Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1968, Qupperneq 34

The transcriptions of Dr. Haberl — Mundering though they may seem —
have the redeeming feature that, through lengthening the former syllable
of the trochee, it makes the metre felt, so that the text is perceived
as poetry; indeed, the measure of his transcription of the music of the
verse line from “Lauda Syon”, quoted here above (“panis vivus et
vitalis”), is the same as that of the Swiss-French huguenot hymn (harm-
onized by Goudimel) paraphrasing the 42nd Psalm (the 4lst in the
Vulgata), “Comme on voit un cerf qui bråme”.1
1. Professor Peter Wagner, in his “Einfuhrung in die gregorianischen Melodien”,
stated the opinion with regard to melodies composed to metrical texts that - in the
oldest specimens, the so-called Ambrosian hymns (not “Te deum”) and those from
the nearest following time - in performance they were strictly connected to the
metre, viz. used long tones on (formerly long, latterly) accentuated syllables, and
short ones on the others (his erroneous assertion that the metre of hymns such as
“Aeterne rerum conditor” is the antique iambic dimeter, does not affect the mo-
mentousness of his other statements). Certainly, since the token of a single
tone - both neuma and choral note - could not signify length or shortness, its
relative quantity can only be made out by inference (if at all). But among the
oldest MSS. of metrical texts furnished with musical notation, the latter - apart
from indicating a single tone on every syllable - occasionally comprises a combina-
tion of two (sporadically more) notes on some of the syllables and, at that, on
the presumably heavy ones. This might result in making the syllables in question,
when sung, longer than the others (although perhaps not necessarily so much
longer as the number of tones might indicate); but if the tones of the melisma
were performed faster than the single ones, the syllables might still be of equal
duration.
But not seldom it occurs that melisma is connected with syllables which we do
not reckon as accentuated (and also that the accentuated ones are furnished with
only a single tone). Here it may be remarked that several old neuma MSS. from
St. Gallen add letters indicating different movements or tempi for certain parts
of the performance; thus the letter c, meaning celeriter, is occasionally written
above a combination of tone signs connected with a single syllable, which must
reasonably lead to a joint duration perhaps not longer (or not much longer) than
that of a single tone sign. The transcriptions of the present treatise are - as to the
relative duration of the tone signs of the MSS. - mainly in accordance with the
last described practice, notwithstanding how scarce and early are the witnesses to it.
For it must be acknowledged that in the later Middle Ages the composers (or
redactors) of melodies to metrical texts almost never show any understanding of
the metre, very often accumulating notes on unstressed syllables. As P. W. says:
Texts “in poetischer Sprache sind komponiert wie prosaische.” And he cites as an
example a distich with the music which has been knit to it. The text (an anti-
phony) is this:
XXXII