The Winchester Troper refers to two eleventh-century manuscripts of liturgical plainchant and two-voice polyphony copied and used in the Old Minster at Winchester Cathedral in Hampshire, England. [1] The manuscripts are now held at Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 473 (Corpus 473) and Oxford, Bodleian Library Bodley 775 (Bodley 775). The term "Winchester Troper" is best understood as the repertory of music contained in the two manuscripts. Both manuscripts contain a variety of liturgical genres, including Proper and Ordinary chants for both the Mass and the Divine Office. Many of the chants can also be found in other English and Northern French tropers, graduals, and antiphoners. However, some chants are unique to Winchester, including those for local saints such as St. Æthelwold and St. Swithun, who were influential Bishops of Winchester in the previous centuries. Corpus 473 contains the most significant and largest surviving collection of eleventh-century organum (i.e. polyphony). This polyphonic repertoire is unique to that manuscript (Bodley 775 contains no polyphony).
In the late nineteenth century, Walter Frere and the Solesmes monks were the first to refer to these manuscripts as the "Winchester Troper." [2] Despite the implications of the name, the manuscripts are not identical, not part of a set (such as Volume 1 and Volume 2), and contain liturgical genres other than tropes. The term "Winchester Troper" can refer to either manuscript or to the repertory of the two as a collective.
The dating of the two manuscripts has been subject of debate. The core repertory of Corpus 473 was likely copied in the 1020s-1030s. [3] Bodley 775 was possibly copied in the 1050s. However, scholars disagree about the dating of the possible exemplars on which Bodley 775 was based. Perhaps Bodley 775 was copied directly from a now lost exemplar dating from the late 970s or 980s. Therefore, the manuscript is retrospective because it reflects practices different than those at the time it was copied. [4] On the other hand, Bodley 775 may have been copied from two preexisting manuscripts: a late tenth-century gradual and a troper of a possibly later date. [5] This hypothesis considers both the retrospective characteristics of Bodley 775 and its status as a later manuscript than Corpus 473. Bodley 775 was not modeled after Corpus 473. [6]
Each manuscript contains additional chants copied by scribes throughout the eleventh century. Although the core of each manuscript reflects a connection to Northern France, the supplementary chants copied by scribes in the latter half of the eleventh century exhibit a very strong Norman influence. [7] [8] In 1066, William, Duke of Normandy, conquered England, strengthening the cultural connection between northern France and England. As a result, chant in England began to reflect this new political reality. This influence is especially strong in the later sequences of the Winchester Troper; [9] increasing Norman influence did not impact the Alleluia series. [10] Thus, while the core of each manuscript dates to Anglo-Saxon England, they also contain some post-Conquest music.
Corpus 473 contains 199 folios of parchment with dimensions of 140/145 x 90/93 mm. The final folio dates to the sixteenth century and is not original to the manuscript. The complete manuscript was rebound and conserved in 2004. It is written mostly in dark brown ink with colored capitals; the handwriting is Caroline minuscule. [11] Corpus 473 may have been used by the succentor or cantor of the Old Minster and Bodley 775 by its cantor. [12] [6]
Bodley 775 contains 191 folios of parchment of the size 273 x 167 mm. The manuscript retains its eleventh-century binding, consisting of two quarter-cut oak boards covered in whittawed skin. [13] The first quire (ff. 1-7v, col. 1 seven) is a later eleventh-century addition and is misbound, with the original sequence of leaves being 1-3, 5, 6, 4, 7. The remainder of the book is organized in quires of 8, with half sheets appearing in quires 3, 12, 14, 16, 20 and 23. [14] It is written in black and brown ink with red rubrics and colored initials. Some proses were subsequently erased and cannot be recovered. [15]
Although Wulfstan the Cantor was once thought to have a direct role in the copying of these manuscripts (and perhaps even composing the organa of Corpus 473), more recent dating makes this impossible because the manuscripts are now believed to have been copied after Wulfstan's death. The organa were possibly composed by several people at Winchester and represented the best attempts at improvised polyphony that were deemed worthy of memory. [16] [17]
Corpus 473 and Bodley 775 share much of the same music for many of the same feasts, but there are some notable differences between the contents and organization of the two manuscripts. Corpus 473 contains the voces organales (Latin: organal voices) to 174 organa, making it the largest extant collection of liturgical polyphony in the eleventh century, while Bodley 775 contains no such organa. [1] Both manuscripts contain both proper and ordinary tropes for the Mass and Divine Office, proses, and sequences. In Corpus 473, different genres are grouped into different gatherings. Within each genre, the chants are organized according to the liturgical calendar. The organization of Bodley 775 is not nearly as systematic. [18] Although pieces of similar genres are generally grouped together, each genre is not placed in a distinct fascicle, and chants are sometimes mistakenly placed out of liturgical order or under the incorrect rubric. [19] [5] Unlike Corpus 473, Bodley 775 separates the tropes for feasts of the Temporale and Sactorale. [5] Corpus 473 contains only half of an Alleluia cycle; it is possible that a gathering containing the second half of the cycle has been lost. [20] The two tables below list the general contents of the two manuscripts. However, because later additions were often copied wherever there was available space, not every piece is accounted for in the tables. For instance, in Corpus 473 two proses, copied in the late eleventh century, are located at the end of the early eleventh century Alleluia cycle and are not listed below.
