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The Earliest Motets: Music and Words

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Norman E. Smith
Norman E. Smith*
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
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Extract

The birth of a genre surely is one of the most fascinating occurrences in the history of music, and no genre of medieval music had a more interesting birth than the motet. Study of the motet in modern times found special impetus and direction in 1898 when Wilhelm Meyer announced his discovery of the origin of the motet in the discant clausulae of the Notre Dame organa. Demonstrating the musical identity of certain Latin motets and discant clausulae, he concluded that the motet arose through the addition of Latin texts to the melismatic upper voices of the two-voice clausulae and was thereby able to explain for the first time the previously baffling and unprecedented verse structures of many motet texts. In doing so, he at the same time made it clear that he understood the French motet to be of later origin than the Latin and brushed aside special questions concerning the French type, such as, for example, its most provocative feature: its characteristic use of refrains. How was one to understand the presence of refrains in a French motet supposedly derived from a sacred, liturgical model? This and other difficult questions refused to disappear, and they continued to be raised from time to time, but Meyer's explanation of the origin of the motet gained general acceptance, most decisively and influentially from Friedrich Ludwig. All of Ludwig's writings on the motet bespeak his endorsement of Meyer's position, but nowhere more explicitly than in the Repertorium:

These compositions [discant clausulae] were still more important by virtue of the fact that they served in rather large numbers as musical sources of motets, at first for Latin motets and later, although in more limited numbers, also for French motets - a fact, first recognized for the Latin motets by Wilhelm Meyer in 1898 (Der Ursprung des Motetts), claiming central importance for the history of music about 1200.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 114 , Issue 2 , 1989 , pp. 141 - 163
Copyright
Copyright © 1989 Royal Musical Association

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References

For Janet Knapp, on the occasion of her sixty-fifth birthday. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Fourteenth Annual Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Music held at King's College, London, 15-18 August 1986, and at the conference ‘Music m the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries’ held at Ohio State University, 17-18 October 1986.Google Scholar

1 Der Ursprung des Motetts, Nachrichten von der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, philosophischhistorische Klasse, II/113; repr. in Meyer's Gesammelte Abhandlungen zur mittellateinischen Rhythmik, ii (Berlin, 1905), 303–41.Google Scholar

2 ‘Noch wichtiger wurden diese Kompositionen dadurch, dass sie in ziemlich grosser Zahl als musikalische Motetten-Quellen dienten, zunächst für die lateinischen, später, wenn auch in beschränkterem Mass, auch für französischen Motetten, eine für die Musikgeschichte der Zeit um 1200 centrale Bedeutung beanspruchende Tatsache, die für die lateinischen Motetten zuerst Wilhelm Meyer 1898 (“Der Ursprung des Motetts”) erkannte.’ Repertorium organorum recentioris et motetorum vetustissimi stili, i/1 (Halle, 1910; repr. New York and Hildesheim, 1964), 23.Google Scholar

3 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat 15139 Rokseth (Polyphonies du XIIIe stècle Le Manuscrit H 196 de la Faculté de Médecine de Montpellier, iv Études et commentaires (Paris, 1939), 70–1) declined to apply the designation ‘clausula’ to these pieces, referring to them simply as ‘melismas’. In this regard she was following the practice of Ludwig (Repertorium, i/1, 143ff.). More recently, others have shown no reluctance to call them ‘clausulae’, see, for example, Jürg Stenzl, Die vierzig Clausulae der Handschrift Paris Bibliothèque Nationale latin 15139 (Saint Victor-Clausulae), Publikationen der Schweizerischen musikforschenden Gesellschaft, II/22 (Berne, 1970). Other manuscripts cited in this study are: Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Pluteus 29, 1 (F), Wolfenbüttel, Herzog-August-Bibliothek, 677 (Helmstedt 628) (W1); Wolfenbüttel, Herzog-August-Bibliothek, 1206 (Helmstedt 1099) (W2); Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional 20486 (olim Hh 167) (Ma); Berlin, Deutsche Staatsbibliothek, Cod. lat. 4° 523 (now in Marburg, Staatsbibliothek, Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz) (BeA); Montpellier, Faculté de Médecine, H 196 (Mo).Google Scholar

