Polyphony (from Greek for “many voices”) is democracy in music. There is no “main” or “secondary” voice: all are equal, all carry meaning.
Polyphony flourished in the Renaissance (Palestrina, Josquin des Prez) and the Baroque (Bach, Handel). In the 20th century, polyphonic thinking returned through Hindemith and Lutosławski. The Ukrainian choral tradition, including the works of Dmytro Bortniansky, also draws on polyphony.
A distinction is drawn between imitative polyphony, where voices take turns repeating the same theme (canon, fugue), and contrasting (multi-thematic) polyphony, where independent melodies sound at once. The strictest rules of voice leading took shape in the Renaissance around Palestrina's style and are still the basis of composition training. Polyphonic thinking demands hearing music “in three dimensions” — in several independent yet reconciled lines at once.
