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On the origin of neumes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2008

Kenneth Levy
Kenneth Levy
Affiliation:
Princeton University
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How did Latin neumes begin? And what developments lie between those beginnings and the first plentiful documents of neuming which date from about 900? A long line of speculations has failed to produce generally credited answers to these questions. Figure 1 shows a stemma by Joseph Froger that can serve as orientation to the problem. This does not address ultimate origins. Its ‘original’ is the archetypal neumation of the Frankish–‘Gregorian’ mass propers, a lost formation compiled some time after neumatic beginnings. It goes on to the regional neume-species of 900, all ostensible outgrowths of that archetype: Ept – German; Cla – north Italian; Clu – Cluny; Dij – Burgundian; Den – St Denis; Lan – Lorraine or ‘Metz’; Mur 3 – St Gall or ‘Alammanian’; Cha – Breton; Alb – Aquitanian; Ben – south Italian/Beneventan. Between the unknown ‘original’ and the multiple neume-species around 900 an obscure evolution takes place. There is, in Froger's words, ‘une sorte de nuée opaque… [une] zone brumeuse’.

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Research Article
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Early Music History , Volume 7 , October 1987 , pp. 59 - 90
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

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References

1 Corbin, S., ‘Neumatic Notations’, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Sadie, S., 20 vols. (London, 1980), xiii, p. 128Google Scholar: ‘There have been many hypotheses concerning the origin of neumes, none of which has been completely satisfactory in all respects.’

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7 Hucke, H., ‘Toward a New Historical View of Gregorian Chant’, Journal of the American Musicological Society [JAMS], 33 (1980), p. 445Google Scholar. ‘Through the studies of Solange Corbin it has become evident that the neumes are of Carolingian origin. They were developed in France in the ninth century… Perhaps neumes were developed and used at first for theoretical demonstrations, and only occasionally employed to notate a particular melody or to give a musical explanation here or there in a parchment manuscript.’ For Treitler, ‘the earliest practical notations served primarily a cueing function for celebrants reciting ecclesiastical readings and prayers… The notation of antiphons, responsories, and Mass-Proper items for the cantor and schola did not begin until the tenth century… In the beginning the principal tasks of notations for text collections were to indicate qualitative aspects of performance and to help the singer to adapt his melodic knowledge to the texts before him. They were thus practical notations, and they were tools for an oral tradition’; ‘Reading and Singing: On the Genesis of Occidental Music-Writing’, Early Music History, 4 (1984), pp. 176–7Google Scholar. Treitler speaks elsewhere of ‘the fact that the Gregorian Chant tradition was, in its early centuries, an oral performance practice… The oral tradition was translated after the ninth century into writing. But the evolution from a performance practice represented in writing, to a tradition of composing, transmission, and reading, took place over a span of centuries’; in ‘The Early History of Music Writing in the West’, JAMS, 35 (1982), p. 237Google Scholar.

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10 Levy, K., ‘Charlemagne's Archetype of Gregorian Chant’, JAMS, 40 (1987), pp. 1–31Google Scholar.

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13 De accentibus toni oritur nota quae dicitur neuma; Wagner, P., Einfuhrung in die gregoriantschen Melodien, ii (2nd edn, Leipzig, 1912), p. 355Google Scholar.

14 The notion of Greco-Byzantine origin, going back to Riemann (Studien zur Geschichte der Notenschrift [Leipzig, 1878], p. 112Google Scholar, has been revived by Floros, C. (Universale Neumenkunde [Kassel, 1970], ii, pp. 232ffGoogle Scholar, whose theories should be approached with a caution indicated for the Latin notations by Huglo, M. in Revue de Musicologie, 58 (1972), pp. 109–1CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and for the Byzantine notations by Haas, M, ‘Probleme einer “Universale Neumenkunde”’, Forum Musicologicum, 1 (1975), pp. 305–22Google Scholar.

15 Paléographie Musicale, series i, 1 (1889), pp. 96ff.

16 ‘La chironomie médiévale’, Revue de Musicologie, 49 (1963), pp. 153–7Google Scholar; the theory is rejected by Hucke, , ‘Die Cheironomie und die Entstehung der Neumenschrift’, Die Musikforschung, 32 (1979), pp. 1–16Google Scholar.

17 Bohn, ‘Das liturgische Rezitativ’, pp. 45ff; Thibaut, J.-B., Monuments de la notation ekphonétique et neumatique de l'Église latine (St Petersburg, 1912)Google Scholar, passim.

