Descant

<h2 id="origin-and-development">Origin and development</h2>
Descant is a type of medieval polyphony characterized by relatively strict note-for-note <a href="/facts/Counterpoint/9yd8pKzN">counterpoint</a>. It is found in the <a href="/facts/Organum/3rNpzgu3">organum</a> with a <a href="/facts/Plainchant/C1WHYKJp">plainchant</a> tenor (i.e. low voice; vox principis), and in the <a href="/facts/Conductus/UFDuua0C">conductus</a> without the requirement of a plainchant tenor. It is sometimes contrasted with the organum in a more restricted sense of the term (see 12-century Aquitanian polyphony below).<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:2" href="#fn:2">2</a>
The term continued to be used down to modern times with changing senses, at first for polyphony in general, then to differentiate a subcategory of polyphony (either in contrast to organum, or for improvised as distinct from written polyphony). By extension it became the name of a part that is added above the tenor, and later as the name of the highest part in a polyphonic setting (the equivalent of "cantus", "superius", and "soprano"). Finally, it was adopted as the name of the highest register of instruments such as recorders, cornets, viols, and organ stops.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:3" href="#fn:3">3</a>
"English discant is three-voice parallelism in first-inversion triads."<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:4" href="#fn:4">4</a> However, because it allowed only three, four, or at most five such chords in succession, emphasizing contrary motion as the basic condition, it "did not differ from the general European discant tradition of the time".<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:5" href="#fn:5">5</a> Because English discant technique has commonly been associated with such a succession of first-inversion triads, it has inevitably become confused with <a href="/facts/Fauxbourdon/qBAPvcgt">fauxbourdon</a>, with which it has "no connection whatsoever".<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:6" href="#fn:6">6</a> This misinterpretation was first brought forward in 1936 by <a href="/facts/Manfred_Bukofzer/C3GFFokQ">Manfred Bukofzer</a>,<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:7" href="#fn:7">7</a> but has been proved invalid, first in 1937 by <a href="/facts/Thrasybulos_Georgiades/yk4WIkvd">Thrasybulos Georgiades</a>,<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:8" href="#fn:8">8</a> and then by Sylvia Kenney<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:9" href="#fn:9">9</a> and <a href="/facts/Ernest_H._Sanders/E5IszahR">Ernest H. Sanders</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:10" href="#fn:10">10</a> A second hypothesis, that an unwritten tradition of this kind of parallel discant existed in England before 1500, "is supported neither by factual evidence nor by probability".<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:11" href="#fn:11">11</a>

<h2 id="in-hymns">In hymns</h2>
<a href="/facts/Hymn_tune/l9wWRebB">Hymn tune</a> descants are counter-melodies, generally at a higher pitch than the main melody. Typically they are sung in the final or penultimate verse of a hymn.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:12" href="#fn:12">12</a>
Although the <a href="/facts/English_Hymnal/C5kaNSyA">English Hymnal</a> of 1906 did not include descants, this influential hymnal, whose music editor was <a href="/facts/Ralph_Vaughan_Williams/gaN22aBl">Ralph Vaughan Williams</a>, served as a source of tunes for which the earliest known hymn tune descants were published. These were in collections compiled by <a href="/facts/Athelstan_Riley/QDmzzw15">Athelstan Riley</a>, who wrote "The effect is thrilling; it gives the curious impression of an ethereal choir joining in the worship below; and those who hear it for the first time often turn and look up at the roof!".<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:13" href="#fn:13">13</a> An example of a descant from this collection (for <a href="/facts/God_save_the_King/cXSTtsuI">the British national anthem</a>) goes as follows:

