PhD - The Gradual of St. Yrieix in eleventh-century Aquitaine

· Publié par Arturo Tello Ruiz-Pérez le 24 Novembre 2011 à 14 40

PhD University of Texas (May 2011)

Title: The Gradual of St. Yrieix in eleventh-century Aquitaine

Author: Sherrill, William Manning

Abstract:

During the eleventh century the Aquitanian monastery of St. Yrieix, located forty kilometers south of Limoges, acquired a new gradual, a manuscript containing the liturgical Mass chants for the year. The Gradual of St. Yrieix, now at the Paris Bibliothèque Nationale (Pa903), includes both text and music, redacted with the musical notation typical of the region of Aquitaine. The objective of this research is to analyze Pa903 as a document of liturgical musical practice and as a participant in the historical events of its region and time. While the Gregorian chant repertory dominates the gradual, this dissertation addresses the neo-Gregorian chants of Pa903, composed in the period following the dissemination of Gregorian chant throughout Europe. These neo-Gregorian chants were open to the influence of the contemporary regional musical style and cultural traditions surrounding St. Yrieix. Chapter II reviews the backdrop of historical events surrounding Pa903, focusing on the reform and expansion at St. Yrieix and its transition from a monastery to a chapter of canons. The musical and liturgical characteristics of Pa903 (Chapter III) show that St. vii Yrieix favored its senior patron St. Martin of Tours and St. Aredius (its patron saint) above St. Martial of Limoges (a powerful neighbor) and presented in the gradual a community of saints with strong regional influence. Chapters IV and V analyze the concordances of antiphons, tropes, prosulas, prosas, and neo-Gregorian Mass chants of Pa903 with those of the Aquitanian graduals and other sources throughout Europe. The tropes of the Proper and Ordinary, the complete repertory of prosulas and prosas, and the neo-Gregorian Mass chants of Pa903 are collected together here for the first time outside of Pa903. The neo-Gregorian chants are found in the sanctoral, temporal, and the ritual Masses and include a group of chants that reflects textual and musical elements of the prior Gallican tradition. The chant repertory of the gradual also presents a subgroup of forty-nine antiphons, prosas, prosulas, and neo-Gregorian Mass chants found only in Pa903, documented here with musical examples.

Kind regards,

Arturo Tello

Réponses à cette Discussion

Réponse de Oliver Gerlach le 6 Décembre 2011 à 11 09

I always wondered what was the justification, that the reproduction in the Paléographie musicale had omitted the most precious part of this manuscript: folios 134-204? Here we have one of the most important collections of Gallican preces, and a processional, tropar and sequentiary of the local tradition. By the way, one of the most famous cantors and scribes at Limoges, Adémar de Chabannes, continued Gregorian historiography in his Chronicon. While the cantors of Metz were regarded as "corruptors" of Roman chant in the chronicles of the 9th century (thanks to their Roman teachers or thanks to the un-Roman anatomy of the Frankish voices), Adémar regarded the cantors of Metz as loyal students of the Romans, but a second type, the Gallian cantors (like him), as bad students who don't want to learn, because they believed to know it better.
It is really worth to study Aquitanian manuscripts from a rather neutral point of view, the Aquitanian redaction is one of the oldest concerning fully notated chant collections, and in its modal classification it is following a rather unique and refined concept distinct from other regions of the Frankish Empire.
Sherill's study of the St. Yrieix Gradual has done a long expected step." style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 35px; margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: inherit; font-size: 1em; text-overflow: ellipsis; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; padding: 0px;">
Dear Arturo
I thank you very much for communicating the free access to this important study.
I always wondered what was the justification, that the reproduction in the Paléographie musicale had omitted the most precious part of this manuscript: folios 134-204?
Here we have one of the most important collections of Gallican preces, and a processional, tropar andsequentiary of the local tradition. By the way, one of the most famous cantors and scribes at Limoges, Adémar de Chabannes, continued Gregorian historiography in his Chronicon. While the cantors of Metz were regarded as "corruptors" of Roman chant in the chronicles of the 9th century (thanks to their Roman teachers or thanks to the un-Roman anatomy of the Frankish voices), Adémar regarded the cantors of Metz as loyal students of the Romans, but a second type, the Gallian cantors (like him), as bad students who don't want to learn, because they believed to know it better.
It is really worth to study Aquitanian manuscripts from a rather neutral point of view, the Aquitanian redaction is one of the oldest concerning fully notated chant collections, and in its modal classification it is following a rather unique and refined concept distinct from other regions of the Frankish Empire.
Sherill's study of the St. Yrieix Gradual has done a long expected step.

Réponse de Arturo Tello Ruiz-Pérez le 6 Décembre 2011 à 12 30

Dear Oliver,

How right you are!

Réponse de Oliver Gerlach le 7 Décembre 2011 à 11 18

We have, by the way, a very similar case in the Slavic reception of the Constantinopolitan cathedral rite in the 12th century manuscripts written by the scribes of Kievan Rus (the earliest music manuscripts of this rite which have survived). It is a very autonomous reception, because they developed an own notation system and an own caligraphy, as perfect and beautiful as those of Aquitanian scribes. The only difference is that readers today do not understand at all the Old-Slavic notation system.

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PhD - The Gradual of St. Yrieix in eleventh-century Aquitaine

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