2 - The Christian Church in the First Millenium

Question 1

What was the Edict of Milan and when was it given?

Answer 1

an edict by Constantine in 313 AD legalizing Christianity and allowing the church to own property

Question 1

What emperor made Christianity the state religion? (392 AD)

Answer 1

Emperor Theodosius

Question 2

What is a psalm?

Answer 2

a poem of praise

Question 3

What is cantillation?

Answer 3

chanting sacred texts

Question 4

What Jewish musical tradition carried over to Christian worship services?

Answer 4

singing psalms assigned to a particular day or festival

Question 5

What was the advantage of chanting scripture over speaking it?

Answer 5

sung words carried better in big spaces

Question 6

What principle of Plato’s regarding music did the “church fathers” adhere to?

Answer 6

beautiful things exist to remind us of divine beauty (rather than simply for enjoyment)

Question 7

Why did most church fathers condemn instrumental music?

Answer 7

they believed that music without words was unable to open the mind to Christian teachings

Question 8

Christianity split into what two churches in 1054?

Answer 8

the Roman Catholic Church and the Byzantine Church

Question 9

What is a rite?

Answer 9

the set of practices that defines a particular Christian tradition, including a church calendar, a liturgy, and a reparatory of chant

Question 10

What is liturgy?

Answer 10

a body of texts and ritual actions assigned to each service

Question 11

What is plainchant or chant?

Answer 11

unison song with melodies for prescribed texts

Question 12

What are chant dialects?

Answer 12

different regional repertoires

Question 13

What are echoi?

Answer 13

eight modes associated with Byzantine chant

Question 14

What is centonization?

Answer 14

a process used in Byzantine chant of composing a new melody by combining standard motives and formulas

Question 15

What was the most important center for the western church outside Rome?

Answer 15

Milan

Question 16

What were the songs of the Milanese rite known as?

Answer 16

Ambrosian chant

Question 17

Why did the church standardize what was said and sung in services?

Answer 17

to consolidate centralized control

Question 18

What was the Schola Cantorum?

Answer 18

the choir that sang when the pope officiated at observances

Question 19

According to legend, how did Gregory I receive chants?

Answer 19

they were dictated by the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove

Question 20

Without notation and with hundreds of chants, how do some scholars suggest melodies were passed down?

Answer 20

that chants were actually improvised within strict conventions

Question 21

Why was the church interested in developing notation?

Answer 21

so melodies would be standard throughout the church, without individual or regional variation

Question 22

What Latin word does ‘neume’ come from?

Answer 22

‘neuma’, or ‘gesture’

Question 23

Where were neumes placed in the score?

Answer 23

above the words

Question 24

What did neumes indicate?

Answer 24

the number of notes for each syllable and whether the melody ascended, descended or repeated a pitch

Question 25

Why did chants notated with neumes still have to be learned by ear?

Answer 25

neumes did not specify actual pitches or intervals, they only served as a reminder of the general shape of the melody

Question 26

What are heightened or diastematic neumes?

Answer 26

neumes placed at varying heights above the text to indicate relative size of intervals, as well as direction

Question 27

When a line began being used to indicate a specific pitch for the others to orient around, why did they often choose C or F?

Answer 27

because of their position just above semitones

Question 28

What did C lines and F lines evolve into?

Answer 28

our modern clef signs

Question 29

Who suggested an arrangement of lines and spaces?

Answer 29

Guido de Arezzo (ca. 991 - after 1033)

Question 30

What did Guido de Arezzo’s notation look like?

Answer 30

a red ink line for F and yellow ink line for C with letters in the margin identifying each line

Question 31

Who was Boethius? (ca. 480 - ca. 524)

Answer 31

the most revered authority on music in the Middle Ages

Question 32

Boethius divided music into what three categories?

Answer 32

musica mundana, musica humana, musica instrumentalis

Question 33

What is musical mundana?

Answer 33

“music of the universe,” or numerical relationships governing the movement of stars, planets and seasons

Question 34

What is musical humana?

Answer 34

“human music,” or the “music” that harmonizes the human body, soul and their parts

Question 35

What is musical instrumentalis?

Answer 35

“instrumental music,” or audible music produced by voices or instruments

Question 36

What were modes, as established by the church by the eleventh century?

Answer 36

eight scales distinguished by their particular arrangement of tones and semitones

Question 37

What is a final?

Answer 37

the main note in the mode and usually the last note in the melody

Question 38

What is an authentic mode?

Answer 38

a mode in which the range normally extends from a step below the final to an octave above it

Question 39

What is a plagal mode?

Answer 39

a mode in which the range normally extends from a fourth or fifth below the final to fifth or sixth above it

Question 40

What was the only chromatic alteration normally allowed?

Answer 40

B-flat in chants that gave prominence to F

Question 41

What is the tenor, or reciting, tone?

Answer 41

the most frequent or prominent note in a chant, or around which each phrase is oriented

Question 42

Where was the tenor note normally found in an authentic mode?

Answer 42

a fifth above the final

Question 43

Where was the tenor note normally found in a plagal mode?

Answer 43

a third below the tenor of the corresponding authentic mode

Question 44

What is solmization?

Answer 44

a method of assigning syllables to steps in a scale

Question 45

Where did the word “solmization” come from?

Answer 45

from the syllables “so-mi”

Question 46

What hymn did Guido de Arezzo take his solmization syllables from?

Answer 46

Ut queant laxis

Question 47

What is a hexachord?

Answer 47

the six notes represented by “ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la” which could be transposed to three positions (beginning on C, G or F)

Question 48

What is mutation?

Answer 48

in solmization, the process of changing from one hexachord to another, necessitated by a melody that uses more notes than one hexachord contains

Question 49

What is the Guidonian Hand?

Answer 49

a mnemonic device for locating the pitches of the system of hexachords by pointing to the joints of the left hand

Question 50

What is chanting sacred texts called?

Answer 50

cantillation

Question 51

What was the Byzantine method of composing a new melody by combining standard motives and formulas?

Answer 51

centonization

Question 52

What choir sang when the pope officiated at observances?

Answer 52

Schola Cantorum

Question 53

When did Christianity split into the Roman Catholic Church and the Byzantine Church?

Answer 53

1054 AD

Question 54

Approximately when did Guido de Arezzo live?

Answer 54

ca. 991 - after 1033