Deacon Robert Barnard seems to have stumbled upon a very interesting idea: that cathedrals were designed for chant. "I was reading something recently which indicated that some churches, in particular cathedrals such as Chartres and Notre Dame, were designed with the musical modes in mind. It was stated that the architural (sic) dimensions were in direct relation to the movement of the musical modes. The book I was reading (one of Thomas Merton's) mentioned it only in passing..." Does anyone know more about this?
I managed to find this hint: "Although we know as little about the lives of Leoninus and Perotinus as we do about the first master architects of Notre Dame Cathedral, their music speaks as clearly of their ideals as does the lofty structure envisioned by the Bishop Maurice and his architects. Here is music which is wholly conditioned in its harmony and in its rhythm by the medieval reverence for the numerical proportions which regulate musical consonance. A long tradition extending from the Pythagoreans through Plato and St. Augustine had transmitted to these men the idea that the universe had been formulated in numerical proportions that held everything in its proper place from the crystal spheres of heaven to the ebb and flow of the tides and the virtues that adorn the soul of man. These proportions are specifically those that produce the musical intervals of the unison (1:1), the octave (1:2), the fifth (2:3), and the fourth (4:3). Thus the composers of this period dwelt upon the harmonies formed by these proportions, driving the melodic lines which they added above the melody of the chant from one perfect interval to another, beginning and ending their phrases with intervals which formed such a perfect relationship with the notes of the Gregorian chant." So, it would seem to me that churches that were built using dimensions based on these proportions would "resonate" more readily with the music.
// originally posted 12.22.03 - 8:04 pm