Asperges Source Manuscripts
  • OMagnumMysterium
    Posts: 266
    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.
    image

    - 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.
    A Asperges me1.pdf
    29K
    asperges ambrosian.png
    1145 x 615 - 79K
  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,787
    I have found this, http://gregorianik.uni-regensburg.de/gr/#id/2959
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen OMagnumMysterium
  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,787
    Also we have this from the Processionale Sarum (Paris, 1519) Bodleian copy image
    Sarum Asperges.png
    958 x 874 - 520K
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen OMagnumMysterium
  • OMagnumMysterium
    Posts: 266
    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!
    Thanked by 1tomjaw
  • GerardH
    Posts: 466
    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.
    Thanked by 2OMagnumMysterium CHGiffen
  • OMagnumMysterium
    Posts: 266
    Thank you! That is a good lead, I'll check it out.
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,472
    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.
    Untitled 1x.pdf
    243K
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