Stock Gradual Melisma Terminations
  • matthaeusglyptes
    Posts: 13
    Do there happen to be formulaic melismatic phrases tacked onto the end of Gradual verses to bring them back to the root, and which are normally omitted from medieval Graduales? I'm trying to transcribe some Graduals from a medieval source and certain final phrases seem to be lacking when compared with modern Solesmes and Vatican editions. Does anyone have more information on this? One notable phrase, for instance, occurs at the ending of Haec Dies. I've found this final phrase on a number of Graduals where it is lacking in the medieval counterparts. Thanks for your help.
  • Protasius
    Posts: 468
    Perhaps the pneumata are of help here, melismata attached to the repetition of Vespers antiphons after the psalm/canticle in many Northern European Uses of the Roman Rite. The Sarum pneumata can be found at sarum-chant.ca on page 38 of the linked PDF file.
    Thanked by 1matthaeusglyptes
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    Are you using Mediaeval scores with quadratic notation of neumatic notation in campo aperto? Do you have a copy of the Graduale Triplex? If you don't have the Triplex, get it!

    In the neumatic sources final melismata which are stereotyped are often not written more than once for any given type of gradual. So, for the Haec Dies family of Mode II graduals that melisma is only written out in full once, and it is simply begun in the others to jog the memory, etc.

    I ran into this (again) this week in doing some prep work for an EF Mass that might possibly happen at my parish for Sunday IX after Pentecost. The gradual is Domine Dominus noster, and is a mode V gradual, the Respond ends with the melisma from the Respond of Viderunt omnes; the Verse with the melisma from Christus Factus est. In both cases only the initial notes of the melismata are indicated in St. Gall. Laon gives the melisma for the Restpond, but gives a copyists' shorthand notation after the initial notes of the final jubilus.
    Thanked by 2matthaeusglyptes M. Jackson Osborn
  • matthaeusglyptes
    Posts: 13
    Thanks for the info. I'd never heard of this. Is there a book that goes over these details?
    I'm using German-area graduals with typeset hobnail notation from 1511 and 1513. The dialectal skipping of B is present so it would be nice to find out where the omitted melismata are in the Gradual so that my terminating melismata can match dialectally… What I love of course is how the Alleluias are so nicely reflected in the Sequences.
  • matthaeusglyptes
    Posts: 13
    I've looked through the whole Gradual and the extra melismas are nowhere. Furthermore, several of the graduals in it have several abbreviations throughout the piece (compared with Solesmes e.g.), nor is there any indication that an abbreviation has been made. It simply lacks those melismas.
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