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Among composers of descants during 1915 to 1934 were <a href="/facts/Alan_Gray/Vz60eVry">Alan Gray</a>, <a href="/facts/Geoffrey_Shaw_(composer)/oNal4YFT">Geoffrey Shaw</a>, and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Several of their descants appear in what is possibly the earliest hymnal to include descants, <a href="/facts/Songs_of_Praise_(hymnal)/jNyGKP7P">Songs of Praise</a> (London: Oxford University Press, 1925, enlarged, 1931, reprinted 1971).
During the last quarter of the twentieth century, new editions of hymnals increased the number of included descants. For example, the influential Hymnal 1940 (Episcopal) contains no descants, whereas its successor, <a href="/facts/The_Hymnal_1982/BoeJ1Ssf">The Hymnal 1982</a>, contains 32. Among other currently used hymnals, The Worshiping Church contains 29 descants; The Presbyterian Hymnal, 19; <a href="/facts/The_New_Century_Hymnal/vux9qE8R">The New Century Hymnal</a>, 10; Chalice Hymnal, 21. The Vocal Descant Edition for Worship, Third Edition (GIA Publications, 1994) offers 254 descants by composers such as <a href="/facts/Hal_Hopson/7jgDBuGf">Hal Hopson</a>, <a href="/facts/David_Hurd/my5TSwKN">David Hurd</a>, <a href="/facts/Robert_Powell_(composer)/Dj6MD3s7">Robert Powell</a>, <a href="/facts/Richard_Proulx/1ALS2BmM">Richard Proulx</a>, and <a href="/facts/Carl_Schalk/GrpDrjWg">Carl Schalk</a>.
In the United Kingdom and elsewhere, the <a href="/facts/Carols_for_Choirs/GHb6g6Iq">Carols for Choirs</a> collection, which features descants by <a href="/facts/David_Willcocks/mSnCwa3J">David Willcocks</a> and others to well known Christmas tunes such as "<a href="/facts/O_come,_all_ye_faithful/lMoz6p1y">O come, all ye faithful</a>" has contributed to the enduring popularity of the genre.

<h2 id="12th-century-aquitanian-polyphony">12th-century Aquitanian polyphony</h2>
This style was dominant in early 12th century <a href="/facts/Aquitaine/p9s8I93k">Aquitanian</a> <a href="/facts/Polyphony/obub59bA">polyphony</a>, and can be identified by the following characteristics:

<ol><li>Both the tenor and upper parts move at about the same rate, using the equalitas punctorum (an approximately equal rate of movement in all the voices) with between one and three notes in the upper part to every note in the tenor part. At the end of a phrase however, in discant style, the upper part may have more notes, thus producing a more <a href="/facts/Melisma/gTneqU94">melismatic</a> passage at a cadence.</li>
<li>Throughout the discant passages, the two parts interchange between consonant <a href="/facts/Interval_(music)/aFwkkgpY">intervals</a>: <a href="/facts/Octave/RA4gWvkV">octaves</a>, <a href="/facts/Perfect_fifth/PTIaHPuI">fifths</a>.</li>
<li>Discant style is characterised by the use of <a href="/facts/Rhythmic_modes/YQUs2Q50">rhythmic modes</a> throughout each part. In earlier types of organum, rhythm was either not notated as in organum purum, or notated in only the upper voice part, however Notre Dame composers devised a way of notating rhythm using ligatures and six different types of rhythmic modes.</li></ol>
Examples of this can be found in some of <a href="/facts/L%C3%A9onin/fT2wmxpF">Léonin</a>’s late 12th-century settings. These settings are often punctuated with passages in discant style, where both the tenor and upper voice move in modal rhythms, often the tenor part in mode 5 (two long notes) and the upper part in mode 1 (a long then short note). Therefore it is easier to imagine how discant style would have sounded, and we can make a guess as to how to recreate the settings. It is suggested by scholars such as <a href="/facts/Donald_Jay_Grout/vSAbkI2a">Grout</a>,[where?] that Léonin used this non-<a href="/facts/Melisma/gTneqU94">melismatic</a> style in order to mirror the grandeur of <a href="/facts/Notre_Dame_Cathedral/kXmsoDMz">Notre Dame Cathedral</a> itself.
Current research suggests that the word 'discantus' was formed with the intention of providing a separate term for a newly developed type of polyphony. If true, then it is ironic that the newer term, "discantus", ended up being applied to the older note-against-note style, while the older word "organum" was transferred to the more innovative style of florid-against-sustained-note polyphony. This may have been partly because the 12th century was an era that believed in progress, so that the more familiar "organum" was kept for the style then considered to be the most up-to-date.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:14" href="#fn:14">14</a>

<h3>Discant in three or four voices</h3>
The development of modal rhythms enabled the progression from two part discant style to three and four part discant style. This is because, only voices, confined to a set rhythm can be combined effectively to make a set phrase. This was mainly related to <a href="/facts/P%C3%A9rotin/4s4kdzwU">Pérotin</a>, around 1200. The parts in these three and four past settings were not necessarily related to each other. Evidence suggests that the parts were either related to the tenor part, or composed independently. Either way, this formed the first ‘composition’, and provided a foundation for development, and a new style, <a href="/facts/Conductus/UFDuua0C">conductus</a> was developed from the three and four part discant ideas.

