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A new look at Old Roman chant

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2008

Kenneth Levy
Kenneth Levy
Affiliation:
Princeton University
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Extract

Historians of plainchant continue to puzzle over the existence of two monophonic repertories, each with claims to Roman origin.The ‘Gregorian’ chant (GREG) is spread throughout Europe: there are thousands of manuscripts and printed editions; the earliest, lacking neumatic notation, reach back to the late eighth century; with notation they date from the late ninth century; the repertory has remained in continuous use. The ‘Old Roman’ chant (ROM) is found in fewer than half a dozen complete manuscripts and a handful of fragments; they date between the eleventh and early thirteenth centuries, and nearly all are from the region of Rome. GREG and ROM are very similar in their verbal texts and liturgical provisions. But ROM has the more archaic Roman traits and clearly represents the city's usage, while there is little trace of GREG's use at Rome before the thirteenth century. As for the music, where there are corresponding liturgical texts, they tend to share some underlying musical substance. But the nature and patterns of the musical sharings are not clear, and how the relationships came about has not been satisfactorily explained.

Type
Research Article
Information
Early Music History , Volume 19 , October 2000 , pp. 81 - 104
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2000

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References

1 Before all else, I owe profound thanks to Susan Rankin for many improvements, great and small. The following abbreviations are used for recensions, dates and certain related bibliography: ROM = Old Roman; GREG = Gregorian; GALL = Gallican; OLD HISP = Old Hispanic; MOZ = Mozarabic; MED = Milanese or ‘Ambrosian’; BEN = Old Beneventan. Numerals refer to a particular century or range of centuries: GREG-8/10 = ‘Gregorian recension, text-witnesses of the late eighth century (as documented by Hesbert, R.-J., Antiphonale missarum sextuplex (Brussels, 1935)Google Scholar, [hereafter AMS]), and first musical witnesses of the tenth century (as in Graduale triplex, ed. Billecocq, M.-C. and Fischer, R. (Solesmes, 1979)Google Scholar [hereafter GT])’; or ROM-8 = ‘Old Roman states of the eighth century’; ROM-9/11 = ‘Old Roman states of the ninth through eleventh centuries’, that of the eleventh century as in Monumenta monodica medii aevi, ii (Kassel, 1970)Google Scholar: Die Gesänge des altrömischen Graduale Vat. lat. 5319, ed. B. Stäblein and M. Landwehr-Melnicki [hereafter MM-2].

2 Huglo, M., ‘Le Chant “vieux-romain”: liste des manuscrits et témoins indirects’, Sacris erudiri, 6 (1954), pp. 96–124CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Boe, J., ‘Music Notation in Archivio San Pietro C 105 and in the Farfa Breviary, Chigi C. VI. 177’, Early Music History, 18 (1999), pp. 1–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 GREG: Ott, C., Offertoriale sive versus offertoriorum (Tournai, 1935 [hereafter Ott]), p. 122Google Scholar; ROM: MM-2, p. 255; transposed by a fourth.

4 Paléographie musicale: les principaux manuscrits de chant grégorien, ambrosien, mozarabe, gallican, 1st ser. [hereafter PalMus], ii (1891), pp. 6–9Google Scholar: ‘… attendant qu'on soit à même de rechercher avec plus de maturité les origines de cette dernière version et d'analyser la nature des singularités qu'elle présente’ (p. 6, note).

5 ‘Le Chant romain antégregorien’, Revue du chant grégorien, 20 (1911–1912), pp. 69–75, 107–14Google Scholar.

6 Stäblein, B., ‘Zur Frühgeschichte des römischen Chorals’, in Atti del Congresso internazionale di musica sacra, ed. Anglès, H. (Rome, 1950Google Scholar; repr. Tournai, 1952), pp. 271–5. There were variants of this ‘two Roman chants’ theory from Smits van Waesberghe, J., ‘L'État actuel des recherches scientifiques dans la domaine du chant grégorien’, 3e Congrès international de musique sacrée (Paris 1957), pp. 206–17Google Scholar; and from van Dijk, S. J. P., ‘The Urban and Papal Rites in Seventh- and Eighth-Century Rome’, Sacris erudiri, 12 (1961), pp. 411–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, ‘Papal Schola versus Charlemagne’, in Organicae voces: Festschrift Joseph Smits van Waesberghe (Amsterdam, 1963), pp. 23–30.

