Plainsong

For other uses, see Plainsong (disambiguation).

Plainsong or plainchant (calque from the French plain-chant; Latin: cantus planus) is a body of chants used in the liturgies of the Western Church. When referring to the term plainsong, it is those sacred pieces that are composed in Latin text.[1] Plainsong was the exclusive form of Christian church music until the ninth century, and the introduction of polyphony.[2]

The monophonic chants of plainsong have a non-metric rhythm,[3] which is generally considered freer than the metered rhythms of later Western music.[3] They are also traditionally sung without musical accompaniment, though recent scholarship has unearthed a widespread custom of accompanied chant that transcended religious and geographical borders.[4]

There are three types of chant melodies that plainsongs fall into: syllabic, neumatic, and melismatic.[3] The free flowing melismatic melody form of plainsong is still heard in Middle Eastern music being performed today.[3]

Although the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox churches did not split until long after the origin of plainsong, Byzantine chants are generally not classified as plainsong.

  1. ^ Levy, Kenneth; Emerson, John A.; Bellingham, Jane; Hiley, David; Zon, Bennett Mitchell (2001). Plainchant. Vol. 1. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.40099. ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0.
  2. ^ Bewerunge, H (1911). "Plainchant". www.newadvent.org. Retrieved 2021-02-16.
  3. ^ a b c d Forney, Kristine (2015). The enjoyment of music. Joseph Machlis, Andrew Dell'Antonio (Twelfth edition, full version ed.). New York. ISBN 978-0-393-93637-7. OCLC 900609692.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  4. ^ Long, Cillian (2022). The Accompaniment of Plainchant in France, Belgium and Certain Other Catholic Regions: A Chronological Study of Theory and Practice from the French Revolution to the Second Vatican Council (PhD thesis). The University of Dublin, Trinity College.