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A Tenor is Not What You Think

The word "tenor" comes from the Latin verb meaning "to hold," as in, to hold to the course or melodic path of a piece of music, with the other parts walking in rhythm beside it.  Organum is the seed from which the concept of the tenor line grew.  It is the term given to the earliest Western polyphony, which began with one singer holding down the chant line, or the tenor, while another improvised around it.

As these pieces were written down, composers began to add vocal lines, and the motet was born.  New text was added to old melodies and often the tenor line would be lost in a tapestry of voices, still holding to the syllables of the chant.

During the blossoming of secular polyphony in the 14th century, the word "tenor" was still used to identify the fundamental voice.  Those singers particularly skilled in executing these long, lyrical phrases became known as "tenoristes" or "tenoristas."  It's from this use that our modern meaning of the word evolves to describe a singer of a relatively legato line.

By the 15th century, the treatment of a motet tenor line might be more elaborate.  Composers assigned strict repetitive rhythms to the tenors, sometimes changing speeds in patterns over the course of the piece, thus these became known as "isorhythms."  The Orlando Consort performs an isorhythmic motet by 15th century composer John Dunstaple on their Harmonia Mundi release, The Call of the Phoenix.

Listen to another of John Dunstaple's isorhythmic motet's as performed by The Orlando Consort:httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlnmcgCVlLo

The 15th century motet with a tenor line drawn from chant became the most important form other than the mass for religious music.  Masses began to borrow from motets, such as the "Missa Mater Patris" by Josquin des Prez, which borrows from the motet by French composer Antoine Brumel "Mater Patris et filia".  Check out recordings of both of these pieces on the release from Chanticleer entitled Massa Mater Patris, Magnificat and Motets.

Josquin des Prez also did what many others began to do with motets in the 15th century, which was to combine the motet and the French secular song to create the "motet-chanson."  His musical eulogy dedicated to his teacher, Johannes Ockeghem, features a tenor with a requiem text, and upper voices singing a French poem by Jean Molinet.  The Sex Chordae Consort of Viols perform this work on their album entitled Music of the Renaissance.

Some composers wrote Latin motets in the style of French chansons, such as English composer Walter Frye.  Now the tenor line is equally active as the others, and the upper lines are set in the lyrical style of a light-hearted secular song.

While the tenor lines used in the 15th century "basse danse" were not drawn from the chant of the church, they still functioned as the foundation of the music.  Each note of the tenor line represented one step of the dance.  For examples of such basse danses, check out the Ulsamer Collegium's album entitled Dances of the Renaissance, and Calliope's release, Calliope Dances.

And finally, a musical footnote on the term "tenor."  The word is also the term used for the largest bell in a group, or peal, of church bells.  The "change ringers" of St. Bartholomew the Great in Smithfield, England perform on the Saydisc release appropriately entitled Church Bells of England.

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