Documentary Summary: The Gothic Revolution

Documentary Summary: The Gothic Revolution

The Documentary mentions the evolution of music altogether with the design of the cathedrals where both arts would meet. It also mentions the use of plain song or single lines of chant and how it developed into polyphony and the appearance of the Notre Dame school of composers in northern France in the twelve century. The development of harmony is mentioned as well.

When the cathedrals were being constructed, the musicians at the time would create sounds according to the structure of the building. The resulting musical sounds illuminated the church, and the lives of the people who composed and performed it. Nobody had heard before such music. It was modern back at that time. Also, buildings and the music were there for the glory of God. Most if not all of the music was composed for the church to praise God.

The music that was filling the cathedrals in Paris was plainchant.

It started in the six century. The melodies were simple but expressive, and in free time. The length of the phrases and the capacity of the singers determined the sense of rhythm. The melodies were simple to memorize so that the congregation could sing along. There was no musical notation at that time. Everything had to be memorized. It would take ten years to memorize all the repertory of the church.

As time passed, the cathedrals became thinner with more advanced structures and so did the music. The invention of a manuscript, which contained a collection of the music that was being sung, was the second greatest achievement in medieval music. It was called the Magnus liber or the great book. Its contents showed the evolution from single lines to polyphonic lines. Some compositions were from the musicians of the Notre Dame school of music. One of the developments was the introduction of a musical line functioning as a pedal and a second voice that could elaborate on top. This was the birth of

harmony.
The cathedrals were constructed big to unify France as a country. It gave political and religious control. It was a center of intellectual, theological authority of Europe. In this places the two-part songs were written down. The creation of the stave allowed to sight-read faster than before and to connect all the notes. It made possible to learn music faster and to compose more complex pieces.
Nearly two thousand years earlier, Pythagoras discovered the relation between notes and the mathematical intervals that he could measure between them. Science and music became together for the development of harmony. The invention of the monochord allowed to demonstrate that Pythagoras rules could be applied and practiced in music making the sound more precise. The discovery of the perfect fourth (P4) and the perfect fifth (P5) produced a satisfactory resonance and it was used to teach young musicians what intervals were.
Along with gothic architecture, music spread throughout northern France. People were coming from all over Europe to listen to this music, copying manuscripts to take this music back to their countries. It was spread to monasteries and churches. With the ability to copy manuscripts, it began to spread over Europe.
The Notre Dame school gave Europe the taste of harmony leading to the future composers like Bach, Beethoven and Mozart to further experiment the wonders of the new musical developments in the turn of the twelve century.