Asperges Source Manuscripts

OMagnumMysterium

I've been working on a research project on the various tones of the Asperges, and have run into a few dead ends, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to check here. There are many resourceful people on this forum!

I am particularly looking for the following manuscripts (or any useful leads):

- Anything which may shed light on this mode 8 Ambrosian tone which I found through CPDL. The website (old.cantoambrosiano.com) is no longer up, but it is partially archived on the wayback machine. I have tried contacting Giovanni Vianini using the email on the score, but my emails do not go through, it seems the address is no longer in use.

- The source(s) of the mode 1 Asperges in the Kyriale compiled by Peter Holger Sandhofe. It is given as sixteenth or seventeenth century, so it is not hugely important to me, but it would still be good to get the full picture together and have all the information. I believe it is probably a variant of the mode VII tones. If it is cantus fractus that would be exciting, but I'm not holding my breath.

- Additional sources of a mode 2 Asperges found in GB-Dru Cosin. Actually, just suffice it to say that I am very interested in any alternate tones which differ from those in the Vatican Kyriale, whether I've already found some version of them or not. I have already gone through the cantus database and cantus index. But perhaps there are other collections of which I am not aware.

tomjaw

I have found this, http://gregorianik.uni-regensburg.de/gr/#id/2959

tomjaw

Also we have this from the Processionale Sarum (Paris, 1519) Bodleian copy

OMagnumMysterium

Thanks.

The first link I have already been working from since this summer. Certainly indispensable though!

The Processionale Sarum image is curious to consider. Basically just a later MS of the mode 4, so not super important in that regard, but it is fascinating of its own accord. Particularly, looking at the diamonds and virgas, I wonder what their signification is. Is it a matter of emphasis? Or is it what I call a "free rhythm of proportional values" such as the Dumont Masses appear to be? They don't seem to be inherited directly from pitch signs showing lower or higher notes, and they don't seem to form a real measured rhythm, unless perhaps I just don't know how to read them right. Then also there is the second verse from psalm 50, as I've also noticed in the Dominican book(s). That's a good tradition to document.

These aren't really what I'm looking for, but I appreciate it nonetheless!

GerardH

It looks like Canto Ambrosiano is now at cantoambrosiano.altervista.org. The Asperges you started with is on page 629 of the Antiphonale Missarum Mediolanensis (1935), although that source might too recent for your needs.

OMagnumMysterium

Thank you! That is a good lead, I'll check it out.

a_f_hawkins

OMagnumMysterium Here is the way Maerbecke used the notation in 1549. And he would have been trying to use the current English understanding of notation to convey chanted speech.

OMagnumMysterium

Thanks, a_f_hawkins.

I am a bit confused trying to read the guide you posted above. Trying to translate to the modern English I'm used to, it seems to be something like:

"In this book is contained so much of the Order of Common prayer as is to belong in Churches: wherein are ? only these four sorts of notes,

The first note is a strene(?) note and is a breve. The second a square note, and is a semibreve. The third a pycke(?) and is a minim. And when there is a plycke by the square note, that plycke is half as much as the note that goes before it. The fourth is a close, and is only (?) at the(?) end."

I am completely puzzled by the word that appears to be "bsed" or "vsed", and I might have gotten some of the other words wrong as well. Practically speaking, I am also a little baffled. Is the first note just representing the virga, despite its two stems? Going off of the terms "breve," "semibreve," and "minim," I suppose the second note in the guide is double the first, and the third double the second. And then the virga is only longer at the end, otherwise it's the same as a square? It's not quite clear to me.

OMagnumMysterium

Regarding the Ambrosian Asperges, it seems to be transcribed (as GerardH helpfully found) directly from the Ambrosian Antiphonale Missarum. Considering that it was published in the 1930s, I'm going to assume that the people who compiled it, the ones who could actually tell me the sources, are dead, or at least out of my reach. So I think my best bet would be to just start going through any available Ambrosian manuscript sources, starting with the oldest, and see what I can find. If I can find sections with Kyriale material in general, that would be very helpful for my next phases (after the Asperges, I intend to continue with the rest of the Kyriale).

So if anyone is able to point me in the direction of early Ambrosian manuscripts, I will start looking through those, and see what comes up.