4 ‘L'hypothèse inverse a des chances d'être plus probable. Un clerc cherchant à élargir le répertoire religieux et ayant déjà noté dans les premiers cahiers de SV un certain nombre de morceaux ecclésiastiques, aurait extrait la musique seule de quarante motets français aptes à être transformés en morceaux pieux.’ Polyphonies du XIIIe siècle, iv, 71Google Scholar

5 Ibid., 209Google Scholar

6 The Rhythm of Twelfth-Century Polyphony Its Theory and Practice (New Haven, 1954), 101Google Scholar

7 Ibid.Google Scholar

8 The most elaborate rejection of Waite's proposal was that presented by Gordon A. Anderson, ‘Clausulae or Transcribed-Motets in the Florence Manuscript?’, Acta musicologica, 42 (1970), 109–28Google Scholar

9 ‘The Medieval Motet’, Gattungen der Musik in Einzeldarstellungen Gedenkschrift für Leo Schrade (Berne, 1973), 497–573 (pp 508–9).Google Scholar

10 ‘Sine littera and Cum littera in Medieval Polyphony’, Music and Civilization. Essays in Honor of Paul Henry Lang, ed. Edmond Strainchamps and Maria Rika Maniates (New York, 1984), 222.Google Scholar

11 ‘The Medieval Motet’, 506–7.Google Scholar

12 ‘La Polyphonie parisienne du treizième siècle’, Les Cahiers techniques de l'art, i/2 (Strasbourg, 1947), 44b.Google Scholar

13 ‘The Medieval Motet’, 507. Sanders here maintains a sometimes useful terminological distinction between ‘discant section’ and ‘clausula’, depending upon whether the piece in question exists within the context of an organum composition or among the separate pieces that make up the collections of clausulae. The distinction was urged especially by Rudolf Flotzinger, Der Discantussatz im Magnus Liber und seiner Nachfolge, Wiener musikwissenschaftliche Beiträge, 8 (Vienna, 1969).Google Scholar

14 ‘The Medieval Motet’, 507.Google Scholar

15 Nos. 2–4, 6–8 and 13. Clausula numbers are from my catalogue (‘The Clausulae of the Notre Dame School’, Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 1964); numbers in Ludwig's Repertorium are given in parentheses when they differ from mine.Google Scholar

16 Nos. 3 (L.5) and 9 (L.11).Google Scholar

17 Nos. 2 (L.1), 4, 5, 7, 9 and 10Google Scholar

18 Nos 4 (L.5), 9 (L.11) and 12 (L 1)Google Scholar

19 The two exceptions are Regnat no. 7, with a tenor of duplex longs, and Regnat no 8, with a tenor of longs.Google Scholar

20 Regnat nos. 5, 10–12 and 14–20, In seculum nos 1 (L.3), 4 (L 6), 6 (L.8), 7 (L 9), 8 (L 10), 11 (L.13) and 12 (L 14), Immolatus est nos 3, 6, 8, 11 and 12, Tamquam nos 1 (L 2, 12), 2 (L 3, 7), 6 (L 8), 7 (L.9), 10 (L 13) and 11 (L 14).Google Scholar

21 ‘Zum genetischen Verhältnis zwischen Notre-Dame-Klauseln und ihren Motetten’, Archiv für Musikwissenschaft, 44 (1987), 1–39. Frobenius makes use of the numbering of the clausulae found in my article ‘From Clausula to Motet’, Musica disciplina, 34 (1980), 29–65 He corrects (p.7, n. 30) my inadvertent omission of the clausula Nostrum no 3 (L.5) for M14 (F clausula no. 97, f. 157v), which should be added to my listing as no. 31a, while Nostrum no 4 (L 6) (F clausula no. 98) should be renumbered 31b. The two successive clausulae are musically identical with the triplum and motetus voices of a motet that is preserved in an unusually large number of versions, all of them listed on p 45 of my article. This is the unique case of the upper voices of two two-voice clausulae being combined simultaneously to form a three-voice motet (or, as Frobenius would have it, the conversion of a three-voice motet into two two-voice clausulae) Frobenius states that the relationship between clausula F 96 and motet voice 218 was known already to William Waite (The Rhythm of Twelfth-Century Polyphony, 101), but I find no reference to it in the cited passage The relationship eluded Ludwig and was still not noted by Friedrich Gennrich, Bibliographie der ältesten französischen und lateinischen Motetten, Summa musicae medii aevi, 2 (Darmstadt, 1957); but it was recognized by Tischler (see below, n. 25)Google Scholar

