base of the nut, you forget plainsong,
discant, melody on which
discant is raised" (my emphasis; notebook for Gardens of Old Men, box 1).
In passages of
discant, where the tenor rhythm is measured and offers a control for the interpretation of the rhythm of the duplum, the transcription employs modern time values.
Item because the portionaries with the churchmasters, housemasters and provosts of [the confraternity of j Our Lady and the chaplains ordered that in honour of the church one should hire three young boys to learn
discant and to sing the High Mass and the other Hours on various feast-days with the men who should be given together with the tenor every year one tabard each, therefore 16 ells of red linen were bought at 21 stuivers for each ell, of which the fourth part of the expense would be carried by the church paying 3'2 stuivers for the cost of making one tabard -- 21 s.
Payne states, for example, that "
Discant proceeds according to a practice of representation known as modus rectus, a line of long and short values that recur in a series of schematic patterns" (p.
Thus, since in the Florence manuscript no two-part clausulae are found separated from the main group, the entire contents of this volume are the 46: clausulae of the fifth fascicle; corresponding
discant passages recorded within the full organa dupla series have not been extracted, but will appear in subsequent volumes.
diese Aria, folgendes Recit: und hernach kom(m)ende Aria gehor(en) in d(en)
Discant' (`This aria, the following recitative and the aria that comes afterwards belong in the
discant'); for a reproduction, see Brainard, `Cantata 21 revisited', plate 7 (between pp.232 and 233), lower half.
Moll rightly translates Besseler's "Tonalharmonik und Vollklang" as "Tonal Harmony and Full Sonority," but Apfel's "Der klangliche Satz und der freie Diskantsatz" becomes "The 'Tonal
Discant' and 'Free
Discant' Techniques of Composition," evidently with Apfel's blessing (see also Moll's explanations on pp.
It has to be known that any consonance, whether given in three, four, or more voices, is understood and counted from the bass to the
discant, which are the outer voices, because the middle parts, tenor and alto, are used only for the accompanying consonances and to fill the void between the outer parts.(11)
This concept accords with contemporaneous theoretical descriptions of
discant and thus gives modern writers a tool with which to analyze tonal elements in medieval music.
Crocker, '
Discant, counterpoint, and harmony', Journal of the American Musicological Society, XV (1962), pp.1-21, here pp.4-7.
It is more likely, however, that he here takes the term to apply to the largely premodal
discant passages occurring as parts of organa dupla in one or more of the three extant versions of the magnus liber.
Regarding the thicker textures, he mentions that the clarino, or
discant instrument, and the quinta, or tenor instrument, often move in parallel octaves.
One of the lutes plays the
discant, the other the tenor (and perhaps the contratenor as well).
Revised in the last years of the thirteenth century, the treatise constitutes the first attempt at a comprehensive approach to music, taking into account speculative and practical aspects, sacred and secular contexts, plainchant and mensural music, and the rules of psalmody and
discant. Research into the treatise began in 1985 as part of a project concerning technical and aesthetic discussions of the human voice by medieval authors.
Organum also denotes early vocal polyphonic style that featured a slower tenor voice accompanied by faster moving vocal lines It was certainly commonplace for singers to improvise around a line of chant, as Pope John XII's Docta sanctorum of 1323 attests: "Moreover, they [composers and singers] hinder the melody with hockets, they deprave it with
discants, and sometimes they pad out the music with upper parts made out of secular songs." The bull goes on to read: "Nevertheless, it is not our wish to forbid the occasional use of some consonances, which heighten the beauty of the melody.
