Image a) | Image b) | Image c) | Image d) | |
The following four pictures show excerpts from
manuscripts dating from the 12th to the 15th centuries as
a means of demonstrating the various kinds of notation in
use: a) The first example comes from a Graduale of the
Antiphonary of St. Peter (written around 1160 in
Salzburg). The neumes were written without lines above
the text. b) The manuscript Graz Codex 807 was written
around the year 1160 in St. Nicholaus in Passau. It is
one of the most important sources of chant, especially
for the so-called German Chant Dialect. This name was
introduced for certain characteristic deviations from the
Roman chant, which originated around 1100 in Southern
German Monasteries and then were wide-spread in Middle
Europe. As a means of identifying the tones, Metz neumes
were drawn on four lines, of which the f -line was
colored red and the c-line yellow. c) The scribe
Friedrich Rosula used quadratic notation for the
manuscript Codex 29 of the University Library Graz. The
Codex was written in 1345 in St. Lambrecht. The example
shows Christ schepfer alles des da ist, a Middle
High German translation of the Latin Hymn Rex
Christe. Here we can only see text and musical
markings but the Middle High German interpolation
consistently employs lovely quadratic notation. The
melody is the same as the chant except for several
changes required by the text, which is itself only an
approximate translation. d) This picture shows Codex 9 of the University
Library Graz, a Graduale Cisterciense (Cistercian Graduale), which was
probably also written for Neuberg an der Mürz. It dates back to the first
half of the 15th c. and uses the so-called "Hufnagelnotation" (i.e.
horse-nail notation or gothic chant notes). The lower voice is a chant
melody but the upper one is newly-composed; both of them however have been
given a trope, i.e. a text was set to fit the music. (E. Stadler)
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