<h2 id="see-also">See also</h2>
<ul><li><a href="/facts/Anglican_church_music/eWB1ozUg">Anglican church music</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/Congregational_singing/fKyhHwXa">Congregational singing</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/Hymn_tune/l9wWRebB">Hymn tunes</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/Last_verse_harmonisation/qYUqIMfS">Last verse harmonisation</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/Organ_(music)/QjxVlXU5">Organ</a></li></ul>

<h2 id="further-reading">Further reading</h2>
<ul><li>Clark Kimberling, "Hymn Tune Descants, Part 1: 1915–1934", The Hymn 54 (no. 3) July 2003, pages 20–27. (Reprinted in Journal of the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society 29 (February 2004) 17–20.)</li>
<li>Clark Kimberling, "Hymn Tune Descants, Part 2: 1935–2001", The Hymn 55 (no. 1) January 2004, pages 17–22.</li>
<li>Crocker, Richard L. 1962. "Discant, Counterpoint, and Harmony". Journal of the American Musicological Society 15, no. 1:1–21.</li>
<li>Flotzinger, Rudolf. 1969. Der Discantussatz im Magnus liber und seiner Nachfolge: mit Beiträgen zur Frage der sogenannten Notre-Dame-Handschriften. Wiener musikwissenschaftliche Beiträge 8. Vienna, Cologne, and Graz: H. Böhlaus Nachfolger.</li>
<li>Flotzinger, Rudolf, Ernest H. Sanders, and Peter M. Lefferts. 2001. "Discant [descant, descaunt(e), deschant, deschaunt(e), dyscant; verb: discanten]". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by <a href="/facts/Stanley_Sadie/Nlt00DMf">Stanley Sadie</a> and <a href="/facts/John_Tyrrell_(musicologist)/qfVbW8KV">John Tyrrell</a>. London: Macmillan Publishers.</li>
<li>Hughes, Andrew. 1966. "Mensural Polyphony for Choir in 15th-Century England", Journal of the American Musicological Society 19, no. 3 (Fall): 352–69.</li>
<li>Hughes, Andrew. 1967. "The Old Hall Manuscript: a Re-appraisal". <a href="/facts/American_Institute_of_Musicology/NT451bs2">Musica Disciplina</a> 21:97–129</li>
<li>Kenney, Sylvia W. 1964. "The Theory of Discant". Chapter 5 of Walter Frye and the "Contenance Angloise", 91–122. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Reprinted, New York: Da Capo Press, 1980. <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 9780306760112.</li>
<li>Knapp, Janet. 2003. "Discant". Harvard Dictionary of Music, fourth edition, edited by Don Michael Randel. Harvard University Press Reference Library 16. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 978-0-674-01163-2.</li>
<li>Scott, Ann Besser. 1970. "The Performance of the Old Hall Descant Settings". Musical Quarterly 56, no. 1 (January): 14–26.</li>
<li>Spiess, Lincoln B. 1955. "Discant, Descant, Diaphony, and Organum: a Problem in Definitions". Journal of the American Musicological Society 8, no. 2 (Summer):, 144–47.</li>
<li>Trowell, Brian. 1959. "Faburden and Fauxbourdon". <a href="/facts/American_Institute_of_Musicology/NT451bs2">Musica Disciplina</a> 8:43–78.</li>
<li>Waite, William. 1952. "Discantus, Copula, Organum". Journal of the American Musicological Society 5, no. 2 (Summer): 77–87.</li></ul>
<h2 id="external-links">External links</h2>

Look up descant in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

<ul><li><a href="http://www.servicemusic.org.uk/descants">Selection of hymnal descants</a></li></ul>

