Abstract

This article discusses the practice of organ harmonization of liturgical monody (plain-chant) developed by Antoine Hellé, a French organist and church musician active in the mid-19th century. He expounded on this practice in his textbook Méthode pour l'harmonisation du plain-chant (1867). His method, which draws on other contemporary concepts proposed by Gevaert (Méthode pour l'enseignement du plain-chant et la manière de l'accompagner, 1856) and Niedermeyer and Ortigue (Traité théorique et pratique de l'accompa-gnement du plain-chant, 1857), is a very valuable source of knowledge on the development and evolution of polyphonic practices in liturgical music that appeared in French liturgy in the 19th century – especially in churches located in small towns and in the provinces. The practice of harmonization described by Hellé was not addressed to virtuoso organists, but to organists with an average level of musical education, who were responsible for the musical setting of the mass liturgy and the officium divinum in churches located in the provinces and smaller towns.