7 Hourlier, J. and Huglo, M., ‘Un important témoin du chant “vieux-romain”: le graduel de Ste. Cécile du Transtévère’, Revue grégorienne, 31 (1952), pp. 26–37; Huglo, ‘Le Chant “vieux-romain”’Google Scholar.

8 Klauser, T., ‘Die liturgischen Austauschbeziehungen zwischen der römischen und der fränkisch-deutschen Kirche vom achten bis zum elften Jahrhundert’, Historisches Jahrbuch der Görres-Gesellschaft, 53 (1933), pp. 169–89Google Scholar.

9 Gregor der Grosse und sein Anteil am römischen Antiphonar’, Atti del Congresso internazionale di muska sacra, Roma, 1950, pp. 248–54: GREG is the ‘fränkische Einheitsfassung’ (p. 248; ‘Frankish centralised version’); the ‘fränkische Tradition’ (p. 249).

10 ‘Die Einführung des Gregorianischen Gesangs im Frankenreich’, Römische Quartalschrift, 49 (1954), pp. 172–87Google Scholar; ‘Gregorianischer Gesang in altrömischer und fränkischer Überlieferung’, Archiv für Musikwissenschaft, 12 (1955), pp. 74–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar, translated and with extensive commentary by Nowacki, E., ‘Chant Research at the Turn of the Century and the Analytical Programme of Helmut Hucke’, Plainsong and Medieval Music, 7 (1998), pp. 47–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 John Hymmonides (John the Deacon), ninth-century biography of Gregory the Great: ‘again and again the Germans and Gauls were given the opportunity to learn [Roman] chant…’; the St Gall anonymous: ‘Charlemagne, deploring the widespread variety of the chanted liturgy, got some experienced singers from Pope Stephen …’; the statements are reviewed by Karp, T., Aspects of Orality and Formularity in Gregorian Chant (Evanston, Ill., 1998), p. 32; extensive citations in MM-2, pp. 142* ffGoogle Scholar.

12 Hiley, D., Western Plainchant: A Handbook (Oxford, 1993); cf. pp. 561–2Google Scholar. Bernard, P., Du chant romain au chant grégorien (IVe–XIIIe siècle) (Paris, 1996)Google Scholar; reviewed by Dom, D. Saulnier, Études grégoriennes, 25 (1997), pp. 169–74Google Scholar, and Jeffery, P., Speculum, 74 (1999), pp. 122–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Haas, M., Mündliche Überlieferung und altrömische Choral: Historische und analytische computergestützte Untersuchungen (Bern, 1997); pp. 117 ff, 169 ffGoogle Scholar. Karp, T., Aspects of Orality and Formularity, pp. 31 ff, 365 ffGoogle Scholar. Dyer, J., ‘Tropis semper variantibus:Compositional Strategies in the Offertories of Old Roman Chant’, Early Music History, 17 (1998), p. 8CrossRefGoogle Scholar on the Roman offertories' two standard formulae, ‘all evidence of which has been eradicated in the “Frankish” revision of the music’.

13 Levy, K., ‘Toledo, Rome, and the Legacy of Gaul’, Early Music History, 4 (1984), pp. 49–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar; reprinted in Levy, Gregorian Chant and the Carolingians (Princeton, 1998), pp. 31–81.

14 Randel, D. M., An Index to the Chants of the Mozarabic Rite (Princeton, 1973), pp. 457–71, provides the inventoryGoogle Scholar.

15 Baroffio, G. B., ‘Die Offertorien der ambrosianischen Kirche’ (diss. Köln, 1964), pp. 29, 64Google Scholar; idem, ‘Die mailändische Überlieferung des Offertoriums Sanctificavit’, in Ruhnke, M. (ed.), Festschrift Bruno Stäblein (Kassel, 1967), pp. 1–8, at p. 1Google Scholar.

16 The parallel neumations are seen in ‘Toledo, Rome’, pp. 59–64. The relationships would be of the kind I have called ‘close multiples’; ‘On Gregorian Orality’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 42 (1990), pp. 185–227Google Scholar.

