Birth of Polyphony: 31 July – 4 August

[doversoul1]

The transition from pure monophony to complex polyphony is a gradual one. Donald Macleod takes a close look at the change

Monday: Hildegard of Bingen
Tuesday: The School of Notre Dame
Wednesday: Troubadours and Trouveres
Thursday: Machaut and Ars Nova
Friday: to be published

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08zjkl1

Donald Macleod & Co. strikes again. This looks very exciting.

[DracoM]

Yes: promises well.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Yes: promises well.

- looking forward to this.

[jean]

From holy minimalism to - what?

(I'm looking forward to it too!)

[Pulcinella]

From holy minimalism to - what?

Vatican II?
(As mentioned on another thread, when BBM said he hadn't heard Palestrina's Missa Papae Marcelli for a while!)

[BBMmk2]

As MrsBBM said to me just now, well I never! This will be quite a week!

[jean]

Vatican II?
(As mentioned on another thread, when BBM said he hadn't heard Palestrina's Missa Papae Marcelli for a while!)

You're not thinking of the Council of Trent, are you?

(Though that story is probably a myth!)

[Serial_Apologist]

From holy minimalism to - what?

(I'm looking forward to it too!)

Thinking along different lines?

[Pulcinella]

You're not thinking of the Council of Trent, are you?

(Though that story is probably a myth!)

Not really, more the fact that Vatican II seemed to reduce whatever holy minimalism there was still further, to the level of a nun and a guitar in several churches, didn't it?
But I can see why you thought I might have meant the Council of Trent, having mentioned that Palestrina mass.

[jean]

I'm disappointed - I'm not being told what it is that makes Hildegards's music so unmistakable!

.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'm disappopinted - I'm not being told what it is that makes Hildegards's music so unmistakable!

That sums up my feeling, too! Yes - some inclusion of Music earlier and contemporaneous with her own might have helped (staving off any suggestion that the only thing that makes it "unmistakable" is the fact that its Music whose composer's name is known). I might have a go at this, one day ...

Otherwise a very "appopinting" programme - I love listening to this Music.

[Bryn]

383 hits for "appopinting" on Google, as against 768 for "disappopinting".

[Pulcinella]

Details for Friday are now available, though the heading is just Episode 5!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08zdv9b

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I think it's a lovely word - like a mixture of "disappointing" and "discombobulated". I think jean's typo (if it was such) should be widely adopted.

[jean]

I love it, too. And there were some, er, interesting biographical details I wasn't aware of.

But how can you have a whole week of monophony-to-polyphony wthout a proper discussion of the whole corpus of Gregorian plainsong?

Perhaps that'll come tomorrow. But really, it needs a week (or more) to itself.

(Diversion Alert: I read recently that the much-despised James Macmillan announced a few years ago that he was going to stop writing congregational music, because he wanted congregations to rediscover plainsong. The man has some good points.)