Old Roman Chant
OLD ROMAN CHANT
The chant of Rome exists in two versions: Gregorian, found especially in musical manuscripts copied in Carolingian domains beginning in the late 9th century, and Old Roman, known from a small group of musical manuscripts—three graduals, two antiphoners, and an orational—written in Rome between 1071 and c. 1250.
Comparison of Old Roman and Gregorian. Comparison of the two reveals essentially the same Mass and Office structure, calendar, and texts, though with minor differences, e.g., in the Old Roman, the absence of a Mass for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, a special Vespers for Easter week, the lack of hymns, the use of only eight responsories in Matins, and a "double" Matins Office for certain feasts. More striking are the musical differences, showing two distinct yet cognate melodic traditions. In general, one finds similar melodic shapes, confirming the common origin of both melodic repertories, but independent stylistic development, the Old Roman presenting a more ornate version of the repertory as the brief excerpt illustrates.
Many theories have been proposed to explain which is the older or original melodic version; to what the melodic and liturgical differences can be ascribed; when, how, and why the "split" into two traditions occurred; and why the Gregorian is not found in Rome before c. 1250 (the manuscript evidence suggests only the Old Roman was known in Rome before this time). Mocquereau focused attention on the Old Roman chant (which he called "Vatican") as early as 1891, concluding from a study of three of the sources that the Old Roman melodies constituted a post–Gregorian transformation. Andoyer's slightly later studies revealed a more ancient liturgical practice in the Old Roman and the absence of feasts known to have been added to the Gregorian after c. 800; he therefore classified the repertory as pre–Gregorian. A summary of more recent thinking follows.
Recent Theories. On the basis of historical–liturgical evidence [M. Andrieu, Les 'Ordines Romani' du haut moyen–âge, 5 v. 3 (Louvain 1951) 211–227], Bruno Stäblein believes that both chants are of Roman origin and that the Old Roman version is earlier, revised into the Gregorian in the late 7th century. Joseph Smits van Waesberghe points to certain veiled references in the Liber Pontificalis to a struggle for liturgical primacy between Roman monks and clergy in the 7th century as further testimony that two chants may have existed in Rome at this time, one for each group. Other such evidence has attracted still other scholars to this view. Nevertheless, caution must be exercised here for the historical testimony has been shown to be sometimes totally unreliable and often ambiguous. However probable this theory may seem, no unequivocal evidence for it has yet been found.
Other research has sought answers primarily from the music itself. Helmut Hucke, for example, comparing the gradual chants of both repertories, concludes that the more direct, less ornate Gregorian melodies are later transformations of the Old Roman, made not in Rome but in a different stylistic climate with different aesthetic preferences—in Carolingian France. Walther Lipphardt, however, sees the Old Roman as the later version, produced not by revision but as the result of a presumed oral tradition in Rome. Taking into account the appearance of Gregorian–chant manuscripts in the Carolingian empire beginning around the end of the 9th century, but the total lack of any musical manuscripts in Rome before 1071, he suggests the chant that accompanied the Roman liturgy into France in the 9th century was the Gregorian, known orally in Rome but written down and fixed in France. The Old Roman is the result of two more centuries of oral transmission of those same melodies in Rome. Hence, Lipphardt proposes that we have the Roman chant in two stages of development: in the 9th–century form as recorded in France, and in the 11th–century form as recorded in Rome.
The Old Roman manuscript evidence seems, at least for the present, to complicate rather than clarify the situation. The paucity of musical sources—only six—could be explained by presuming the Old Roman remained an orally transmitted tradition up to its demise in the second half of the 13th century. These few manuscripts, then, may have served primarily to help ensure conformity in the oral tradition, or to help aid memory, or even just to preserve this unique melodic repertory. Moreover, in certain places, e.g., the antiphons of the Psalter and the Office for the Dead, melodic divergencies among the sources containing these melodies are so great as to suggest manuscript redaction directly from oral tradition. Most often, however, the sources reveal virtual identity for pieces in common, indicating a uniform and well–established written tradition. Possibly, then, some interplay between oral and written forms of the Old Roman chant may have existed.
In any case, all theories advanced so far should be considered inconclusive. The historical–liturgical evidence is of doubtful value; the meaning of the manuscript evidence is unclear; and the musical studies are incomplete. At present, we are still unable to determine whether the melodic differences between Old Roman and Gregorian can be attributed to evolution in an oral tradition, to different stylistic developments, or to deliberate reform; or whether the general assumption, valid in other disciplines, that the more ornate version of something is necessarily later applies here. What is needed most now is a systematic, exhaustive musical comparison of the two melodic repertories. Perhaps then it will be possible to describe more exactly their relationship and to trace more clearly the development of each.
Bibliography: w. apel, "The Central Problem of Gregorian Chant," Journal of the American Musicological Society 9 (1956) 118–127. p. f. cutter, "The Question of the 'Old–Roman' Chant: A Reappraisal," Acta Musicologica 39 (1967) 2–20. s. j. p. van dijk, "The Urban and Papal Rites in Seventh– and Eighth–Century Rome," Sacris erudiri, xii (1961), 411–87; "The Old Roman Rite," Studia patristica, v (1962), 185–205; "Recent Developments in the Study of the Old–Roman Rite," Studia patristica, 8 (1966), 299–319. p. peacock "The Problem of the Old Roman Chant," Essays Presented to Egon Wellesz, ed. j. westrup (Oxford 1966), 43–7. p. f. cutter, "The Old–Roman Chant Tradition: Oral or Written?," Journal of the American Musicological Society, 20 (1967), 167–89. t. connolly, "Introits and Archetypes: Some Archaisms of the Old Roman Chant," Journal of the American Musicological Society 25 (1972), 157–74. p. f. cutter, "Oral Transmission of the Old–Roman Responsories?," Musical Quarterly, 62 (1976), 182–94. h. hucke, "Toward a New Historical View of Gregorian Chant," Journal of the American Musicological Society 33 (1980), 437–67. j. dyer, "Latin Psalters, Old Roman and Gregorian Chants," Kirchenmusikalisches Jahrbuch 67 (1984), 11–30. p. bernard, "Sur un aspect controversé de la réforme carolingienne: 'vieux–romain' et 'grégorien'," Ecclesia orans, vii (1990), 163–89. t. karp, "Interrelationships between Old Roman and Gregorian Chant," Cantus Planus IV: Pécs 1990, 187–203. m. bezuidenhout, "The Old and New Historical Views of Gregorian Chant: Papal and Franciscan Plainchant in Thirteenth–Century Rome," International Musicological Society: Congress Report v. 15 (Madrid 1992). d. hiley, Western Plainchant: A Handbook (Oxford 1993), 530–40. j. dyer, "Prolegomena to a History of Music and Liturgy at Rome during the Middle Ages," Essays on Medieval Music in Honor of David G. Hughes, ed. g. m. boone (Cambridge, Mass. 1995), 87–115. p. bernard, Du chant romain au chant grégorien (Paris 1996).
[p. cutter/eds.]