Genre | Gathering | Folio | Quantity |
---|---|---|---|
Alleluia cycle | 1 | 1-8 | 44 |
Proper tropes | 2-6 | 9-54 | |
Ordinary tropes and tonary | 7-9 | 55-80 | 4 Kyrie tropes 10 Kyries (one is later) 17 Gloria tropes 6 Sanctus tropes 1 Sanctus 6 Agnus dei tropes |
Sequences | 10 | 81-88 | 52 |
Proses | 11-15 | 89-134 | 51 |
Organa | 16-21 | 135-190 | 174 |
Later material | 22 | 191-198v |
Genre | Gathering | Folio | Quantity |
---|---|---|---|
Later material | 1 | 1r-7v | |
Proper tropes | 2-8 | 8r-61v | |
Ordinary tropes | 8-10 | 62r-76r | 4 Kyrie tropes 11 Kyries 13 Gloria tropes 6 Sanctus tropes 2 Sanctus 6 Agnus dei tropes |
Alleluia cycle | 10-11 | 76v-87v | 107 (core repertory) 4 (late 11th c.) |
Tract cycle | 12-13 | 88r-97r | 25 |
Offertory cycle (with verses) | 13-16 | 97v-121v | 100 |
Sequences | 16-17 | 121r-129r | 51 |
Proses | 17, 18-24 | 130r-190v | 11 (late 11th through early 12th c.) approx. 64 (core repertory, some erased) 14 (late 11th through early 12th c.) |
The Winchester Troper is partly a troper (i.e. a book of tropes). It contains Gregorian chant and tropes, which are musical or textual (or both) expansions of Gregorian chant. Corpus 473 and Bodley 775 contain several introit tropes for feasts of St. Swithun, a ninth century Bishop of Winchester. [24] [25] [26] Some of the introit tropes for St. Swithun are unique to this repertory. [27] [28] St. Swithun is also represented in Offertory and Communion tropes. [29] Both manuscripts contain tropes for various Sanctorale and Temporale feasts, including Christmas, Advent, Epiphany, Pentecost, All Saints, St. Stephen, St. Gregory, and the Innocents. Other local saints, like St. Æthelwold and St. Justus (Iustus), are also represented. [30]
The two manuscripts contain nearly the same proper tropes with some significant exceptions. Bodley 775 contains fewer Communion and Offertory tropes than Corpus 473. [5] Generally, trope repertories across Europe shrank during the eleventh century, meaning the lower number of tropes in Bodley 775 could reflect a later stage of compilation than Corpus 473. This corroborates the claim that Bodley 775 is based on an earlier gradual but a more recent troper, possible one that dates after Corpus 473. [31] Between the two manuscripts, 37 tropes are almost certainly English in origin, while another 48 are of probable English origin. [32] Some of these tropes are also found in other English or North French sources, but many are unique to Winchester. It is often difficult to determine the origin of a specific chant and is subject to interpretation. [5]
Corpus 473 contains 174 organal parts of two-part organum pieces, the largest surviving collection of eleventh century polyphony. The polyphony consists of two voices, a vox principalis (Latin plural, voces principales; English, principal voice[s]) and a vox organalis (Latin plural, voces organales; English, organal voice[s]). The vox principalis is a previously composed chant; the vox organalis is a newly composed part in counterpoint with the chant. The organal voices seem to follow a general contour below the principal voices, beginning with parallel movement in fourths, then oblique movement (including the use of holding tones), then meeting in unison at points of ocursus. [33] The gatherings of Corpus 473 dedicated to organa contain only the voces organalis. Singers would have performed the principal voice from a different gathering, another manuscript, or, more likely, from memory. Among the genres that receive organal treatment are troped and untroped Mass Ordinary chants, tracts, sequences, Mass Proper tropes, Alleluias, and Office Responsories. [34]