On the other hand, Frobenius declines to accept no. 83 of my list, Domine no. 2 from M48, as the musical equivalent of motet 407, Se longuement at de ma vie – Benedicta. There are two reasons why the relationship between these two pieces has been especially elusive First, the tenor designation in both of the surviving sources of the motet, W2 and the Clayette manuscript (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, nouv. acq. fr. 13521), is ‘Benedicta’, from M32, the Gradual Benedicta V Virgo del genitrix for the Assumption, whereas the related clausula has the text ‘Domine’ from M48, the Gradual Domine V Vitam petiit for the Common of Martyrs. These two Graduais share approximately the same melody, and the Notre Dame organum compositions of the two chants are also extensively interrelated. (Moreover, there is another motet with a tenor designated ‘Benedicta’ (motet 408, Benoite est et sera – Benedicta) that is musically identical with a Domine clausula, Domine no. 1, no. 82 of my list. Frobenius acknowledges this clausula-motet relationship, but, in this case, he does not argue for the priority of the motet, perhaps because it does not include a refrain. It might be noted, however, that the tenor contains a double statement of the Benedicta chant melody and that the French text is in the nature of a trope – characteristics that Frobenius sometimes views as signs of a motet's priority.) The relationship between the motet Se longuement ai de ma vie and the clausula Domine no. 2 has been elusive for a second reason The clausula, which Ludwig (Repertorium, i/1, 84) and others following him erroneously assigned to M41, includes four statements of the tenor, but the musical correspondence to the motet begins only with the second tenor statement. The motet is musically equivalent to the second, third and fourth tenor statements of the clausula. The notation of the clausula is problematic, with a number of dubiously formed ligatures, as well as an obvious gap, suggesting a scribally imperfect attempt to convert the motet's cum littera notation into sine littera notation – just as Waite (see above) had observed about other pieces These notational irregularities, taken together with the presence of a refrain (Gennrich no. 152, Boogaard no. 237) in the motet, would support an argument in favour of the motet's priority. Both of the clausula–motet relationships were pointed out in my article ‘Interrelationships among the Graduais of the Magnus Liber Organi’, Acta musicologica, 45 (1973), 92Google Scholar

22 The numbers add up to 66 (not 64) because one of the St Victor pieces is found also in F and because a pair of clausulae (nos. 70–1 of my list) relate to a single motet.Google Scholar

23 The number of such clausulae is, in fact, 45, since in the well-known Serena virginum (L.69) the motet is musically identical with not one, but four clausulae.Google Scholar

24 The earliest of the sources, the Florence manuscript, dates from the mid-thirteenth century. see Baltzer, Rebecca A., ‘Thirteenth-Century Illuminated Miniatures and the Date of the Florence Manuscript’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 25 (1972), 1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25 Most importantly, Hans Tischler, The Earliest Motets (to circa 1270) A Complete Comparative Edition, 3 vols. (New Haven, 1982), but also Gordon A. Anderson, The Latin Compositions in Fascicules VII and VIII of the Notre Dame Manuscript Wolfenbüttel Helmstadt 1099 (1206), 2 vols. (Brooklyn, NY, 1971).Google Scholar

26 Frobenius (pp. 21–5) proposes the priority of 26 of these motets. 108, 131, 140, 215, 216, 231, 411, 437, 441, 345, 309, 414, 443, 444, 505, 487, 490, 310, 762, 632, 244, 254–5, 647–8, 315–16, 228 and 69.Google Scholar

27 Frobenius does not challenge the priority of the clausula in the case of this clausula–motet pair, nor of those presented below in Examples 3–6.Google Scholar

28 This is one of the 11 instances of class 5 in section III of Table 2.Google Scholar

29 In the editions of Tischler (i, 323) and Anderson (ii, 83), the clausula conforms with the motet.Google Scholar

30 Again Tischler (i, 122) adopts the motet's reading for the clausula, but Anderson's transcription (ii, 73) of the currentes figure of the clausula's duplum agrees this time with the reading given here in Example 5.Google Scholar