Western Plainchant in the First Millennium

Western Plainchant in the First Millennium
Author: Sean Gallagher
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 488
Release: 2017-07-05
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1351537121

Taking up questions and issues in early chant studies, this volume of essays addresses some of the topics raised in James McKinnon's The Advent Project: The Later Seventh-Century Creation of the Roman Mass, the last book before his untimely death in February 1999. A distinguished group of chant scholars examine the formation of the liturgy, issues of theory and notation, and Carolingian and post-Carolingian chant. Special studies include the origins of musical notations, nuances of early chant performance (with accompanying CD), musical style and liturgical structure in the early Divine Office, and new sources for Old-Roman chant. Western Plainchant in the First Millenium offers new information and new insights about a period of crucial importance in the growth of the liturgy and music of the Western Church.

Reconstructing Early Christian Worship

Reconstructing Early Christian Worship
Author: Paul F. Bradshaw
Publisher: Liturgical Press
Total Pages: 161
Release: 2010
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0814662455

"First published in 2009 by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge"--T.p. verso.

La théorie de la musique antique et médiévale

La théorie de la musique antique et médiévale
Author: Michel Huglo
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 387
Release: 2023-07-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 1000948404

This is the final volume in the set of four collections of Michel Huglo's articles to be published in the Variorum series, and focuses on medieval music theory. The point of departure for Huglo's research was his doctoral dissertation on tonaries, published in 1971: as a consequence, he studied the manuscripts of music theory concerning plainchant, and, later, those with writings on music by authors of Late Antiquity as well as the Liber glossarum, with its many definitions of musical terms. In this volume, certain articles consider the interpretation or dissemination of texts, instruction in the art of plainchant, and musical instruction at the university. Others concern the manuscripts of St Augustine's De musica and of the writings of Calcidius, Macrobius, Helisachar, Hucbald, Gerbert of Aurillac, Abbo of Fleury, John of Afflighem, and Hieronymus de Moravia, amongst others. The volume closes with a bibliography of Michel Huglo complementing that published in 1993 and a summary list of his reviews of books on music and liturgy. Ce volume des articles de Michel Huglo termine la série de quatre dans la collection Variorum. Il est centré sur la théorie musicale médiévale. Le point de départ des recherches de Michel Huglo sur la théorie musicale du Moyen Âge est formé par sa thèse sur les tonaires, éditée en 1971: en consequence il etudia les manuscrits de theorie musicale concernant le plain-chant et, plus tard, les auteurs de l'Antiquité tardive et le Liber glossarum qui contient des définitions de nombreux termes musicaux. Dans ce volume, certains articles traitent de l'interprétation ou de la dissémination des textes, des instructions sur l'art du chant, et sur l'enseignement de la musique à l'Université. Ils concernent les manuscrits du De musica d'Augustin, de Calcidius, Macrobe, Helisachar, Hucbald, Gerbert d'Aurillac, Abbon de Fleury, Jean d'Afflighem, Hieronymus de Moravia, et d'autres auteurs. Le volume se termine par une bibliographie de Michel Huglo complétant celle publiée en 1993 et ​​une liste sommaire de ses recensions d'ouvrages sur la musique et la liturgie.

Sounding the Word of God

Sounding the Word of God
Author: Susan Rankin
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
Total Pages: 418
Release: 2022-11-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 0268203423

Drawing on a wide context of bookmaking, this sweeping study traces fundamental changes in books made to support musical practice during the Carolingian Renaissance. During the late eighth and ninth centuries, there were dramatic changes in the way European medieval scribes made books for singers, moving from heavy reliance on unwritten knowledge to the introduction of musical notation into manuscripts. Well-made liturgical books were vital to the success of the Carolingian fight for Christian salvation: these were the basis for carrying out worship correctly, rendering it most effective in petitions to the Christian God. In Sounding the Word of God, Susan Rankin explores Carolingian concern with the expression and control of sound in writing—discernible through instructions for readers and singers visible in liturgical books. Her central focus is on books made for singers, including those made for priests. The emergence of musical notations for ecclesiastical chant and of books designed to accommodate those notations, Rankin concludes, are important aspects of the impact of Carolingian reforming zeal on material culture. The book has three sections. Part 1 considers late antique and early medieval texts, which deal with the value of singing and its necessary regulation. Part 2 describes and investigates techniques used by Carolingian scribes to provide instructions for readers and singers. The extant books themselves are the focus of part 3. Rankin’s analysis of over two hundred manuscripts and extensive supporting images represents the work of a scholar who has spent a lifetime with the sources; her explication of the images, particularly those of the earlier manuscripts, changes the way in which musicologists and liturgical scholars will view the images. Indeed, it will change the way in which they approach the unfolding history of chant and liturgy in the Carolingian period.

Gregorian Chant

Gregorian Chant
Author: David Hiley
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 455
Release: 2009-12-17
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1316224376

What is Gregorian chant, and where does it come from? What purpose does it serve, and how did it take on the form and features which make it instantly recognizable? Designed to guide students through this key topic, this book answers these questions and many more. David Hiley describes the church services in which chant is performed, takes the reader through the church year, explains what Latin texts were used, and, taking Worcester Cathedral as an example, describes the buildings in which it was sung. The history of chant is traced from its beginnings in the early centuries of Christianity, through the Middle Ages, the revisions in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the restoration in the nineteenth and twentieth. Using numerous music examples, the book shows how chants are made and how they were notated. An indispensable guide for all those interested in the fascinating world of Gregorian chant.