Because the notation consists of adiestematic neumes, which indicate the melodic contour but not precise pitches, [35] the organal voices were long considered to be indecipherable. However, Andreas Holschneider and, more recently, Susan Rankin have published reconstructions of some of the organa. [36] [37] To reconstruct the organa, Rankin matches the organal voice with a chant melody. To determine the best match, she examines the notation of the organal voice against various chant melodies that use the same text. Theoretical rules found in treatises, such as Musica enchiriadis and Guido of Arezzo's Micrologus , are necessary to reconstruct the organal voice. Significantly, the neume shapes and contour of the organal voice sometimes break from the theory. [38] Because Corpus 473 contains multiple organal harmonies to the same melodic gesture, the monks at Winchester exercised a certain degree of compositional freedom when writing organa. [16] Rankin suggests that the composer(s) of organa were engaged in a creative and aesthetic practice, a different conclusion from Holschneider's assessment that the organal voice was precisely bound to the rules of theory. [39]
Medieval music encompasses the sacred and secular music of Western Europe during the Middle Ages, from approximately the 6th to 15th centuries. It is the first and longest major era of Western classical music and is followed by the Renaissance music; the two eras comprise what musicologists generally term as early music, preceding the common practice period. Following the traditional division of the Middle Ages, medieval music can be divided into Early (500–1000), High (1000–1300), and Late (1300–1400) medieval music.
Plainsong or plainchant is a body of chants used in the liturgies of the Western Church. When referring to the term plainsong, it is those sacred pieces that are composed in Latin text. Plainsong was the exclusive form of Christian church music until the ninth century, and the introduction of polyphony.
Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic, unaccompanied sacred song in Latin of the Roman Catholic Church. Gregorian chant developed mainly in western and central Europe during the 9th and 10th centuries, with later additions and redactions. Although popular legend credits Pope Gregory I with inventing Gregorian chant, scholars believe that it arose from a later Carolingian synthesis of the Old Roman chant and Gallican chant.
Pérotin was a composer associated with the Notre Dame school of polyphony in Paris and the broader ars antiqua musical style of high medieval music. He is credited with developing the polyphonic practices of his predecessor Léonin, with the introduction of three and four-part harmonies.
Organum is, in general, a plainchant melody with at least one added voice to enhance the harmony, developed in the Middle Ages. Depending on the mode and form of the chant, a supporting bass line may be sung on the same text, the melody may be followed in parallel motion, or a combination of both of these techniques may be employed. As no real independent second voice exists, this is a form of heterophony. In its earliest stages, organum involved two musical voices: a Gregorian chant melody, and the same melody transposed by a consonant interval, usually a perfect fifth or fourth. In these cases the composition often began and ended on a unison, the added voice keeping to the initial tone until the first part has reached a fifth or fourth, from where both voices proceeded in parallel harmony, with the reverse process at the end. Organum was originally improvised; while one singer performed a notated melody, another singer—singing "by ear"—provided the unnotated second melody. Over time, composers began to write added parts that were not just simple transpositions, thus creating true polyphony.
Johannes Cotto was a music theorist, possibly of English origin, most likely working in southern Germany or Switzerland. He wrote one of the most influential treatises on music of the Middle Ages, De musica, first printed by Gerbert in 1784. The treatise included unusually precise directions for composing chant and organum.