18 Treitler, ‘Reading and Singing’, pp. 186–208, cf. pp. 206–7; the same view is featured in his ‘The Early History of Music Writing in the West’, pp. 269ff, and ‘Die Entstehung der abendländischen Notenschrift’, Die Musikforschung, 37 (1984), pp. 259–67Google Scholar.

19 Thibaut, , Origine byzantine de la notation neumatique de l'Église latine (Paris, 1907)Google Scholar, idem, Monuments de la notation ekphonétique et hagiopolite de l'Église grecque (St Petersburg, 1913)Google Scholar; Höeg, C., La notation ekphonétique (Copenhagen, 1935)Google Scholar; Haas, M., Byzantinische und slavische Notationen, Palaeographie der Musik, i/2 (Cologne, 1973), pp. 213–1Google Scholar; Engberg, G., ‘Ekphonetic Notation’, The New Grove Dictionary, vi, pp. 99ffGoogle Scholar.

20 ‘L'origine dei neumi I primi scrittori delle melodie gregoriane utilizzarono dei segni già usati nei testi letterari, conservando essenzialmente il loro significato originale o modificandolo in un senso analogo. L'accento acuto e grave dei grammatici era già per sua natura adatto a distinguere le note alte dalle note basse: virga e tractulus. I segni di abbreviazione furono usati, a causa della finezza del loro disegno, par rappresentare i suoni leggermente ripercossi: stropha e trigon. I segni di contrazione furono attribuiti ai suoni parti-colarmente legati a quelli vicini: oriscus. Il punto interrogativo fu scelto per raffigurare un fenomeno vocale affine alla modulazione ascendente della frase interrogativa: quilisma… Alla base del sistema si trova l'intenzione di tradurre una melodia mediante il gesto e di fissare il gesto per mezzo dei segno grafico. Infatti il neuma è un gesto “inchiostrato” sulla pergamena.’ Cardine, E., Semiologia gregoriana (Rome, 1968), pp. 4–5Google Scholar. A similar omnibus is proposed by Dom Hourlier in his retrospective ‘L'origine des neumes’, p. 359: ‘L'origine des neumes se trouve donc dans l'arsenal de signes autres que les lettres, dont dispose le copiste d'un text littéraire au ixe siècle.’

21 Handschin, J., ‘Eine alte Neumenschrift’, Acta Musicologica, 22 (1950), pp. 69–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Handschin, ‘Zu Eine alte Neumenschrift’, ibid., 26 (1953), pp. 87–8; Jammers, E., Die Essener Neumenhandschriften der Landes- und Stadt-Bibliothek Dusseldorf (Ratingen, 1952)Google Scholar; Jammers, , ‘Die paläofränkische Neumenschrift’, Scriptorium, 7 (1953), pp. 235–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reprinted in Jammers's, Schrift Ordnung Gestalt, ed. Hammerstein, E. (Berne, 1969), pp. 35–58Google Scholar, which also contains (pp. 70–87) his fertile but erratic ‘Die Entstehung der Neumenschrift’.

22 ‘Notation paléofranque’, Études Grégoriennes, 2 (1957), pp. 212–19Google Scholar.

23 Stäblein, , Schriftbild der einstimmigen Musik (Leipzig, 1975), pp. 27 (historical stemma), 28–9, 106–8Google Scholar; Corbin, S., Die Neumen, pp. 75–81Google Scholar; L. Treitler, ‘The Early History of Music Writing in the West’, pp. 263ff; idem, ‘Reading and Singing’, pp. 148ff.

24 ‘Notation paléofranque’, p. 218.

25 ‘Eine alte Neumenschrift’, p. 94; ‘Zu Eine alte Neumenschrift’, p. 88.

26 ‘Notation paléofranque’, p. 216.

27 Hesbert, , Antiphonale missarum sextuplex, p. cixGoogle Scholar, n. 1; Huglo, M, Les tonaires (Paris, 1971), p. 32Google Scholar.

28 Jammers, , Die Essener Neumenhandschriften, pp. 11Google Scholar. ff, gives detailed indications of the contents.

29 I am greatly indebted to Dr G. Karpp, Head of the Manuscript Division of the University Library at Düsseldorf, and Dr H. Finger of that institution, for their extreme kindness in facilitating my consultation of the two sacramentaries.

30 La notation musicale des chants liturgiques latins, Paléographie Musicale, series ii, 3 (Solesmes, 1963), Pl. 1Google Scholar, has a facsimile of fol. 15v, col. A. Handschin considered this source only in his added remarks of 1953, and he recognised its significance only in part: ‘Ein ganz liturgisches Gesangbuch mit dieser Notation besitzen wir nicht. Das wichtigste Dokument, ist wohl das Missale Paris 17305.’ ‘Zu Eine alte Neumenschrift’, p. 87. His death two years later prevented a promised return to a fuller study.

