Mozarabic chant
  • aldrich
    Posts: 230
    Hi!

    Does anyone here know Mozarabic chant? Or someone who knows about it? Doesn't matter if that someone speaks Spanish, I converse rather fluently in Spanish.

    Thanks!
  • mahrt
    Posts: 517
    Mozarabic chant was sung in Latin. It was replaced by Roman (Gregorian) chant at the stage when the only notation was staffless neumes, and so, in spite of the fact that we have the whole repertory in staffless notation, we cannot read it. All we can read are a few such chants that were then transcribed into a pitch-specific notation.
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  • Protasius
    Posts: 468
    I thought the cathedral of Toledo had retained Mozarabic chant.
  • I, too: can you elaborate, Dr Mahrt?
  • jpal
    Posts: 365
    It was suppressed after Spain was recovered from the Moors, but revived in the Tridentine period just in Toledo. I suppose the question is how closely does the current repertoire resemble the preserved repertoire to which Dr. Mahrt refers, if at all. The chant survived in a few places despite the suppression, so there was a continuous tradition to tap for the restoration at Toledo.

    Ah...according to this, new editions of the Mozarabic chant were made around 1500--based, however, not on the old manuscripts, but on the oral tradition, and presumably in the predominating Gregorian notation. So perhaps that accounts for what is currently being sung?
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  • aldrich
    Posts: 230
    Mozarabic chant was sung in Mozarabic Latin, meaning the Late Latin register prevalent in Iberia. It persisted throughout the Muslim occupation of Al-Andalus until the Reconquista when Gregorian chant slowly supplanted it, thanks in part to the appointment of a French primate to the See of Toledo. Years later, the chant died in most parishes in the primatial See, except in some 5 or 7 parishes.

    It was Cardinal Cisneros who revived the Mozarabic Rite, but by that time, they could no longer reconstruct the lost performance practice of the Mozarabic chant. The amalgamation of Mozarabic and Gregorian elements constitute what "Mozarabic chant" is today, a knowledgeable person of which I need. I have a set of chants from a parish in my country and we could not find any discernible concordance between it and the pre-Solesmes graduals. Someone has noted before that if not for the description, he would have thought the chants were Mozarabic.

    Which explains why I'm looking for someone who knows this chant form.
  • Hi folks,

    I was digging through the archives as I'm planning a recital of music from the Spanish Empire. Does anyone know where I might be able to find Mozarabic chant for Advent/Christmas? Would the Mozarabic rite ever have been used in the colonies of the Spanish Empire?

    Thanks in advance :)
  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,704
    Edward

    https://societyofstbede.wordpress.com/2014/12/21/4th-sunday-of-advent/

    I can complete the missing hymn from the melodies I have found, I think I may have the Christmas texts, and should find a melody of two.

    One problem is the 'original' melodies... see below,

    http://gregorian-chant.ning.com/group/chantwisigothiquemozarabe/forum/topics/index-of-mozarabic-chant
    and
    http://gregorian-chant.ning.com/group/chantwisigothiquemozarabe/forum/topics/evaluating-computationally-restored-mozarabic-chants

    I did find a website on the Mozarabic breviary, but it only had some of the texts.

    Regards from London

    Tom

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  • ViolaViola
    Posts: 394
    Perhaps slightly off topic, but we (in the north of Scotland) regularly sing the Our Father to a Mozarabic chant.