17 AMS 189b, 85, 193.

18 ‘L'Antiphonaire wisigothique et l'Antiphonaire grégorien au début du VIIIe siècle’, Anuario musical, 5 (1950), pp. 3–10Google Scholar; the Verona Orationale is a MOZ prayer book where many of the standard pieces of the eventual MOZ repertory are cued; before c. 730 it was taken from its Tarragonese home to a refuge in northern Italy, escaping the Muslim invasions that began in 711.

19 H. Sidler described them as ‘Eigengewächs’: Studien zu den alten Offertorien mit ihren Versen (Veröffentlichungen der Gregorianischen Akademie zu Freiburg, Schweiz, 1939), p. 7Google Scholar; Apel, W. wrote of ‘a veritable mine of bold formations not encountered anywhere else in the repertory’; Gregorian Chant (Bloomington, Ind., 1958), p. 512Google Scholar; Steiner, R. and Baroffio, G. B. in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians [hereafter NGD], ed. Sadie, S. (London, 1980), xiii, p. 516aGoogle Scholar, s.v. ‘Offertory’: ‘Many of the offertory melodies have a wide range, sometimes involving a daring use of modulation. The chants are difficult to perform; the musical style is distinctive and virtuoso. Unusual intervals such as octaves and sevenths covered in two leaps are found …, and a melodic tritone occurs …’.

20 I ventured this in passing in ‘Toledo, Rome’, pp. 95–6; Hiley has picked it up: ‘Levy's hypothesis is that these [non-psalmic offertories] are the descendents of the Gallican chant repertory. It is … difficult to see much musical difference between them and other [psalmic] offertories’ (Western Plainchant, p. 122); as has Steiner, R., ‘Holocausta medullata: An Offertory for St. Saturninus’, in Cahn, P. and Heimer, A.-K. (eds), De musica et cantu: Studien zur Geschichte der Kirchenmusik und der Oper. Helmut Hucke zum 60.Geburtstag (Hildesheim, 1993) [hereafter Hucke Festschrift], pp. 263-74; cf. p. 268Google Scholar.

21 The original may be the non-psalmic Angelus, with paschal assignments; the psalmic Posuisti's most notable assignment is the ‘gallican’ St Gorgonius of Metz. Other offertories with text-music accommodations include the group Viri Galilei, Sletit angelus and Justorum animae (NGD, xiii, p. 516b, art. ‘Offertory’; R. Steiner, ‘Holocausta medullata’, pp. 270–1).

22 Dyer, J. H. Jr, ‘The Offertories of Old-Roman Chant: A Musico-Liturgical Investigation’ (Ph.D. diss., Boston University, 1971), table I, pp. 138–41Google Scholar; idem, ‘Tropis semper variantibus’.

23 Example 2a after Dyer, ‘Tropis semper variantibus’, p. 9; FormA also operates in a transposition from a modal centre on C to one on F. Example 2b is from Snow, R., ‘The Old-Roman Chant’, in Apel, , Gregorian Chant, p. 491Google Scholar. Example 2c is from Ott, p. 139.

24 Example 3a, after Dyer, ‘Tropis semper variantibus’, p. 21; with the same alternative transposition as FormA; Example 3b, GREG: Ott, p. 159, transposed by a fourth; Example 3c, ROM: MM-2, p. 341.

25 Also of melodies that show ‘in ihrer formlosigkeit typische Auflösungstendenzen, gegenüber der sicher geformten plastischen Weisen der gregorianisch-fränkischen Einheitsfassung’; ‘Gregor der Grosse und sein Anteil am römischen Antiphonar’, p. 249. Hiley remarks about the offertory Benedic anima mea: ‘The Gregorian version is set out with the same line divisions as the Old Roman, but … the vocabulary as well as the form is different’; Western Plainchant, p. 536.

26 Connolly, T. H., ‘Introits and Archetypes: Some Archaisms of the Old Roman Chant’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 25 (1972), pp. 157–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dyer, ‘Tropis semper variantibus’, p. 7.

27 The psalmic texts are not always continuous; like the non-psalmic offertories, they are often assembled from scattered verses, with rearrangements, tailorings, and minor compressions. They too can be seen as ‘librettos’, and with the same implications for ROM offertory style as the non-psalmic librettos have for the early style of GALL-GREG; such texts were compiled with melismatic music in mind.

28 Weber, R., Le Psautier romain et les autres anciens psautiers latins (Collectanea Biblica Latina, 10; Rome: Abbaye Saint-Jèrôme, 1953) [hereafter Weber]Google Scholar.