<h2 id="references">References</h2>

<ol>
<li id="fn:1">Apel, Willi (1969). Harvard Dictionary of Music, p.228. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674375017. <a href="/wiki/Willi_Apel" target="_blank">/wiki/Willi_Apel</a> <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:2">Rudolf Flotzinger, "Discant [descant, descaunt(e), deschant, deschaunt(e), dyscant; verb: discanten]", §I. Discant in France, Spain and Germany, 1. Etymology, Definition, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. (London: Macmillan Publishers, 2001); Janet Knapp, "Discant", Harvard Dictionary of Music, fourth edition, edited by Don Michael Randel, Harvard University Press Reference Library 16 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003) ISBN 978-0-674-01163-2. <a href="/wiki/Rudolf_Flotzinger" target="_blank">/wiki/Rudolf_Flotzinger</a> <a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:3">Rudolf Flotzinger, "Discant [descant, descaunt(e), deschant, deschaunt(e), dyscant; verb: discanten]", §I. Discant in France, Spain and Germany, 1. Etymology, Definition, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. (London: Macmillan Publishers, 2001); Janet Knapp, "Discant", Harvard Dictionary of Music, fourth edition, edited by Don Michael Randel, Harvard University Press Reference Library 16 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003) ISBN 978-0-674-01163-2. <a href="/wiki/Rudolf_Flotzinger" target="_blank">/wiki/Rudolf_Flotzinger</a> <a href="#fnref:3" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:4">John D. White, The Analysis of Music (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1976), p. 128. ISBN 978-0-13-033233-2. Emphasis added. <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)" target="_blank">/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)</a> <a href="#fnref:4" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:5">Ernest H. Sanders and Peter M. Lefferts, "Discant: II. English Discant", The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan Publishers, 2001). <a href="#fnref:5" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:6">Sylvia W. Kenney, "'English Discant' and Discant in England", Musical Quarterly 45, no. 1 (January 1959): pp. 26–48. Citation on pp. 26 and 41. <a href="#fnref:6" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:7">Geschichte des englischen Diskants und des Fauxbourdons nach den theoretischen Quellen, mit zahlreichen Notenbeispielen (Strasbourg: Heitz); Reprint edition, in Sammlung musikwissenschaftlicher Abhandlungen 21 (Baden-Baden: V. Koerner, 1973) ISBN 9783873205215. <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)" target="_blank">/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)</a> <a href="#fnref:7" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:8">Englische Diskanttraktate aus der ersten Hälfte des 15. Jahrhunderts, Schriftenreihe des Musikwissenschaftliches Seminars der Universität München 3 (Munich: Musikwissenschaftliches Seminar der Universität München). <a href="#fnref:8" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:9">Sylvia W. Kenney, "'English Discant' and Discant in England", Musical Quarterly 45, no. 1 (January 1959): pp. 26–48. Citation on pp. 26 and 41. <a href="#fnref:9" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:10">"Cantilena and Discant in 14th-Century England". Musica Disciplina, 19 (1965):7–52. <a href="/wiki/American_Institute_of_Musicology#Musica_Disciplina" target="_blank">/wiki/American_Institute_of_Musicology#Musica_Disciplina</a> <a href="#fnref:10" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:11">Ernest H. Sanders and Peter M. Lefferts, "Discant: II. English Discant", The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan Publishers, 2001). <a href="#fnref:11" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:12">Service Music http://www.servicemusic.org.uk/descants/ <a href="http://www.servicemusic.org.uk/descants/" target="_blank">http://www.servicemusic.org.uk/descants/</a> <a href="#fnref:12" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:13">Riley, Athelstan (1916). "No. 560 The National Anthem". A Collection of Faux-bourdons and Descants for the French Ecclesiastical Melodies and Other Tunes in the English Hymnal. A.R. Mowbray. pp. 104–105. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=VytGAQAAMAAJ" target="_blank">https://books.google.com/books?id=VytGAQAAMAAJ</a> <a href="#fnref:13" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:14">Rudolf Flotzinger, "Organum, §6: ‘Organum’ and ‘Discant’: New Terminology". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan Publishers, 2001). <a href="/wiki/Rudolf_Flotzinger" target="_blank">/wiki/Rudolf_Flotzinger</a> <a href="#fnref:14" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
</ol>

Descant open-in-new

Descant