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Ambrosian chant in southern Italy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2009

Terence Bailey
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Extract

A number of manuscripts from Southern Italy, almost all of them written in ‘Beneventan’ script and neumes, contain chants that are not the usual Gregorian assignments. These unusual chants have come generally to be known as Old Beneventan; in the manuscripts, however, a number of them are designated “Ambrosian”. That these chants are in any real sense Ambrosian has never been taken very seriously, even though there is very good evidence for doing so.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Plainsong & Mediaeval Music Society , Volume 6 , January 1983 , pp. 1 - 7
Copyright
© The Plainsong and Medieval Music Society 1983

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References

Notes

[1] Paléographie musicale [PM] XIV, pp.93–96, 463–464, et passim.

[2] In 1901. The Community returned to Solesmes in 1922, having spent several years at Quarr Abbey on the Isle of Wight.

[3] “Ambrosianum cantum in ecclesia ista cantari penitus interdixit”. See Chronicon monasterii casiensis, Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptoces, VII, p.693.

[4] Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica-Vaticana, Ottoboni 3, ff.11r–11v (PM XIV, plates 32–33), a manuscript from the end of the 11th or beginning of the 12th century.

[5] Benevento, Biblioteca Capitolare, V.19/V.20. See PM XV, p.52.

[6] Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica-Vaticana, Vat.lat. 10673, p.70 (PM XIV, p.340).

[7] Lucca, Biblioteca Capitolare, 606, Vat.lat.10673, the Solesmes flyleaves, etc.

[8] That is, just after the completion of the Ambrosian ordinal. For this date see Leclercq, H. in the Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie (ed. Cabrol, F. et al. , 1903–1953), XI.1, 1083, s.v. “Milan”Google Scholar.

[9] Bailey, T.: The Ambrosian Alleluias (The Plainsong & Mediaeval Music Society, Englefield Green, 1983), pp.76–81 Google Scholar.

[10] From Benevento, Biblioteca Capitolare, VI.38, f.37v, and London, British Library, Add.34209, p.233. I have not ventured to supply clefs for the Old Beneventan examples. The transcriptions published by Solesmes in PM, especially of the Old Beneventan chants, do not always correspond exactly with the manuscripts. Some slips are probably inevitable in any extensive transcriptions, but in the case of Solesmes one is rather inclined to suspect that there has been some editing according to principles that are not stated.

[11] PM XIV, p.265.

[12] The Old Beneventan chant is from Benevento VI.40, f.4v. Faute de mieux, I have taken the Ambrosian melody from Suñol's, Dom Gregorio Antiphonale missarum…mediolanensis (Rome, 1935), p.173 Google Scholar. The earliest manuscripts do not include the Mandatum ceremony (although Postquam surrexit is mentioned in the 12th century by Beroldus ( Beroldus sive ecclesiae ambrosianae…ordine, ed. Magistretti, M., Milan, 1894, p.105 Google Scholar). In any case the comparison in the example does not depend on details that might be disputed in the popular edition.

[13] PM XIV, p.448.

[14] Benevento VI.40, f.5; British Library Add.34209, p.243.

[15] PM XIV, pp.281, 326. These phrases may mean less than they appear to say. The second of the references is by inference, but certainly intended.

[16] PM XIV, p.326. The examples are from Benevento VI.40, f.14 and British Library Add.34209, p.247.

[17] Benevento VI.40, f.18; British Library Add.34209, p.259.

[18] Benevento VI.40, f.20; Vimercate C, f.16v. The closing alleluias are unrelated.

[19] PM XIV, p.446.

[20] I have already published the comparisons. See The Ambrosian Alleluias, pp.53, 57 Google Scholar.

[21] The Ambrosian Alleluias, pp.38–45 Google Scholar.

[22] Benevento VI.40, f.14; British Library Add.34209, p.255.

[23] De sacramentis, 3.1.5.

[24] At the International Medieval Conference, Kalamazoo, 1983.