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The Medieval Church · c. 900
The Music Handbook
Musica Enchiriadis
Anonymous
What it is
A manual for teaching chant that turns, halfway through, into something new: instructions for singing a second voice against the melody at a fixed interval, with worked examples of organum on liturgical texts.
Why it lasted
The earliest description of polyphony anywhere, and the beginning of Western music's divergence from every other tradition. It exists because a monastery needed to teach singing, and it changed what music is.
Scripture it works from
Where to read it
This work is in the public domain and can be read in full, free, at the archives below.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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