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The ordinary of mass chants and the sequences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2009

David Hiley
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Extract

Several writers – most notable among the recent ones being Max Lütolf, Rudolf Flotzinger and Edward Roesner – have commented on the choice of liturgical chants set in the additions to the main layer of Parisian polyphony in W1. The point of such comment is that by tracing concordances for those liturgical chants a clearer idea may be gained of the affiliations of W1 among the chant traditions of Britain and North France. The additions to W1 are more useful for this purpose than the main body of organa. The latter are settings of chants which were for the most part very widely known. Relatively few of them are unusual enough to permit speculation about the church for which W1 was compiled, or about the liturgical use to which it most nearly corresponds. So far as the organa are concerned, I do not feel that much advance can be made upon the careful discussion in Professor Roesner's article.

Type
Further Observations on W1
Information
Journal of the Plainsong & Mediaeval Music Society , Volume 4 , January 1981 , pp. 67 - 80
Copyright
© The Plainsong and Medieval Music Society 1981

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References

Notes

1 Lütolf, M.: Die mehrstimmigen Ordinarium Missae-Sätze vom ausgehenden 11. bis zur Wende des 13. zum 14. Jahrhundert (Berne, 1970)Google Scholar; Flotzinger, R.: ‘Beobachtungen zur Notre-Dame Handschrift W1 und ihrem 11. Faszikel’, Mitteilungen der Kommission für Musikforschung: Anzeiger der philosophisch-historischen Klasse der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, cv/19 (Vienna, 1968, pp.245–262 Google Scholar; Roesner, E.H.: ‘The origins of W1’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 29 (1976), pp.337–81Google Scholar.

2 The six troped Sanctus and six troped Agnus at the end of fascicle 10, all monophonic, are mostly unique, or have only continental concordances, and are thus, as Roesner rightly says (p.375, n.181), part of a tradition different from that of the other ordinary of mass chants. The unusual concordances are with St. Gallen, Stiftsbibl., 383 (and thence into St. Gallen 546), which probably reflects a Parisian, or at least North French, exemplar, and with Assisi 695 (Agnus trope Vulnere quorum, f.50r, incorrectly ascribed to mel.267 in Schildbach's catalogue), again within a Parisian orbit of some sort.

3 Landwehr-Melnicki, M.: Das einstimmige Kyrie des lateinischen Mittelalters (Diss., Erlangen, 1954)Google Scholar; Bosse, D.: Untersuchung einstimmiger mittelalterlicher Melodien zum ‘Gloria in excelsis’ (Diss., Erlangen, 1954)Google Scholar; Thannabaur, P.J.: Das einstimmige Sanctus der römischen Messe in der handschriftlichen Überlieferung des 11.–16. Jahrhunderts, Erlanger Arbeiten zur Musikwissenschaft, i, herausgegeben von Bruno Stäblein (Munich, 1962)Google Scholar; Schildbach, M.: Das einstimmige Agnus Dei und seine handschriftliche Überlieferung vom 10. bis zum 16. Jahrhundert (Diss., Erlangen, 1967)Google Scholar.

My own catalogue will be published shortly in the Research Chronicle of the Royal Musical Association.

The chief merit of Analecta Liturgica, apart from its editions of texts, is that it lists the complete repertory of each source it covers: Misset, E. and Weale, W.H.J.: Analecta Liturgica, II; Thesaurus Hymnologicus, i–ii (Bruges, 1888–1892)Google Scholar.

For easy reference to the various editions of sequences in Analecta Hymnica, see Lütolf, M., ed.: Analecta Hymnica – Register (Berne and Munich, 1978)Google Scholar.

4 Hiley, D.: ‘The Norman chant traditions – Normandy, Britain, Sicily’, Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, 107 (1980–1981), Diagram 4 on p.28 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Oxford, Bodleian Lib., Bodley 775 (two collections: late 10th c. and late 11th c., from Winchester); Cambridge, Corpus Christi Coll., 473 (late 10th c., from Winchester); Durham, University Lib., Cosin V.V.6 (late 11th c., from Christchurch, Canterbury); Oxford, Bodleian Lib., Laud misc.358, and London, British Lib., Royal 2.B.IV (both late 12th c., from St. Albans).

6 Paris, Bibl.Nationale, lat.905 (15th c.); and Paris, Bibl.Nationale, lat.904, whose ordinary of mass collection is an addition of the 15th century.

7 For instance, Paris, Bibl.Nationale, lat.830, 1112, 861, in Melnicki's catalogue, etc.; also London, British Lib., Add.38723 and 16905.

8 In my own catalogue I give melodies not in Melnicki, etc., as 165a, 165b, etc. Tropes not in Melnicki, etc., are given a number in brackets, e.g. Kyrie 48 tr.(12) Kyrie salve semperque. For Gloria tropes the numbering is based on the alphabetical list in Rönnau, K.: Die Tropen zum Gloria in excelsis Deo, unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des Repertoires der St.Martial-Handschriften (Wiesbaden, 1967)Google Scholar.

9 Primarily Paris, Bibl.Nationale, lat.14452, in Melnicki, etc. Also Rouen, Bibl.Municipale, 249, from St.Laurent at Eu; and Bristol, Central Lib., 2, from St.Augustine's, Bristol (incipits for Kyries and Glorias).

10 I know of the contents of Bari 88 (and 85) only from Melnicki, etc. Information on the establishment of Parisian use at Bari is given in Hesbert, R.-J.: Le prosaire de la Sainte-Chapelle, Monumenta musicae sacrae, i (Mâcon, 1952)Google Scholar.