Alejandro Enrique Planchart was a Venezuelan-American musicologist, conductor, and composer. He was considered to be one of the leading scholars on the music of Guillaume Du Fay; more broadly, he was a specialist on music of the Middle Ages and early Renaissance music.
The Magnus Liber or Magnus liber organi, written in Latin, is a repertory of medieval music known as organum. This collection of organum survives today in three major manuscripts. This repertoire was in use by the Notre-Dame school composers working in Paris around the end of the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth centuries, though it is well agreed upon by scholars that Leonin contributed a bulk of the organum in the repertoire. This large body of repertoire is known from references to a "magnum volumen" by Johannes de Garlandia and to a "Magnus liber organi de graduali et antiphonario pro servitio divino" by the English music theorist known as Anonymous IV. Today it is known only from later manuscripts containing compositions named in Anonymous IV's description. The Magnus Liber is regarded as one of the earliest collections of polyphony.
France has a rich music history that was already prominent in Europe as far back as the 10th century. French music originated as a unified style in medieval times, focusing around the Notre-Dame school of composers. This group developed the motet, a specific musical composition. Notable in the high Middle Ages were the troubadours and trouvères soon began touring France, composing and performing many original songs. The styles of ars nova and ars subtilior sprung up in the 14th century, both of which focused on secular songs. As Europe moved into the Renaissance age, the music of France evolved in sophistication. The popularity of French music in the rest of Europe declined slightly, yet the popular chanson and the old motet were further developed during this time. The epicenter of French music moved from Paris to Burgundy, as it followed the Burgundian School of composers. During the Baroque period, music was simplified and restricted due to Calvinist influence. The air de cour then became the primary style of French music, as it was secular and preferred by the royal court.
The Saint Martial School was a medieval school of music composition centered in the Abbey of Saint Martial, Limoges, France. Most active from the 9th to 12th centuries, some scholars describe its practices, music, and manuscripts as 'Aquitanian'. It is known for the composition of tropes, sequences, and early organum. In this respect, it was an important precursor to the Notre Dame School. Adémar de Chabannes and his uncle Roger de Chabannes who introduced Adémar in the craftship of a notating cantor, were important proponents of this school whose hands had only be recently discovered by studies of James Grier between 1995 and 2005. They invented a local variant of a vertically precise organisation of notation and a new form of local tonary, they reorganised existing chant manuscripts, and they developed the libellum structure of a new type of sequentiary troper whose organisation was new at their time, but played a key role for the Saint Martial school.
The Codex Las Huelgas is a music manuscript or codex from c. 1300 which originated in and has remained in the Cistercian convent of Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas in Burgos, in northern Spain. The convent was a wealthy one which had connections with the royal family of Castile.
Tuotilo was a Frankish monk at the Abbey of Saint Gall. He was a composer, and according to Ekkehard IV a century later, also a poet, musician, painter and sculptor. Various trope melodies can be assigned to Tuotilo, but works of other mediums are attributed with less certainty. He was a student of Iso of St. Gallen and friends with the fellow monk Notker the Stammerer.
A tonary is a liturgical book in the Western Christian Church which lists by incipit various items of Gregorian chant according to the Gregorian mode (tonus) of their melodies within the eight-mode system. Tonaries often include Office antiphons, the mode of which determines the recitation formula for the accompanying text, but a tonary may also or instead list responsories or Mass chants not associated with formulaic recitation. Although some tonaries are stand-alone works, they were frequently used as an appendix to other liturgical books such as antiphonaries, graduals, tropers, and prosers, and are often included in collections of musical treatises.
Daseian notation is the type of musical notation used in the ninth century anonymous musical treatises Musica enchiriadis and Scolica enchiriadis. The music of the Musica enchiriadis and Scolica enchiriadis, written in Daseian notation, are the earliest known examples of written polyphonic music in history.
The Missa de Beata Virgine is a musical setting of the Ordinary of the Mass, by Renaissance composer Josquin des Prez. Though formerly believed to have been a late composition due to stylistic reasons, evidence from Burchard’s Diary proves that the mass was written sometime before September 23, 1497. It was the most popular of his masses in the 16th century.