29 Dyer, ‘The Offertories of Old-Roman Chant’, table I, pp. 138–41.

30 Bernard, P., ‘Les Chants du propre de la messe dans les répertoires Grégorien et Romain Ancien: essai d'édition pratique des variantes textuelles’, Ephemerides liturgicae, 110 (1996), pp. 210–51Google Scholar, with a useful list that may be appraised in this light.

31 Van Deusen, N., ‘An Historical and Stylistic Comparison of the Graduals of Gregorian and Old Roman Chant’ (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1972)Google Scholar.

32 GREG: Ott, p. 51; ROM: MM-2, p. 308.

33 GREG: Ott, p. 63; MED: AMM, p. 256; ROM: MM-2, p. 415.

34 The situation of MED, sampled in Example 5, calls for a full-dress study. MED and GREG sometimes relate in the way proposed here for ROM and GREG.

35 Cardine, E., ‘Vue d'ensemble sur le chant grégorien’, Études grégoriennes, 16 (1977), pp.173–92, at pp. 173–4Google Scholar.

36 On the role of Metz Maître, C., La Réforme cistercienne du plain-chant (Brecht, 1995), pp. 42–5Google Scholar.

37 PM, 14, pp. 450–1 (R.-J. Hesbert)Google Scholar; Levy, K., ‘The Italian Neophytes’ Chants’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 23 (1970), pp. 181–227, (at p. 221)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kelly, T. F., The Beneventan Chant (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 12–3Google Scholar; Beneventanum troporum corpus, ed. Planchart, A. E. and Boe, J., i, ed. Planchart (Madison, Wis., 1994), pp. xii–xivGoogle Scholar.

38 Strunk, O., ‘The Latin Antiphons for the Octave of the Epiphany’, in Essays on Music in the Byzantine World (New York, 1977), pp. 208–19Google Scholar; Levy, ‘Toledo, Rome’, 93; an ample discusssion, with musical illustrations, in Nowacki, E., ‘Constantinople-Aachen-Rome: The Transmission of Veterem hominem’, in De musica et cantu (Hucke Festschrift) (1993), pp. 95–115Google Scholar.

39 P. Bernard remarks on Charlemagne's general interest in the region: ‘[il] a proposé son aide pour réformer certains des plus grands monastères de Rome et certains des monastères proches de l'Urbs, comme celui de Farfa … ’ Du chant romain au chant grégorien, p. 483.

40 PM, 2 (1899 ), pp. 8 fGoogle Scholar.

41 GT, p. 508; MM-2, pp. 64–5.

42 Custodit Dominus: ROM: MM-2, p. 583; GREG: AMS, p. 210; Paris, lat. 903, fol. 138v; PM, 18 (Rome, Angelica 123), fol. 177v. Among the anomalous relationships involving introits, singled out by Connolly, ‘Introits and Archetypes’, p. 171, the ROM Introit Confessio has traces of FormA while In virtute tua and Esto mihi have traces of FormB.

43 GREG: GT, p. 303; ROM: MM-2, p. 470.

44 Conomos, D. E., The Late Byzantine and Slavonic Communion Cycle (Washington, 1985), pp. 50, 54–64Google Scholar; Harris, S. J. M., The Communion Chants of the Thirteenth-Century Byzantine Asmatikon (Amsterdam, 1999)Google Scholar.

45 Example 8a: ROM-I: MM-2, p. 499; GREG-BEN: PM, 15 (Benevento VI.34), fol. 266v; GREG-SARUM: Graduale Sarisburiense, ed. Frere, W. H. (London, 1895), p. 233Google Scholar. Example 8b: ROM-II: MM-2, p. 474.

46 ROM-I also appears twice in Vatican, Arch. S. Pietro, F. 11, fols. 56v and 68v, with minor variants.

47 For the introits, comparisons are readily made, thanks to Turco, A., Les Antiennes d'introït du chant romain comparées a celles du grégorien et de I'ambrosien (Subsidia Gregoriana, 3; Solesmes, 1993)Google Scholar; the MED readings, included by Turco, are essential to a comprehensive picture. For the graduals, the ROM-GREG comparisons are easily made with the tabulations in van Deusen, ‘An Historical and Stylistic Comparison’.