GerardH

I've posted an answer, but it's awaiting moderation - paging @chonak

a_f_hawkins

Re- Maerbecke's explanatory note
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia -
In music, a double whole note (American), breve (British) or double note lasts two times as long as a whole note (or semibreve). Minim, British English for a half note.
So the tailed note is the longest, the square is a whole note (American), and the diamond a half note.
I don't know why musical terminology is so different in different places/countries. 'breve' means short, how it got to be the longest symbol in regular use I do not understand.

Printers at this time were still trying to make what looked like manuscript (literally hand writing). The last line says 'only used at the end', the mystery symbol is þ with an e above it, þ is the obsolete† letter thorn still then used for the th in 'the'. About the mid 16th century printers substituted y for þ, which is why you get people thinking our forefathers said 'ye' when they meant 'the'.
† still used in Icelandic

GerardH

@OMagnumMysterium, try the 1845 edition of Merbecke's book (available on IMSLP). The text you quote, modernised is below. I'm not sure what strene or prycke are supposed to mean - perhaps this paper (behind paywall) will shed some light.

The first note is a strene note, and is a breve. The second a square note, and is a semibreve. The third a prycke, and is a minim. And when there is a prycke by the square note, that prycke is half as much as the note that goes before it. The fourth is a close, and is only used at the end of a verse.

GerardH

@a_f_hawkins Sometimes I forget that there are parts of the world which don't refer to notes as breves, semibreves, minims, crotchets, quavers and semiquavers! A breve is brief compared to a longa - I'm guessing those two were the original basis of the system.

OMagnumMysterium

Thanks guys. Yes, I've read a bit into the old system of mensural notation, based around the longa and breve, but with extensive doubled and halved values stretching in both directions. My understanding is that the tendency of printers to use shorter and shorter values was an attempt to fight the tendency of singers going too slow and letting the tempo drag. But this may be fictitious, I'm not sure.

That bit about thorn is good to know. I figured the word was "the" just from context, although somehow I couldn't put my finger on "used," but it makes a lot of sense now.

One thing still confusing me about the application of Merbecke's guide is this: if the virga is only long at the end, are all the other virgas just functionally squares? Perhaps a remnant of the adiestematic neumes which use virgas for higher notes and tractuli for lower notes? Although the mode 4 Asperges above was never notated in adiestematic neumes, to my knowledge.

So, if our values are breve (B), semibreve (S), minim (M), and some "closing" length (C) I think the Asperges above would be:

S S S S S S SS SS S SS SS B S SSS SS SS SS S S SS S S SS SS S S C| S S S S S S S S| S M S S S S S S S S SS SMM C| S S S S S M M M S S M M M S M S S C| S M S M S S SS SMM C| . . . Gloria Patria etc.

Is that right?

a_f_hawkins

I should have remembered to check the University of Waterloo resources! https://sarum-chant.ca/processional/ just a few pages in for their rendering.

OMagnumMysterium

Interesting. That is pretty similar to the image from tomjaw above, but does not use single minims for any syllables. Also, I notice now that towjaw's image has no flats notated, while the re-typeset edition does.

At the Sarum chant website, they don't distinguish between the different note shapes in their recordings, so it is just equalist chant (sung briskly). The 1519 Processionale Sarum image, combined with the Maerbecke explanation, seems to suggest a mensural interpretation of proportional durations. But the durations are not combined in an intuitive way. Perhaps it was easier for the people who sang at that time, because they were used to it. But I would really struggle to sing "secundum" in the first verse as semibreve-minim-semibreve, after having the semibreve as my beat/unit of measurement for the whole piece up to that point.

Richard Mix

The only surviving use of "strene", says OED, appears to be Merbecke's. The usual names of his 2nd, 3rd, & 4th would be "breve" "semibreve" & "longa". I guess if the 'strene' were interpreted as a plicated long it would have the value of Merbecke's halved "breve".

a_f_hawkins

The article ‘Stroke’ and ‘strene’ notation in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century equal-note cantus firmi found by GerardH (whose cost is more than my interest) has over 40 footnotes to pursue (effort also more than my interest). It seems to be have been an English peculiarity.

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