31 Hourlier, J., ‘Le domaine de la notation messine’, Revue Grégorienne, 30 (1951), pp. 96–113, 150–8Google Scholar; certain Palaeofrank witnesses are included here (pp. 106–7) under their older Solesmes designation of ‘notation de Saint Amand’.

32 Paris lat. 17305, fol. 16; the diplomatic transcription and square-note resolution in Figure 5 are those of Corbin's, Die Neumen, pp. 78–9Google Scholar.

33 Stablein, , Schriftbild, 107Google Scholar, from which Figure 7 is taken, reproduces the full page, Düsseldorf D.l.fol. 126v.

34 Huglo, M, ‘Les noms des neumes et leur origine’, Études Grégoriennes, 1 (1954), pp. 58, 67Google Scholar.

35 Corbin, S., in Die Neumen, 77, and in the neume-table accompanying her article ‘Neumatic Notations’ (The New Grove Dictionary, xii, p. 131)Google Scholar, makes a distinction between a ‘hypothetical archetype’ of the Palaeofrank notation (as mirrored perhaps in Paris 2291) which lacked quilisma, oriscus, and liquescent punctum, and a ‘surviving form’ of the Palaeofrank (as in Paris 17305) which added such signs. Handschin argued long ago, with regard to the same manuscripts she cites, that this distinction lacks sufficient basis (‘Zu Eine alte Neumenschrift’, pp. 87–8)

36 Cardine, , Semiologia gregoriana, p. 5Google Scholar.

37 Paléographie Musicale, series i, 13 (1930), pp. 66–8.

38 ‘Wäre dies etwa diejenige Notation, welche im Frankenreich im Gebrauch war, bevor die romischen Gesangsmeister ins Land kamen, also vor der Karolingerdynastie?’ (‘Eine alte Neumenschrift’, p. 76). ‘Das Prinzip dieser Neumenschrift ist klar: dem Tonhöhen-Grad entspricht der höhere oder tiefere Ort auf dem Pergament’ (ibid., p. 78). ‘Sagen wir: sie könnte [Handschin's italics] die ideale diastematische Neumenschrift sein nicht weniger als eine solche, die alles in Punkte auflöst (ibid., p. 81). ‘Es ist kaum anders denkbar, als dass wir für unseren Neumentypus einen grundsätzlich von der Sprache unabhangigen [my italics], einen rein musikalischen Ausgangspunkt annehmen müssen.’ (ibid., p. 82). However Handschin, like Ferretti, was bound to the concept of a single origin for all the neume-species, and ultimately to the derivation of neumes from accents: ‘Die Ableitung der Neumen von den Akzenten, die ich nicht abgelehnt, sondern nur eingeschrankt haben möchte …’ (ibid., p. 83).

39 Article ‘Notation’, § iii, 1 (iii) [Western Plainchant], The New Grove Dictionary, xiii, p. 345Google Scholar.

40 Callewaert, C., ‘L'oeuvre liturgique de S. Grégoire’, Revue d'Histoire Ecclésiastique, 33 (1937), pp. 306–26Google Scholar; Gamber, K., Codices liturgici latini antiquiores, 2nd edn (Freiburg Schweiz, 1968), pp. 492ffGoogle Scholar.

41 Costa, R., ‘Acotaciones’. Isidore's wording: ‘Nisi enim ab homine memoria teneantur soni, pereunt, quia scribi non possunt’; Isidori hispalensis episcopi etymologiarum sive originum, ed. Lindsay, W. M., i (Oxford, 1911), lib. iii, xv, p. 2Google Scholar.

42 Vogel, C., La réforme culturelle sous Pépin le bref et sous Charlemagne (Graz, 1965)Google Scholar.

43 ‘Charlemagne's Archetype’, JAMS, 40 (1987), pp. 1–31Google Scholar.

