Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1968, Page 27
tion with the sequence-melody, and was regarded as the only legitimate
one, or whether others might be admissible as well (e. g. that in the
Skara manuscript), we do not know. But the latter presumption seems
the more probable one.
While the Icelandic manuscripts furnish almost all sequences with
an Amen, and that in the Roman Catholic form, the Norwegian ones
almost never have any Amen, and practically none in that form. The
inference is, that rather than use this, the Norwegians dropped the
Amen altogether, or - if they wished to use it (as in the two Olavus-
sequences) — composed free melodies to which to sing it.
An indication that, in France, the attitude vis-å-vis the Roman
Catholic Amen-melody has been the same as that supposed among the
Norwegians, we seem to get from the page of a Sequence Book (Bibi.
Nat. f. lat. 14452) reproduced in Misset and Aubry, Les proses d’Adam
de St. Victor, of which the upper part is here presented in facsimile.
—S—
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With the topmost line a sequence ends, to which the word “amen”
is added. Above this “amen” the Roman Catholic melody has originally
been written, but has been erased afterwards.
Another difference between the music of Norwegian and that of
Icelandic manuscripts which we should expect to find, and which to
some extent we really do find, will be discussed here.
The Swiss Professor, Peter Wagner, in the second volume of his
work “Einfiihrung in die gregorianischen Melodien”, 1912, draws at-
tention to a difference between what he calls Romanesque and German
melody forms, and connects the latter with Gothic architecture as
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