Some music for today: Leonin's (c. 1150- c.1201) organum duplum from the Notre Dame School, 'Haec Dies', or 'This is the day.'
This was an early form of polyphony. Leonin would take the base Gregorian Chant, slow it down to a crawl, and then write an elaboration on top of it. This little clip illustrates nicely a key problem with most of the early and much of the later polyphony: it was often incomprehensible. For instance, this little section does not even complete the singing of the first word, 'Haec'.
Anyway, Happy Easter.
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