A thorough more recent monograph about Old Roman chant seems to be missing.
Some thoughts what should be included in such a monograph:
ALL sources for Old Roman (including fragments) should be listed with exact descriptions of their datings and contents. Some facsimile pages of sources should be included.
ALL text passages from theoretical sources concerning the history and performance of Old Roman chant should be included with English translations. The liturgical peculiarities and their implications for historical performance practice of Old Roman chant should be described. All places where Old Roman chant was being sung should be listed and their importance for the repertory be made clear. All genres of Old Roman chant should be listed and their musical styles be outlined. The stylistic peculiarities of Old Roman chants should be analysed (with many and well-chosen notational examples in modern transcription) and be compared with other chant traditions. The (probable) influence on other chant traditions and from other chant traditions should be outlined.
The book should of course include a summary of the discoveries from secondary literature (only certain and probable findings).
The monograph should outline what we can assume as probable about the historical performance practice of Old Roman chants (ensemble sizes, on what occasions boys might have been used, which passages/chants were sung by soloists, how improvised polyphony was probably used etc.) - certain sources for Gregorian chant (including theoretical sources) are probably also important to consider here.
The book should include a complete bibliography (including all facsimiles and editions of course) for Old Roman chant and a good index (places, names, neumes, sources, terms etc.). All web links for Old Roman chant should be given.
The monograph should also include a CD/DVD with a new recording of Old Roman chants (it would be best to choose especially "typical" and especially beautiful ones as well as some which were probably of special liturgical or historical importance).
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It did indeed refer to your next episode, Geert, and I am looking forward to it. But I think your idea, that the métier of a cantor was to create an oral tradition for the community without interference of any notation, is worth a separate discussion in the group "Performance practice" which has to face the fact, how far we are today from these competences. This is also the old discussion of Peter Jeffery, that musicians have to learn from living modal traditions (it is true that it was often provoked by the particular style of the Roman traditions, but I believe that this incomptence of musicians is relevant to all traditions of Western plainchant).
I am still curious to discuss the content of such a handbook:
As far, as we are ready to reflect about our incompetence, the handbook should also offer an overview on the history of its rediscovery and of the many misunderstandings around it. We do not need to discuss séméologie, because this movement did not much care about it. Please correct me, if I am wrong. We need to mention many exchanges between Byzantinists and Western chant scholars, and the important contribution of Marcel Pérès together with Lykourgos Angelopoulos should be discussed, because it will influence further steps in this direction.
List of theoretical and historical sources
Concerning the sources it seems that we decided against Guido. We have the Carolingian reception of the Ordines romani, but maybe there should be a chronological list.
What about the sources of the period, when Latin was introduced as liturgical language? The letter exchange between Pope Damasus and Hieronymus was identified by Peter Jeffery as a later fake made during the pontificate of Hormisdas.
We have the descriptions of the church historian Sozomenos, who also mentioned the yearly custom of Alleluia singing during Easter? I still promised you a discussion, which alleluia was this prototype... But the question is also, since when a congregation has established to sing abridged psalms in a soloistic style.
We have of course the period of Byzantine papacy and the letters of Gregory the Great, but no sacramentary of his time (Charlemagne asked for it, but he never got it)? Connected with his reform is the debate about an early Byzantine influence and an import of allelouiaria.
We have the history of the Schola cantorum and its foundation, and Mc Kinnon's discussion about its role to create the later repertoire, that Frankish cantors had to learn during the Carolingian renaissances.
We have the crisis of iconoclasm and another period of exchange with Byzantine clerics who looked for a refuge at Rome, and we have a kind of workshop under Symeon at Rouen which is documented by letters between Pope Paul I and Pippin the Short. We have many sacramenteries written during the Carolingian renaissances.
We have the acts of the synod 787, when Pope Adrian I confirmed the Constantinopolitan oktoechos reform and even accepted it for West Rome, but have no Roman tonary, it was obviously an important instrument for Frankish cantors to do the transfer, which Charlemagne requested in his Admonitio generalis.
For the ninth century we have testimonies in chronicles by John Hymonides and Notker who testify a difference between the Roman and the Frankish version to follow the Roman liturgy.
We have the Ottonian activities for the 10th century, centered at Cluny, to unify Western liturgies and also a testimony that especially Southern Italy had a great diversity of local liturgies.
We have many sources of the 11th century, which document a strong Northern-French influence at Montecassino and Rome, and a first hint for an interest for notation connected with the invitation of Guido, and the first examples of notated chant books in Southern Italy. By the way, Benevento 33 has not many traces of a local liturgy, but certainly a very slight Beneventan influence. We have another period since Leo IX, which was characterised by historians as reform papacy and this history was continued until the 12th century.
During the 1070s date the first notated Roman chant book, and the first notated antiphonaries of the Milanese rite were also written during the last decades of the century.
Je suis parfaitement d'accord avec Luca.
OK, right again. I think we all agree that modern 4 and 5-line notations like Meinrad and Volpiano are not the best possible transcriptions for "historical" performance practice. To say the least. Superposition of neumatic notation would not make it much better. Best would be to sing everything before 1200 by heart. And of course for memorisation the "original" notations should be preferred and studied.
I guess your "Formidable!" did not refer to the upcoming Bonum est, but to the bear. I am curious to your opinion on the upcoming program.
Best, G
Formidable!
But you got it wrong, the Teanesi do shoot the Carnevale, not the Urss. If they did shoot the bear, they would forget all the melodies.
We should be more serious, if we discuss notation. Luca was too modest to mention his concept of "modern transcription," but you find it in his publications, whenever he quotes the Roman tradition. The handwritten transcription of Malcolm Bothwell you can see in the second video of "Alleluia. O kyrios evasilevsen" (see my discussion about Lykourgous's contribution). Ellen Hünigen does her edition of Aquitanian sources according to a very similar concept. Unfortunately, there are still a lot musicologists whose palaeographic knowledge is so far from these standards, that they do not even understand this concept of a modern edition which is useful for all diastematic forms.
On the other hand, we should also consider alternative forms which musician sometimes develop for their own needs (like sketches of a traditional composition for a more deliberate performance, or the use of Braille code). I often prefer to annotate facsimiles, so that my interpretation is evident.
Please listen to the next, AMAZING, Bonum est, and tell me what you hear:
Bonum est
Don't worry, they still know a lot of melodies (even some which the Albanians already forgot, if we believe Albanian anthropologists—nevertheless, Albania is a great field). I said they STILL do...
No, he doesn't! But they were much nicer to him at Rome than at Pomposa.
YES learn AND forget; don't look at the Italians who shot the bear AND forgot their melodies:
Carnival in Calabria
learn the notation! YES !!!
Ricossa a dit :
Don't sell the skin of the boar, before you have hunted it!
I am curious, what Roman treatises you would like to choose. Luca once suggested Guido of Arezzo...
Geert Maessen a dit :
Maybe it is even more important to forget about notation and learn to sing again in an oral tradition.
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