Virtual Acoustic Reconstruction of Notre Dame Cathedral’s Choral Past
Résumé
The destructive fire at the Cathedrale Notre Dame of Paris and the subsequent reconstruction efforts have renewed academic interest in all aspects of the cathedral’s past. Musicologists and acousticians are working together to understand the sound of Notre Dame, from its construction until the twenty-first century, with a particular interest in understanding the interaction of the building and the emergence of the famous “École de Notre Dame.” This article is a product of the close collaboration between the musicology and acoustic research teams of the French PHEND project. Our common goal is to reflect on the links between medieval churches’ acoustics and polyphony’s evolution. To help our understanding of this relationship, approaches from the realm of acoustics have been applied to study the changes in the acoustics duringthe first significant period of construction (1160–1250). Using these completed acoustic studies, we have set up a series of singing tests focusing on the times-pan immediately before, during, and after the height of the activities of the École de Notre Dame (1150–1220). This paper discusses our initial results. The first acoustic state we consider is from the first stage of the construction: from 1160 to the consecration of the altar in 11821. For the project, we consider the Christmas Mass in 1198 due the sources relating to the music. There are many uncertainties about the actual date of the first compositions of polyphonies. However, it is very likely that if Bishop Odo de Sully proclaimed the use of polyphonies for the most significant liturgical observances in the decrees of 1198 and 1199, these polyphonies existed prior to those decrees. We present an emblematic repertoire of the time of the construction of the new cathedral, chosen for the experiment as well as the protocols set up for the recording by the singers to place their voices in the reconstituted/modeled acoustics of Notre Dame in 1198 CE.
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