On 3 August 1029, Adémar de Chabannes inaugurated his newly-composed liturgy for the Feast of Saint Martial that recognized Martial, patron saint of the abbey that bears his name in Limoges, as an apostle. The Mass of the day was celebrated at the cathedral of Saint Stephen in Limoges, with the full support of Odolric, abbot of Saint Martial, and Jordan, the city's bishop. Adémar created a grand musical canvas to form part of the spectacular ceremony that took place that day. Among the original compositions he created for the Mass are several in which the literary text moves far into the background behind elaborate melismatic settings, and, in one case, the offertory of the Mass, the text virtually disappears. With these gestures, Adémar seems to be stepping beyond the verbal text to address the non-Latin speaking populace of Limoges directly in melody, to convince them of the necessity of acknowledging what most of them knew to be untrue: that Martial, their patron saint, was an apostle.

The cantillation of the Scriptures played an important role in the complex matrix of symbols that is the Byzantine liturgy. Beginning in the ninth century, a special type of notation called ‘ekphonetic’ was developed to indicate in the lectionaries the formulae used in the chanting of the appointed scriptural pericopes. Gradually, over the course of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the system fell into disuse, and the meaning of the notational signs was forgotten. Unfortunately, no surviving Byzantine theoretical treatises explain the system; hence the only sources of information about it (apart from the lectionaries themselves) are lists of ekphonetic neumes found in some manuscripts. Of particular value in this regard is the manuscript Sinaiticus graecus 213. Not only is this one of the oldest datable Greek evangeliaries, but it contains the most ancient list of neumes heretofore discovered, having escaped the attention of musicologists probably because of its unusual location in the manuscript. The present study, proceeding from an analysis of the theoretical information contained in the Sinait. graec. 213 list, will seek to establish the practical application of the neumes within the body of the manuscript, thus contributing to a clarification of the structural characteristics of the earliest, so-called ‘preclassic’, phase of the notational system.

This article deals primarily with a small repertory of early fifteenth-century motets that survive with tenores ad longum - substitute parts for notationally difficult tenors: works by Dunstaple, Binchois, Ciconia, Brassart, Velut, Carmen and Antonius de Civitate. The eight cases, together with Du Fay's O Sancte Sebastiane and the fourteenth-century motet Inter densas, are discussed individually, with consideration of the reason for inclusion of a tenor ad longum or other rhythmic cues, and who might have been responsible for the part.

Ever since Hugh Baillie and Philippe Oboussier's pioneering study of York, Borthwick Institute MS Mus 1, better known as the York Masses, it has been generally accepted that its compositions, if not the choirbook itself, originated elsewhere than York. Two locations claimed primacy in their bid for the manuscript's original provenance, Lincoln and London, owing to the internal evidence of two composers named in the manuscript, ‘Johannes Cuke’ and ‘Horwod’. The evidence is reassessed here with regard to an important new source relating to polyphonic music and other fragments of music preserved in post-Reformation York bindings. It is suggested that these fragments originated at one or more churches in York in the late fifteenth century, and that they were finally sold for binding material c. 1583, resulting in their appearance in the same series of court books for York Minster. The cultural background for the genesis and performance of polyphonic music is then addressed, with reference to York and other northern locations such as Durham, Beverley and Selby.

In the century of recorded interpretation of Gregorian chant, the introduction of a new choir director at the abbey of Solesmes might be considered a moment of the highest importance, though the event seems not to have been reported widely. After all, we have heard only Dom André Mocquereau in 1904 (admittedly directing French seminarians in Rome), Dom Joseph Gajard from 1930 to 1971, and Dom Jean Claire from 1972 to 1996. The début of Dom Richard Gagné as choirmaster is marked by a pairing of two feast-day Propers (no. 1 in the list below), followed by a collection of popular chants from Liber Cantualis (no. 2). It would take a sharp eye to notice on Dom Claire's last recording (1997, no. 1) that Dom Gagné was listed as assistant to Dom Claire. If Dom Claire's interpretations were lighter and quicker than Dom Gajard's, it may be equally true that Dom Gagné is still lighter and quicker. The familiar sound of the monks has not changed much, though Jean Allard, the engineer who has recorded all of the Solesmes discs (and those of several other monasteries as well) since the Decca era, has been succeeded by Igor Kirkwood, a familiar engineering presence on French recordings.