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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 July 2009
It is generally accepted nowadays that the earliest tropes originated sometime during the 9th century. The documentary evidence, meagre though it is, seems fairly definite on this point. And although few, if any, of the earliest surviving manuscripts were copied much before the beginning of the 10th century, it is reasonable to suppose that at least some of the dozens of pieces found in them were composed somewhat earlier. A number of models have been suggested for the earliest tropes. Certain of their characteristics have parallels in the Byzantine and other rites, above all in the addition of newly composed introductory material to chants already in existence. Many tropes also have texts derived from the various Latin translations of the Bible or from hymns and antiphons. Yet whatever their origins even the earliest pieces exhibit ingenious and imaginative structural features. A slow and gradual evolution from simpler to more complex forms might just succeed in accounting for the origin of the trope; but this later variety and subtlety would be unexplained. These matters are easily disregarded. The creation of chant is too often reduced to a mechanical process serving the requirements of liturgy. But tropes are interesting in themselves, and there is ample evidence to suggest that they were regarded as such during the Middle Ages.
[1] Summarized in Gautier, L.: Histoire de la poésie liturgique au moyen âge: 1. Les tropes (Paris, 1886; repr. Farnborough, 1965), pp.33–9Google Scholar and passim. Not included is the attribution of the Gloria trope Quem vere pia laus to Hucbald of St.Amand (d.930) discussed in Weakland, R.: ‘Hucbald as musician and theorist’, The Musical Quarterly 42 (1956), p.69 Google Scholar.
[2] Raasted, J.: ‘Troping techniques in Byzantine chant’, Research on Tropes, ed. Iversen, G., Kungliga Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien: Konferenser 8 (Stockholm, 1983), pp.89–98 Google Scholar; and Strunk, O.: ‘Tropus and Troparion’, Speculum musicae artis: Festgabe für Heinrich Husmann zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. Becker, H. and Gerlach, R. (Munich, 1970), pp.305–11Google Scholar.
[3] Detailed information is given in the volumes of Corpus Troporum: Jonsson, R. (ed.): Corpus Troporum 1: Tropes du propre de la messe: 1. Cycle de Noël, Studia Latina Stockholmiensia 21 (Stockholm, 1975)Google Scholar; Marcusson, O. (ed.): Corpus Troporum 2: Prosules de la messe: 1. Tropes de l'alleluia, idem 22 (Stockholm, 1976)Google Scholar; Björkvall, G., Iversen, G. and Jonsson, R. (eds.): Corpus Troporum 3: Tropes du propre de la messe: 2. Cycle de Pâques, idem 25 (Stockholm, 1982)Google Scholar; and Iversen, G. (ed.): Corpus Troporum 4: Tropes de l'Agnus Dei, idem 26 (Stockholm, 1980)Google Scholar.
[4] Crocker, R.L.: The Early Medieval Sequence (Berkeley, 1977), p.4 Google Scholar.
[5] On the liturgical revision of tropes see Planchart, A.E.: The Repertory of Tropes at Winchester (Princeton, 1977), vol.1, pp.84–291 Google Scholar.
[6] Rönnau, K.: Die Tropen zum Gloria in excelsis Deo (Wiesbaden, 1977), p.84 Google Scholar.
[7] Stotz, P.: Sonderformen der sapphischen Dichtung, Medium aevum: philologische Studien 37 (Munich, 1982), pp.327–46Google Scholar; these pieces are classified as “tropes and sequences with a strong interest in verses that can only be reckoned (rhythmically only) as Sapphics of eleven syllables” (p.7).
[8] Norberg, D.: Introduction à l'étude de la versification latine médiévale, Studia Latina Stockholmiensia 5 (Stockholm, 1958), p.97 Google Scholar. For comments on variations within the scheme see G. Iversen, op.cit. (note 3), pp.264–5.
[9] The texts are edited in Blume, C. and Bannister, H.M. (eds.): Tropen des Missale im Mittelalter: 1. Tropen zum Ordinarium Missae, Analecta Hymnica Medii Aevi 47 (Leipzig, 1905), pp.219–20 and 222–4 (Cives superni … Christus surrexit) and 220–2 (Pax sempiterna Christus)Google Scholar. Lists of sources with discussion are given in Rönnau, op.cit. (note 6), pp. 104–7 and 159–60 respectively. Planchart, op.cit. (note 5), vol.2, pp.292–7, gives a much better catalogue and valuable comments on Pax sempiterna Christus only.
[10] On Gloria A see Rönnau, op.cit., pp.201–6.
[11] Planchart, op.cit., vol.2, p.349, gives an ascription in his list of manuscripts to the region of Metz which I have not been able to check.
[12] Rönnau, op.cit., pp. 140–7 and Planchart, op.cit., vol.2, pp.276–82.
[13] Blume and Bannister, op.cit. (note 9), pp.220–1; the transcription in Ex.1 is intended to reproduce the text and music of Pax sempiterna Christus as it appears in the 11th-century manuscript Monza, Bibl. cap., c.13/76, ff.18r-v, itself from Monza. Certain details of the text are therefore not in exact agreement with Analecta Hymnica. As the music is notated in staffless neumes it has had to be reconstructed with the aid of manuscripts in staff notation, principally Turin, Bibl. naz., F.IV.18, ff.13r-v.
