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Early settings of the Kyrie eleison and the problem of genre definition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2009

David Bjork
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Extract

Chant scholarship provides a fairly standard description of the Kyrie, in terms expressing very clearly what a typical example was like in the post-Carolingian era. There is no disagreement here, as there is with the sequence and trope, over how to treat the genre. Describing it seems to be a simple task. The chants are nine phrases long, with one phrase for each petition of the Ordinary text:

The relation among the phrases varies from complete identity of all nine to nearly the opposite extreme, yet in most cases the phrases are grouped by threes, giving the melody a tripartite shape like that of the text. Certain of the melodies were sometimes underlaid with syllabic texts expanding or replacing the Ordinary petitions (e.g.: Kyriefons bonitatis, Pater ingenite, a quo bona cuncta procedunt, eleison). Medieval commentaries on the liturgy (such as Amalar's Liber officialis) and exegesis of these texts make it clear that the Kyrie was thought of as being Trinitarian, with the first three petitions directed to the Father, the next three to the Son, and the last three to the Holy Spirit.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Plainsong & Mediaeval Music Society , Volume 3 , January 1980 , pp. 40 - 48
Copyright
© The Plainsong and Medieval Music Society 1980

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References

Notes

1 (p.40) Apel, Willi: Gregorian Chant (Bloomington, 1958), pp.405–408, 431–432 Google Scholar; Melnicki, Margaretha: Das einstimmige Kyrie des lateinischen Mittelalters (Regensburg, 1954)Google Scholar; Stäblein, Bruno: ‘Kyrie’, Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, vii, 1931–1946 Google Scholar; Wagner, Peter: Einführung in die gregorianischen Melodien (3 vols.; 3rd edn., Leipzig, 1911–1921), i, pp.71–76 and iii, pp.440–448, 504–505 Google Scholar.

2 (p.40) Kyrie, Vatican II, found with its text in Variae Preces (Solesmes, 1901), pp.165–167 Google Scholar.

3 (p.40) Except for the Trinitarian interpretation of the Kyrie, which is not an important feature of the early repertory; see Jonsson, Ritva: ‘Amalaire de Metz et les tropes du Kyrie eleison’, Classica et mediaevalia. Francisco Blatt septuagenario dedicata, ed. Due, O.S. et al. [Classica et mediaevalia, dissertationes, 9] (Copenhagen, 1973), pp.510–540 Google Scholar; and Bjork, David A.: ‘The early Prankish Kyrie text’, Viator, 12 (1981)Google Scholar.

4 (p.40) The notable exception is Crocker, Richard's ‘The troping hypothesis’, The Musical Quarterly, 42 (1966), pp.183–203 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 (p.40) See my article cited in n.3.

6 (p.40) In tenth- and eleventh-century sources it was evidently unusual to notate a Kyrie in its syllabic version alone, without melismatic repetition of each phrase, yet afterwards it became conventional to do so, or to give only the melismatic version. Some late medieval sources – particularly in France and England – have a good number of texted Kyries and perhaps a few, separate melismatic settings, while others – the vast majority elsewhere – have only the melismatic Ordinary settings. Such differences in notation would of course be reflected in performance.

7 (p.40) No.102 in Melnicki's catalogue (see n.l); no.6 in Blume, Clemens's edition: Tropen zum Ordinarium Missae, Analecta Hymnica Medii Aevi, xlvii (Leipzig, 1905)Google Scholar. Compare the version from F-CHR 520, ff.296–296v, in Fragments des manuscrits de Chartres, Paléographie Musicale, xvii, ed. Delaporte, Yves (Solesmes, 1958)Google Scholar.

8 (p.43) Schriftbild der einstimmigen Musik, Musikgeschichte in Bildern, , iii/4 (Leipzig, 1975), p.118 Google Scholar.

9 (p.43) No.39 in Melnicki's catalogue; no.3 in Analecta Hymnica, xlvii.

Varia: U ‘presso’: G G instead of E E in all other diastematic sources; X has been altered so as to agree more closely with V than in other sources; 9: the last two neumes are combined ab aG over ‘-son’.

Compare the version from CH-SGs 484 in Gautier, Léon: Histoire de la poésie liturgique au moyen âge. Les tropes, I (Paris, 1886), pp.229–233 Google Scholar; and the one from I-Rc 1741 (C.IV.2), f.6v, in Vecchi, Giuseppe, ed.: Troparium sequentiarium Nonantulanum, Cod. Casanat. 1741, Monumenta Lyrica Medii Aevi Italica, I: Latina, 1 (Modena, 1955)Google Scholar.

10 (p.43) For more examples and a survey of the repertory of Kyrie tropes, see my article ‘The Kyrie Trope’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 33 (1980), pp.1–41 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 (p.45) For an example of each type see my article cited n.10, exx.l and 2.

12 (p.45) For Stäblein's transcription of this piece, see ex.14 of his article ‘Kyrie’ (cited n.l above).

13 (p.45) For a partial facsimile of the former, see Plate 18 in Holschneider, Andreas: Die Organa von Winchester (Hildesheim, 1968)Google Scholar.

14 (p.45) For a transcription, see ex.4 in my article cited in n.10.

15 (p.45) Facsimile: pl.18 in Holschneider, op.cit. Transcription, as a two-voice organum: Planchart, Alejandro: The Repertory of Tropes at Winchester (2 vols.; Princeton, 1977), i, pp.310–313 Google Scholar.

16 (p.45) No.68 in Melnicki's catalogue; no.86 in Analecta Hymnica, xlvii. Sources: D-Mbs lat. 14322, f.102; GB-Ob Selden Supra 27, f.84; D-Kl theol.IVo 15, f.173v; A–KR 309, f.183.

17 (p.45) No.39 in Melnicki's catalogue; no.12a in Analecta Hymnica, xlvii. Source: D-Kl theol. IVo 15, f.174v.

18 (p.45) No.48 in Melnicki's catalogue; no.31 in Analecta Hymnica, xlvii. Sources: D-Mbs lat. 14322, f.110, and lat.14083, f.102v; and more than a dozen later ones.

19 (p.45) F-MZ 452, f.13; and I-Ac 695, f.5.

20 (p.45) Facsimile and transcription: Anglès, Higini: La Música a Catalunya fins al Segle XIII (Barcelona, 1935), pp.209–210 Google Scholar.

21 (p. 45) D-Mbs lat. 14322, f.102v and lat.14083, f. 102v; D-B theol.lat.IVo 11, f.80; D-Kl theol. IVo 15, f.174v.

22 (p.45) Transcription: ex.3 in my article cited n.10.

23 (p.45) No.52 in Melnicki's catalogue; no.109 in Analecta Hymnica, xlvii. Compare the versions from I-BV VI.34, ff.32, 129 and 278v, in Paléographie musicale, xv; and the one from I-Rvat lat.5319, f.147, in Monumenta Monodica Medii Aevi, ii, pp.589–591.

24 (p.46) For a survey and inventory of the early manuscript sources, see my article ‘Early repertories of the Kyrie eleison ’, Kirchenmusikalisches Jahrbuch, 63 (1979)Google Scholar.