Mnogoglasie

Mnogoglasie 

in the Russian divine liturgy, the simultaneous singing of two or more psalms that are different both in text and melody.

The practice of mnogoglasie arose in the early 16th century when the choir had to sing a full cycle of psalms and recitatives grew into melodies to be sung; as a result, it took a good deal of time to sing the entire church service. During the 16th and 17th centuries a controversy arose concerning mnogoglasie, which had led to mixing the music of the psalms, which was artistically bad, and the words of the texts, so that they became completely unintelligible to those attending the service. Complete abandonment of mnogoglasie came only in the first half of the 18th century.

REFERENCE

Preobrazhenskii, A. V. Vopros o edinoglasnom penii v russkoi tserkvi XVII-go veka: Istoricheskie svederiiia i pis’mennye pamiatniki. [St. Petersburg] 1904.