La mise en concurrence des manuscrits bénéventains permet d'obtenir rapidement des résultats probants dans la "restauration" de mélodies composées hors le cadre hexacordal classique.

Les scribes, souhaitant se conformer à l'enseignement de Guy d'Arezzo, forcent la mélodie à "rentrer dans le rang", produisant des variantes à caractère original, que nous qualifierions volontiers de transpositions sans clé !

L'atout majeur du musicologue est justement l'originalité de ces variantes, disposées d'une manière un peu aléatoire, à l'intérieur d'une tradition qui fait habituellement preuve d'un très grand monolithisme. Ce monolithisme constitue, en quelque sorte une garantie de la nature "transpositoire" de ces variantes.

Dans le tableau ci-dessus, nous identifions aisément, en rouge, ce type d'intervalle.

Cela nous permet de conclure à une amélioration souhaitable de la restitution du Graduale Novum, que nous avons inclue dans ce tableau...

Il nous a paru intéressant d'effectuer une investigation approfondie de la tradition concernant la nature des deux premiers SI, à "Ejus" et à "oriENte". Pour cela, nous avons interrogé plus de 230 mss :

Lien vers le tableau synoptique

Le témoignage du Vieux-Romain est nettement marqué en faveur du SI bémol :

La tradition GREG corrobore ce point de vue. En effet, si la tradition germanique marque les demi-tons SI-DO (effectifs ou transposés) avec une grande constance, il n'est pas rare, dans le reste de la tradition, de trouver l'unisson (LA) à la place du second SI ! C'est même une situation majoritaire.

La tierce, à "oriENte" seulement, n'est présente que dans F-Pn lat 904 [Rouen, page 112 du pdf)] et encore, s'agit-il probablement d'une erreur de transcription (la comparaison avec F-AVR 42 [Avranches, page 14 du pdf] est éclairante). On trouve également une montée au RE supérieur, à "Ejus" dans F-RS 269 [Reims, XVIIIème siècle] et F-CH 44 [Chantilly, XVIIIème siècle] !

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  • ;-) Maybe each of the three Kings had his own song! Ste-lam e-ius as sol-si-do-sol or fa-la-si-sol or la-do-do-la. (or whatever)  Pothier and Crochu being King IV and V. I'll rest my case.

  • 230 mss and no real clue.... I'm still puzzled.

    There are really not a lot of 'bad boys at Jesus cradle'. We already did know ROP (page12) who writes sol-sa on stellam. The only manuscript to do so?

    The 1218 (Troyes) transposes the chant but I think it's more the relation with OF Eripe GT 151 that leads him to this variant.

    Support for the Pothier version stellam e-(jus) as la-do-re from Angers, and furthermore Reims 269 and Chantilly.

    Do we have to wait another year, for a next Christmas to salve this problem? Luckily Turco Liber Gradualis II, 55 has the same melody as GrN. HIS star stays a miracle....

  • I'm very anxious to study the variants. Maybe there is 'a bad boy' amongst the mss that dares to give a further clue.

    Thank you very much Dominique.

  • Nous avons complété la discussion par un commentaire, basé sur un tableau synoptique de plus de 230 témoins.

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  • Thank you Geert. Maybe it's indeed HIS star!

    Just these two versions you supplied show the problem.

    Hakkenes has the 'mauvais' re-fa leap to stellam, but he can write the whole-tone on E-jus.

    You have the 'bon' re-sol but are left with do and can't write do#!

    Solesmes 1908 only left the exotic ORI-ente.

  • Dear Dominique, Franco, Thanks for diving so deep into details. It really leaves me puzzled! Maybe you touched upon an aspect of chant that is yet not very well understood. I see stars all around, especially those in the ceiling of Galla Placidia's mausoleum in Ravenna. Then I see lots of details in the book of Kells ...

    Could there be a relation with rethoric as Leo Lousberg sees this for microtones? The problem in this specific communion seems to concern only part of the chant, maybe only "his star" or even "HIS star". And for this specific detail we seem to be involved in complexities of almost universal proportions. Why?

    For comparison below you find transcriptions of Hakkennes (1984=1990) and me (1998). Maybe Hakkennes did see something of the problem the Graduale Novum did not see. I did not see it either. My transcription is just a construction from my favorite manuscripts at the time (DIJ 1, ALB, YRX, BEN 5 & KLO 1).

    Unfortunately early a-diastematic manuscripts don't seem to bring us any further here.

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  • Je persiste à penser que la version Bv19 est identique à celle de Bv34...

    franco ackermans said:

    Thank you for the link to Bv19. never knew that it contained Mass-repertoire.

    There are a few. Epiphany and the sundays following.

    Bv19 has to have 2 times mauvais. He has la mi on eius. But his transposition is interesting.

    Hopefully to be continued.

    La COM Vidimus stellam ejus : le savoir-faire hexacordal de la tradition bénéventaine
    La mise en concurrence des manuscrits bénéventains permet d'obtenir rapidement des résultats probants dans la restauration de mélodies composées ho…
  • Just sing the melody you proposed (with the sib!) There is no problem!

    Just venimus sounds queer. (There is not a single manuscript that gives an indication for sib)

    This has to be with si naturale and that is not possible to write at the higher level (it would be si do# re)

    Because the proposed melody uptill ET sounds, even sung at the higher level,  unproblematic, there has to be a problematic tone before that point. I reckon it is the si naturale at ori-EN-te. There are several manuscripts that avoid this tone. Yrieix for example, known for his dislike of the tritone. You see about the same in Modena 7 and Bellelay.

    I once took in consideration the version of Angers 96. stellam ejus as la do re la. (remark at the end of my PDF. Pothier followed this version in his Graduale. Combined with the major third on the stellam that is exhibited in most of the manuscripts this would lead to la do# re la. Very adventurous.

  • Thank you for the link to Bv19. never knew that it contained Mass-repertoire.

    There are a few. Epiphany and the sundays following.

    Bv19 has to have 2 times mauvais. He has la mi on eius. But his transposition is interesting.

    Hopefully to be continued.

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