Neume samples
  • gregpgregp
    Posts: 632
    For educational purposes, I was wondering if anyone out there knows a site or a page that I can print for chant beginners that shows how a single chant melody has been notated through the ages. I was going to use page 29 from the Summer 2008 issue of "Sacred Music", which shows "Terribilis Est" from various 15th and 16th century Gradualia alongside a 1903 version from the Liber Usualis, but there's nothing there from the hand written manuscripts. I was going to print it out from my Triplex, but it's too 'interwoven' with the 'modern' version.

    Ideally I'd like to have a something that shows the first line of a chant starting from the handwritten neumes going all the way to the current Graduale Romanum. The online St. Gall is wonderful (I was going to use the "Christus Factus est" from the Codex Sang. 359), but then I have no examples from the early 10th to the early 20th centuries.

    AM I nuts? Is there nothing out there that shows this kind of (I hope) continuity across 10 centuries?
  • RagueneauRagueneau
    Posts: 2,592
    There needs to be
  • dvalerio
    Posts: 341
    I had a teacher of Gregorian Chant (in a summer school) who did just that in one of his first classes: he gave us photocopies showing how the notation of the Introit «Suscepimus Deus» (Purification) changed along the times. Unfortunately I do not have his photocopies here, have no way to scan them at home, and the result would be of a low quality anyway.

    I remember two sites:

    a) This site, presenting a quite complete overview of gregorian chant for beginners, does have some examples of notation change: check in particular this page.

    b) You also can use the book Gregorian Chant by Apel, a classic, useful on many other accounts: check pages 144 and ff. of the PDF file (scanned with a low resolution, unfortunately), with images commented upon in chapter 2.
  • gregpgregp
    Posts: 632
    davlerio, that was perfect! Thanks very much.
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