Gripla - 01.01.2003, Page 16

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GRIPLA
Rask 98 also contains three single-voiced pieces from the Buchanan/
Olthof psalter: two tenor parts and a bass part. “Guð, himna gæðum” (no. 149)
is the lowest voice of Olthof s setting of Psalm 26 (Me vi tyrannus).'9 The
other two single-voiced parts in Rask 98 are notated at different pitch levels
than the original Olthof settings. “Öll jörð frammi fyrir Drottni” (no. 177) is
the tenor line of Secum insania. Whereas the original mode of Olthof s setting
is A-Aeolian, the manuscript version is written a perfect fifth too low, which
changes its modality of the piece to a Dorian mode on D. “Viljir þú varast hér”
(no. 190) is the tenor part of Si vitare velis, but written a whole step too low,
tuming the original mode of G-Aeolian into F-Lydian.20 It is not clear why the
scribe of Rask 98 would notate these tenor parts in modes different from the
original. Since this manuscript contains few errors, scribal incompetence
seems an unlikely cause. One possible explanation might be that the scribe
was not copying from a written source, but rather transcribing from an oral
one. In that case he may have been correctly notating a manner of singing the
melodies that was no longer fully compliant with Olthof s original score.21
Six two-part pieces from the Olthof/Buchanan psalter (to Icelandic texts)
appear in JS 643 4to, a paper manuscript written around 1700 that contains ten
two-part polyphonic pieces. According to Páll Eggert Ólason, JS 643 4to is in
the hand of Sigurður Jónsson of Holt in Önundarfjörður (1643-1730).22 How-
ever, the 198-page manuscript appears to be the work of more than one scribe,
and only a small part of it (145r—151 v) contains musical notation. Whether or
not the part containing music was written by Sigurður Jónsson, the notation
19 IÞ, 284-285 (here the bass line is transposed up a whole tone to G major, for no apparent
reason). Bjami Þorsteinsson recognized the obviously non-melodic character of this piece,
calling it a “kind of Bass-solo” (“nokkurs konar Bas-sóló”). He also pointed to the similarity
between this piece and the equally bass-like Vera mátt góður (Rask 98 no. 138; ÍÞ, 280-
281), for which no source has yet been discovered. Other pieces of unknown origin in Ice-
landic post-Reformation manuscripts may well tum out to be the lower voices of four-part
compositions. Among likely candidates from Rask 98 are Kónginum kónga kónglegt lof (no.
56, see ÍÞ, 234—235), and Sem trú mín eins er í raun (no. 181, see ÍÞ, 297).
20 ÍÞ, 295, 301.
21 The oral component involved in the transmission of music in Icelandic manuscripts should
not be underestimated. Leo Treitler has argued that musical transmission during the Middle
Ages should be seen as “a process of repeated and successive re-creation” in which the scribe
was “copying and remembering and composing, all at once” (“The Transmission of Medie-
val Music,” Speculum 56, 482). The modal transpositions in Rask 98 may reflect a similar
attitude to writing and copying music.
22 Páll Eggert Ólason, Skrá um handritasöfn Landsbókasafnsins, vol. 2, 615-616; M M vol. 4,
672. See also ÍÆ vol. 4, 234-5.