44 A classic exposition of the theory is given by Ferretti in Paléographie Musicale, series i, 13, pp. 62ff.

45 ‘Man konnte daher zu einer anderen Grundeinteilung der Neumentypen gelangen als die übliche: Strich und Punktneumen, neumes-accents et neumes à points superposés Das Massgebende ist vielleicht nicht die verbundene oder getrennte Schreibung, sondern dies, dass im einen Fall der Ton nur durch einen Ort der Vertikaldimension, im anderen auch durch eine aufsteigende Strecke dargestellt ist.’ Acta Musicologica, 22 (1950), p. 80Google Scholar. Accents and points, however, play a continuing role, as in recent theorisings by Treitler (‘The Early History of Music Writing in the West’, pp. 237–79; and ‘Reading and Singing’, pp. 135–208). The neo-nomenclature of ‘iconic’ and ‘symbolic’ scripts used in the former (p. 254) comes down to the old accents and points. Treitler's ‘A’ or ‘symbolic’ scripts are the neume-species 1–6 and 11–12 of the table adapted (ibid., p. 246) from Corbin's Neumen, beginning of the Anhang 1. St Gall; 2 England; 3. Burgundy; 4. Chartres; 5. Nevers; 6. Normandy; 11. Catalan; 12. Bologna; all have been conventionally classed as accent-neumes. Treitler's ‘B’ or ‘iconic’ scripts are neume-species 7–10 of Corbin's table 7. Lorraine–Messine; 8. Palaeofrankish; 9. Breton, 10. Aquitanian, of these, the Lorraine, Breton and Aquitanian notations have been conventionally classed as point-neumes. The grouping of the Palaeofrankish neumes with them perpetuates the conception that Handschin in 1950 undertook to correct. Concerning the priority of accents or points, Treitler sums up: ‘Is an historical development vis-à-vis symbolic and iconic writing discernible? In the present state of our knowledge we cannot give chronological priority to one or the other notational mode. Specifically, we do not know whether the Paleofrankish and early Aquitanian scripts, on the one hand, or the Germanic ones, on the other, were the earliest ones in use…’ (‘The Early History of Music Writing in the West’, p. 254). In a curious statement two years later he abandoned the issue of origins: ‘The question was left open [in 1982] whether the first notations were predominantly symbolic or iconic. Now we can answer: “both.” The notations of the treatises are predominantly iconic. The practical notations began as predominantly symbolic systems. Which of the two had actual temporal priority is not a question of the greatest historical import’ (‘Reading and Singing’, pp. 177–8).

46 Graduate triplex seu graduate romanum … ornatum neumis laudunensibus (cod. 239) et sangallensibus (Solesmes, 1979)Google Scholar.

47 Corbin, , Die Neumen, Taf. 19 (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS fonds lat. 1240; tenth century) and TaGoogle Scholar. 20 (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS fonds lat. 903; eleventh century) with neumations for the Improperia; Huglo, M., ‘La tradition musicale aquitaine. Répertoire et notation’, Liturgie et musique (ixe–xive s.), Cahiers de Fanjeaux 17 (1982)Google Scholar, PI. v, showing processional antiphons in the ‘ninth-century’ neumation of Albi, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 44.

48 The datings are given in the Hourlier–Huglo table (see Table 1 above).

49 On the missa graeca, Atkinson, C., ‘Zur Entstehung und Überlieferung der “Missa graeca”’, Archiv für Musikwissenschaft, 39 (1982), pp. 113–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar; the Type 1 neumations (as in Düsseldorf D.2 and Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Reg. lat. 215) would reflect the original dictation, compilation etc.; the change to Type 2 would come as the material began to spread.

50 See notes 5–7 above; also Hucke, ‘Toward a New Historical View of Gregorian Chant’, p. 445: ‘the different regional paleographic styles go back to the very beginning of neume notation’.

51 ‘Charlemagne's Archetype’.

52 Gushee, Lawrence observed long ago, ‘It is also possible that diverse styles of notation had already evolved between 850 and 900.’ ‘The Musica disciplina of Aurelian of Réôme’ (PhD dissertation, Yale University, 1963), p. 257Google Scholar.

53 Le graduel romain. Édition critique, iv/2. Le texte neumatique Les relations généalogiques entre les manuscrits, pp. 69–86.

54 Froger, , ‘L'édition critique de l'Antiphonale missarum romain’, pp. 151fGoogle Scholar.

55 Dom Cardine makes essentially this point: ‘On constate en effet d'une façon générale que les manuscrits sont en accord entre eux pour noter les particularités les plus fines, d'autant mieux qu'ils sont plus anciens…’; in ‘A propos des formes possibles d'une figure neumatique: le pes subbipunctus dans les premiers manuscrits sangalliens’, Festschrift F. X. Haberl, ed. Stein, F. A. (Regensburg, 1977), p. 68Google Scholar.

