Gregorian chant with other voices, which is how polyphony started in the Western tradition. One of the first types of polyphony like this was called organum, which usually combined a “cantus firmus” (basically a bass line with very long notes) with the chant. Gradually composers branched out more, and the polyphony became more complex.

Now, I’m not exactly sure what type of polyphony you might have been listening to, but settings of the Mass (Kyrie, Gloria, etc.) were pretty common in the late Medieval and Renaissance periods (and beyond), so maybe that was what you heard (just a guess). I agree, it’s very beautiful! If you want to check out different composers’ work and see what you like, some names to recommend are (in chronological order, roughly):

Leotin, Perotin, Machaut, Binchois, DuFay, Josquin des Prez, Ockeghem, Palestrina, Victoria, and de Lassus…and I’m sure there are many more. Palestrina and Josquin are my favorites from this list.

I also would recommend checking out Hildegard von Bingen, a 12th-century mystic and nun who is a saint in the Church as well. She wrote a lot of chant, but she was very original and her style is different from the chant you might normally hear, and I found it to be very beautiful.

Hope this helps! I love early sacred music and I hope you find what you’re looking for!

That definitely helps! Thanks a lot. That’s a lot of really good information.

 

[CompSciGuy]

I’m not EXACTLY sure what you mean by different types of chant. However, a lot of the Eastern Catholic Rites have beautiful music sung by their priests/laity. Being a Maronite Catholic myself, I’ll link one of my personal favorites above. A lot of Eastern chants are sung in Aramaic. Please let me know if that’s what you were looking for.

youtube.com/watch?v=eVzZTNuf57w&feature=related

That example is more monophonic. I don’t necessarily dislike Gregorian and other monophonic, but I think it’s often melodically limited (esp. gregorian) and rather repetitive. I do like a lot of stuff like “O Bone Jesu” by Palestrina or Da Vittoria’s version of “Ave Maria.”

But there are a certain kind that I find really captivating, some very medieval sounding chants like “Crucem sanctam subiit” which was sung by the templars, or this particular rendition of “Non Nobis Domine” by Leonin:
pandora.com/music/album/tonus+peregrinus/leonin+perotin+sacred+music+from+notre+dame+cathedral
I think they have similar sounds, they are a very simple polyphonic, sung in minor notes rather than major. I didn’t know if they really had a classification.

I know also from listening to different styles of old religious music that there are differences based on the part of the world they were written in. The English had a very distinctive style to theirs from the examples I’ve heard.