Chant and Notation in South Italy and Rome before 1300

Chant and Notation in South Italy and Rome before 1300
Author: John Boe
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 442
Release: 2017-09-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 135121764X

The fifteen studies assembled here grew out of research on south-Italian ordinary chants and tropes for the multi-volume series Beneventanum Troporum Corpus II, edited by John Boe in collaboration with Alejandro Planchart. In the present essays, clerical and ordinary chants and tropes of the Mass (especially when derived from paraliturgical hymns and poems), certain aspects of chant notation and particular facets of the old Beneventan and the old Roman chant repertories are examined in relation to the three main cultic centres of the Italian south - Benevento, Montecassino and Rome - and as they relate to their European context, namely Frankish and Norman chant and the varieties of chant sung in Italy north of Rome. The volume includes one previously unpublished study, on the Roman introit Salus Populi.

The Hymnographic Book of Tropologion

The Hymnographic Book of Tropologion
Author: Svetlana Kujumdzieva
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2017-11-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 135158183X

The Tropologion is considered the earliest known extant chant book from the early Christian world which was in use until the twelfth century. The study of this book is still in its infancy. It has generally been believed that the book has survived in Georgian translation under the name ‘ladgari’ but similar books have been discovered in Greek, Syriac and Armenian. All the copies clearly show that the spread and the use of the book were much greater than we had previously assumed and the Georgian ladgari is only one of its many versions. The study of these issues unquestionably confirms the earliest stage of the compilation of the book, in Jerusalem or its environs, and shows its uninterrupted development from Jerusalem to the Stoudios monastery, the most important monastery of Constantinople. Over time many new pieces and new authors were added to the Tropologion. It is almost certain that it was the Stoudios school of poet-composers that divided the content of the Tropologion and compiled separate collections of books, each one containing a major liturgical cycle. In the beginning all of the volumes kept the old title but in the tenth century the copies of the book were renamed, probably according to the liturgical repertory included, and by the thirteenth century the title ‘Tropologion’ is no longer found in the Greek sources as it became superfluous, and fell out of use.

Music in Medieval Rituals for the End of Life

Music in Medieval Rituals for the End of Life
Author: Elaine Stratton Hild
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2023
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0197685919

"Medieval documents reveal that for centuries of European history, singing for a person at the moment of death was considered to be the ideal accompaniment to a life's ending. Rituals for the dying were well developed, practiced widely, and thoroughly integrated with music. Indeed, these rituals reveal that music, rather than the Eucharist, held a privileged position at the final breath. Music in Medieval Rituals for the End of Life examines and recovers, to the extent possible, the music sung for the dying during the Middle Ages. The book offers a view of the plainchant repertory through the sources of individual institutions. The first four chapters contain a series of "case studies": close readings of rituals from diverse communities, each as they appear in a single source. The rituals' chants are transcribed into modern notation and analyzed, both for their relationships between text and melody and for their functions within the rituals. Created for the powerful and the poor, the educated and the uneducated, women and men, monastics, clerics, and laity, these manuscripts offer a glimpse into the religious practices that distinguished communities from one another and bound them together within a single tradition. The book provides the first editions of the rituals' chants and considers the functions of the music. Why was music given such a prominent position within the deathbed liturgies? Why did communities gather and sing when a loved one was dying? The manuscripts reveal a lost art of comforting the dying and the grieving"--

The Critical Nexus

The Critical Nexus
Author: Charles M. Atkinson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2009
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0195148886

The Critical Nexus is the first book to trace the development of the notational matrix of Western music from Antiquity to the fourteenth century. It shows how principles of ancient Greek theory were grafted onto medieval practice, leading to a theory of both tone-system and mode, and a concomitant system of musical notation, that is uniquely Western.

Inside the Offertory

Inside the Offertory
Author: Rebecca Maloy
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 460
Release: 2010-03-12
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0199886261

The offertory has played a crucial role in recent vigorous debates about the origins of Gregorian chant. Its elaborate solo verses are among the most splendid of chant melodies, yet the verses ceased to be performed in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, making them among the least known and studied members of the repertory. Rebecca Maloy now offers the first comprehensive investigation of the offertory, drawing upon its music, texts, and liturgical history to shed new light on its origins and chronology. Maloy addresses issues that are at the very heart of chant scholarship, such as the relationship between the Gregorian and Old Roman melodies, the nature of oral transmission, the presence of non-Roman pieces in the Gregorian repertory, and the influence of theoretical thought on the transmission of the melodies. Although the Old Roman chant versions were not recorded in writing until the eleventh century, it has long been assumed that they closely reflect the eighth-century state of the melodies. Maloy illustrates, however, that rather than preserving a pristine earlier version of the melodies, the prolonged period of oral transmission from the eighth to the eleventh centuries instead enforced a formulaic trend. Demonstrating that certain musical and textual traits of the offertory are distributed in distinct patterns by liturgical season, she outlines new chronological layers within the repertory, and along the way, explores the presence and implications of foreign imports into the Roman and Gregorian repertories. Carefully weighing questions surrounding the origins of elaborate verse melodies, Maloy deftly establishes that these melodies reached their final form at a relatively late date. Available for the first time as a complete critical edition, ninety-four Gregorian and Old Roman offertories are presented on a companion website in transcriptions which readers can view side-by-side. The book also provides music examples and essays that elucidate these transcriptions with significant insights into their similarities and differences. Inside the Offertory will be an important and longstanding resource for all students and scholars of early liturgical music, as well as performers of early music and medievalists interested in music.