MONODIA. (From the Gr. μóνοϛ, single, and ᾠδή, a Song.) A term applied, by modern critics, to music written in what is sometimes called the Homophonic Style: that is to say, music, in which the Melody is confined to a single part, instead of being equally distributed between all the Voices employed, as in the Polyphonic Schools.
The rise of the Homophonic School was extraordinarily rapid. Soon after the death of Palestrina, in the year 1594, it sprang suddenly into notice;...