1st millennium BC in music – 1st millennium in music – 11th century in music
The Missa Gaudeamus is a musical setting of the Ordinary of the Mass by Franco-Flemish composer Josquin des Prez, probably composed in the early or middle 1480s, and published in 1502. It is based on the gregorian introit Gaudeamus Omnes and its setting is for four voices.
Susan Kathleen Rankin, FBA, FSA, is an English musicologist. Since 2006, she has been a professor of medieval music at the University of Cambridge; she has also been a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, since 1981.
The Plainsong and Medieval Music Society (PMMS), also spelled as the Plainsong and Mediæval Music Society, is an English music society. Founded in 1888, the PMMS primarily researches, promotes and produces publications on medieval music, particularly the liturgical chant from that time to the present. A registered charity since 1987, it has been particularly influential in encouraging the revival of Anglican chant. Musicologists associated with the PMMS include H. B. Briggs, Anselm Hughes, G. H. Palmer, and George Ratcliffe Woodward, and more recently Gustave Reese, D. H. Turner, John Stevens, Christopher Page and Margaret Bent.
The Codex Sangallensis 484 is an early medieval music manuscript, produced in the abbey of St. Gallen and stored in the Abbey Library in St. Gallen. The manuscript is known for its exhaustive collection of so-called tropes, meaning melodic or textual extensions to previously existing liturgic chants. As this particular manuscript is among the most extensive collections of such tropes from the eastern Frankish kingdom, it plays an important role in the history of music.
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)Arlt, Wulf (1993). "Stylistic Layers in Eleventh-Century Polyphony: How Can Continental Sources Contribute to Our Understanding of the Winchester Organa?". In Rankin, Susan; Hiley, David (eds.). Music in the Medieval English Liturgy: Plainsong & Mediaeval Music Society Centennial Essays. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Frere, Walter Howard (1894). The Winchester troper from MSS. of the Xth and XIth centuries with other documents illustrating the history of tropes in England and France. London: Henry Bradshaw Society.
Handschin, J. (January 1936; April 1936). "The Two Winchester Tropers". Journal of Theological Studies. 37. nos. 145-146.
Hiley, David; Rankin, Susan, eds. (1993). Music in the Medieval English Liturgy . Plainsong & Mediaeval Music Society Centennial Essays. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-316125-7.
Hiley, David (1995). “The Repertory of Sequences at Winchester.” In Boone, Graeme M. (ed). Essays on Medieval Music on Honor of David G. Hughes. In Boone, Greame M. (ed.). Isham Library Papers 4. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Hiley, David (1998). “The English Benedictine Version of the Historia Sancti Gregorii and the Date of the ‘Winchester Troper’ (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, 473).” In Dobszay, László (ed.). Cantus Planus: Papers Read at the Seventh Meeting, Sopron, 1995. Budapest: Hungarian Academy of Sciences Institute for Musicology.
Huglo, Michel (1993). Rankin, Susan; Hiley, David (eds.). Music in the Medieval English Liturgy: Plainsong & Mediaeval Music Society Centennial Essays. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Holschneider, Andreas (1968). Die Organa von Winchester : Studien zum ältesten Repertoire polyphoner Musik. Hildesheim: G. Olms.
Planchart, Alejandro Enrique (1977). The Repertory of Tropes at Winchester. 2 Vols. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Rankin, Susan (1993). "Winchester Polyphony: The Early Theory and Practice of Organum". In Rankin, Susan; Hiley, David (eds.). Music in the Medieval English Liturgy: Plainsong and Mediaeval Music Society Centennial Essays. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Rankin, Susan (2007). The Winchester Troper: Facsimile Edition and Introduction. London: Stainer and Bell. ISBN 0-85249-894-2.
Rankin, Susan (2015). "Organa dulcisona docto modulamine compta: Rhetoric and Musical Composition in the Winchester Organa". In Zayaruznaya, Anna; Blackburn, Bonnie J.; Boorman, Stanley (eds.). Qui musicam in se habet: Studies in Honor of Alejandro Enrique Planchart. Middleton, Wisconsin: American Institute of Musicology.