11 Edition of the text in Chevalier, U.: Sacramentaire et martyrologe de l'abbaye de Saint-Rémy. Martyrologe, Calendrier, Ordinaires et Prosaire de la métropole de Reims (VIIIe–XIIIe siècle, publiés d'après les manuscrits de Paris, Londres, Reims et Assise, Bibliothèque liturgique, vii (Paris, 1900), pp.358–394 Google Scholar. The discussion of the manuscript, ibid. pp.L–LXXII, is largely by G. de Manteyer. An inaccurate inventory and account of the manuscript is given in Seay, A.: ‘Le manuscrit 695 de la bibliothèque communale d'Assise’, Revue de Musicologie, 39 (1957), pp. 10–35 Google Scholar. See also Husmann, H. in RISM, B/V/l (Munich and Duisburg, 1964), pp.167–9Google Scholar.

12 See my forthcoming paper, ‘Reconstructing the pre-Victorine Paris sequence repertory’. Husmann, op.cit., p.167, speaks only of Reims variant readings, but in most of the first-epoch sequences which are not obvious borrowings from the Reims repertory, Assisi 695 has Paris melodic and text variants.

13 This lessens the force of Roesner's comments, op.cit. (see n.1), p.375, where it is assumed that Arsenal 135 presents an ordinary of mass collection which can somehow be called ‘Sarum’.

14 Melodies 110 and 162 should be credited to ms. E4, not E3. At melody 171 there appears to have been another error in the original typescript, now corrected.

15 Paris, Bibl. de l'Arsenal, 135, f.288v: Agnus 114 tr.36 Factus homo, tr.(34a) Eructavit cor meum, tr.(37a) Flos de flore pia.

16 Hohler, C.: ‘Reflections on some manuscripts containing 13th-century English polyphony’, Journal of the Plainsong & Mediaeval Music Society, 1 (1978), pp.25–8Google Scholar, the manuscript referred to as ‘Sarum A’, after Legg, J.Wickham's edition of The Sarum Missal (Oxford, 1916)Google Scholar. Apart from the arguments advanced by Hohler, the kalendar includes St.Erkenwald (Earconwald), the 7th-century bishop of London whose medieval shrine was at St.Paul's cathedral.

17 It is just possible that the Kyrie trope incipit Kyrie pater alme may refer to the piece added on f.32v of Madrid, Bibl.Nacional, 289, with a unique melody and the trope O pater alme.

18 Text edition in McLachlan, L. and Tolhurst, J.B.L.: The ordinal and customary of the Abbey of St. Mary, York, Henry Bradshaw Society, 73, 75 and 84 (London, 1936–1951)Google Scholar. The Marian votive section (“Missa familiaris, sive de domina…”, ff.50v–51r) is edited pp.57f.

19 I omit from further consideration Ave Maria gratia plena viris invia (f.209/192r), which, though probably intended to serve as a sequence, is composed in the form of a five-strophe song.

20 A Marian collection which gives a somewhat similar impression is that following the main series of sequences in Manchester, John Rylands Library, lat.24, a Sarum noted missal probably prepared at Salisbury in the mid 13th century for Exeter (see Legg, J.W.: The Sarum Missal, Oxford, 1916 Google Scholar, and Hollaender, A.: ‘The Sarum Illuminator and his school’, Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine, i, 1942–1944, pp.230–62Google Scholar). Here we find 18 Marian sequences, 8 in first-epoch style (of which no less than 4 are unica, despite the late date of the manuscript), and 10 in the new rhyming style (only one unicum). Here again one feels that the demand for Marian pieces outstripped the supply of sequences in modern style.

21 For a similar survey, see Chapter 13 (pp.343–75) of my thesis: The liturgical music of Norman Sicily: a study centred on manuscripts 288, 289, 19421 and Vitrina 20–4 of the Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid (University of London, 1981)Google Scholar. Here 275 points of variance were isolated from 23 sequences in 23 sources in order to trace the affiliations of sequence sources in Sicily, North France and Britain. (The results are also summarized in the article cited in n.4, Diagram 6 on p.33,) Certain differences in treatment are necessary as between a ‘first-epoch’ sequence repertory and a 13th-century one. In the latter the convention of one note per syllable no longer has much force, cadence formulae are more varied, and a new vocabulary of ornamental figures has evolved.

22 Le Graduel Romain, IV/i: Le groupement des manuscrits (Solesmes, 1960)Google Scholar. Despite the arbitrary optical effects which such diagrams may produce, they are a useful way of enabling one to grasp quickly the broad implications of a mass of statistical data. To construct the diagram, the sources related in the closest degree are written down, and a line is drawn between them; then a circle is drawn round any sources linked by lines. The process is repeated for each lower degree of proximity. Not all sources within the same circle will necessarily be linked to the same degree – it is the joining lines which indicate the relationship which brings a source into a particular circle.

23 But Lütolf's book (see n.1 above) does much to right the balance so far as ordinary of mass compositions are concerned.

24 Edited by Dalglish, W.: ‘A polyphonic sequence from Rouen’, Music & Letters, 59 (1978), pp. 17–18 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The correspondence Dalglish suggests with a sequence in Arsenal 135 does not, given the stylistic conventions in operation, seem very compelling.

25 Nine might be described as generally scriptural/liturgical; nine are for Our Lord, twelve (or more) for the Blessed Virgin. There are two for St.Katherine, two possibly for St.Peter, three for saints, one for confessors, three for martyrs, two (or more) for virgins, one for Ascension.

26 Wolfenbüttel, Herzog-August-Bibliothek, Helmstedt 1099 (Heinemann catalogue 1206), f.141v. oddly enough, it includes the only example I have noticed in W2 of ‘Rautenternaria’, the climacus written , common in England (although also known in North France).