[14] Respectively Paris, Bibl. nat., lat.13252, ff.26r-v; Cambrai, Bibl. mun., 75 (76), f.17v; and Oxford, Bodleian Lib., Bodley 775, ff.64r-65r.
[15] Evans, Paul' concern about this point is accordingly misplaced: The Early Trope Repertory of Saint Martial de Limoges, Princeton Studies in Music 2 (Princeton, 1970), pp.88–107 Google Scholar.
[16] Wellesz, E.: Eastern Elements in Western Chant, Monumenta Musicae Byzantinae, Subsidia 2 (Boston, 1947, repr. Copenhagen, 1967), pp.141–9Google Scholar.
[17] Cf. Cardine, E.: Graduel neumé (Solesmes, 1966), pp.158–9Google Scholar.
[18] For a more complex example see Boe, J.: ‘Rhythmical notation in the Gloria trope “Aureas arces”’, Musica Discipiina 29 (1975), pp.5–42 Google Scholar; also Planchart, A.E.: ‘About tropes’, Schweizer Jahrbuch für Musikwissenschaft n.s. 2 (1982), pp.125–35Google Scholar.
[19] St.Gall, Stiftsbibl., 484, pp.214–5; and 381, pp.297–8; and London, B.L., Add.19768, p.47.
[20] It is found in none of the later St.Gall manuscripts nor in the St.Alban manuscript Vienna, Österr. Nationalbibl., 1888.
[21] A possible exception is the manuscript Kassel, Murhardsche Bibl., 4° Theol.15, ff.175r-v, probably from Regensburg and dated around the middle of the 11th century, though the hand that copied the trope is surely from the 12th century. Other Regensburg sources do not contain the piece and I suspect its inclusion to have been an anachronism.
[22] Cf. note 14; also Cambridge, Corpus Christi Coll., 473, ff.58r-59v, transcribed in Planchart, op.cit. (note 5), vol.1, pp.314–24.
[23] Dreves, G.M. (ed.): Hymnographi latini: lateinische Hymnendichter des Mittelalters, 2nd ser., Analecta Hymnica Medii Aevi 50 (Leipzig, 1907), pp.204–5Google Scholar.
[24] Transcribed in Planchart, op.cit., pp.314–5 (upper line).
[25] O. Strunk, op.cit. (note 2); an article by Kelly, Thomas on introductions to the Gloria, ‘Introducing the Gloria in excelsis’, Journal of the American Musicological Society 37 (1984), pp.479–506 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, appeared while this article was in course of publication.
[26] Cambrai, Bibl. mun., 60 (61), ff.113v-114r; and 78 (79), ff.68v-70v; Pistoia, Bibl. cap., c.121, ff.16r-18r.
[27] Rönnau, K.: ‘Regnum tuum solidum’, Festschrift Bruno Stäblein zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Ruhnke, M. (Kassel, 1967), pp.195–205 Google Scholar.
[28] Ed. Blume and Bannister, op.cit. (note 9), pp.282–99.
[29] Ibid., pp.285–6.
[30] Planchart, op.cit. (note 5), vol.2, p.297.
[31] Paris, Bibl. nat., lat.10508, ff.23v-25r; Madrid Bibl. nac., 288, ff.43r-v; 289, ff.13r-v; and 19421, ff.16r-17r; transcribed in Rönnau, op.cit. (note 6), pp.215–6.
[32] Paris, Bibl. de 1'Arsenal, 1169, ff.4v-5r.
[33] Op.cit. (note 5), p.214. A further source of Nativitatem tuam Christe not mentioned is Apt, Bibl. de la Basilique de Sainte Anne, 18, ff.3v-4r.
[34] Only the first two verses are given in the example. The melodies from Pax sempiterna Christus are transcribed from Paris, Bibl. nat., lat.10508, f.23v, and Omnipotens altissime from Paris, Bibl. nat., lat.903, ff.168r-v. Notation is missing in the Apt manuscript for the whole of Nativitatem tuam Christe (see previous note).
[35] Treitler, L.: ‘Observations on the transmission of some Aquitanian tropes’, Forum Musicologicum 3 (1982), pp. 11–60 Google Scholar, esp.48–9; and ‘From ritual through language to music’, Schweizer Jahrbuch für Musikwissenschaft n.s. 2 (1982), pp.109–23Google Scholar.
[36] Paris, Bibl. nat., n.a.lat. 495, ff.21v-24r; and Vic, Arxiu cap., 106 (34), ff.30v-32r.
[37] Rome, Bibl. casanatense, 1741, facsimile in [Giuseppe] Vecchi, I. (ed.): Troparium sequentiarium Nonantolanum, Monumenta Lyrica Medii Aevi Italica, 1. Latina (Modena, 1955)Google Scholar.
[38] [Hesbert, R.-J.:] ‘Etude sur la notation bénéventaine’, Paléographie musicale 15: Le codex VI.34 de la bibliothèque capitulaire de Bénévent (Tournai, 1953), pp.71–161 Google Scholar; and Boe, J.: ‘The Beneventan apostrophus in South Italian notation, A.D. 1000–1100’, Early Music History 3 (1983), pp.43–66 Google Scholar.