56 Paléographie Musicale, series ii, 2 (1925) and 4 (1896).

57 For a simple instance, Cardine, Sémiologie grégorienne, Ex. 32; for others, many pages of the Graduale triplex.

58 ‘Diese “gregorianische” Neumensippe scheint sich tatsächlich in ihren frühesten erhaltenen Vertretern wenig um rhythmische Ausdrucksmöglichkeiten zu kümmern. Im 9. und 10. Jh. dringen dann umgekehrt in die “gregorianischen” Neumenschriften teilweise rhythmische Elemente ein…’; ‘Eine alte Neumenschrift’, p. 82. The position is picked up in a recent review of Göschl's Semiologische Untersuchungen by Möller, Hartmut: ‘… die vorherrschende Sichtweise, dass diese hochdifferenzierte Notation den zeitlichen Ausgangspunkt für die frühdeutsche Neumenschrift bildet verdient … eine Überprüfung’; Die Musikforschung, 38 (1985), p. 69Google Scholar.

59 Cardine's classic exposition of coupures in Sémiologie grégorienne, ch. 9, is based on St Gall procedures.

60 Levy, ‘Charlemagne's Archetype’; the discussions of Figs. 4 and 6.

61 Le graduel romain. Édition critique, iv/2, p. 64; the chief witnesses of the ‘écriture sangallienne’ (Gal 1, Mur 3, Bab, and Gal 2) and ‘messine’ (Lan) would count as nuance-rich. But for Froger's other species the neumes fit that description to a much lesser degree or not at all. Froger dropped the north Italian manuscript Milan, Biblioteca Trivulziana, D. 127 in a subsequent presentation, reducing the number of sub-families to nine: ‘The Critical Edition of the Roman Gradual by the Monks of Solesmes’, Journal of the Plainsong and Mediaeval Music Society, 1 (1978), pp. 85–6Google Scholar. I would retain this Civate missal as a reflection of the nuance-poor original, and add to the list other early copies such as Cambrai, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 75(76) (Arras); Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MSS fonds lat. 9434 (Tours), 18010 (Corbie) and 9448 (Prüm); Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery, MS 11 (Forlimpopoli–Ravenna); Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MSS Vat. lat. 4770 (Abruzzi) and Vat. urb. lat. 560 (central Italy).

62 Paléographie Musicale 16: L'Antiphonaire du Mont-Renaud (Solesmes, 1955)Google Scholar; on the origin and date of its notation: Le graduel romain, ii (1957), 157Google Scholar, and the remarks by Huglo, M. in JAMS, 32 (1979), p. 556Google Scholar. Concerning the earliest nuance-rich sources there is the important article by Jeffery, P., ‘An Early Cantatorium Fragment Related to MS. Laon 239’, Scriptorium, 36 (1982), pp. 245–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

63 ‘Les noms des neumes’, p. 53.

64 Cardine, ‘A propos des formes possibles d'une figure neumatique’, p. 61.

65 Carolingian Laon is the focus of Peter Jeffery's ‘An Early Cantatorium Fragment’ and of recent studies by Contreni, John J.: The Cathedral School of Laon from 850 to 930: Its Manuscripts and Masters (Munich, 1978)Google Scholar; Codex Laudunensis 468: A Ninth-Century Guide to Virgil, Sedulius, and the Liberal Arts (1984).

66 Wattenbach, W., Das Schriftwesen im Mittelalter (4th edn, Graz, 1958), pp. 421ffGoogle Scholar, gives indications and contra-indications of dictation as a factor in copying texts. Professor Robert Snow, with whom I have been privileged to discuss this issue, believes dictation had a significant role in the process of neuming. It has a role in the familiar iconographic topos of the dove dictating the Sacramentary or the Antiphoner to Pope Gregory who then dictates to a scribe; this is dealt with by Stäblein, B., ‘“Gregorius Praesul”, der Prolog zum römischen Antiphonale’, Musik und Verlag: Festschrift K. Votterle, ed. Baum, R. and Rehm, W. (Kassel, 1968), pp. 554fGoogle Scholar, with further observations by Treitler, L., ‘Homer and Gregory’, The Musical Quarterly, 60 (1974), pp. 337–4Google Scholar.

67 The neumes transmitting the ninth-eleventh-century repertories of Hispanic chant all seem to represent the same Type 2/gestural origins as those for the Gregorian-Roman chants. Despite their differences in appearance, the two major varieties of Spanish notation, those with vertical ductus, representing mainly the northern regions of the peninsula, and those with horizontal ductus, representing Toledo and the south, may descend from a common adoption of Carolingian notational practices that would have reached Galicia, Asturias or the Spanish March by the earlier ninth century; see my ‘Old-Hispanic Chant in its European Context’, Congreso Internacional: España en la Musica de Occidente, Salamanca, 1985, ed. Fernández de la Cuesta, I. (Madrid, 1987), i, pp. 1–16Google Scholar.