Aspects of Orality and Formularity in Gegorian Chant. (Historical Topics).

Aspects of Orality and Formularity in Gegorian Chant. By Theodore Karp. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1998. [xvii, 489 p. ISBN 0-8101-1238-8. $99.95.]

Gregorian chant has long been a focus of musicological research, and recent decades have seen new research paradigms, reinterpretations of established data, and the development of new views concerning the origins, transmission, and notation of this vast repertoire. Representative works include Leo Treitler, "Homer and Gregory: The Transmission of Epic Poetry and Plainsong" (Musical Quarterly 60 [1974]: 333-72); Kenneth Levy, "On Gregorian Orality" (Journal of the American musciological Society 43 [1990]: 185-227); and PeterJeifries, Reenvisioning Past Musical Cultures: Ethnomusicology in the Study of Gregorian Chant (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992). The present offering is thus of exquisite timeliness.

The book "revolves about three themes: (1) the role of orality in the transmission of chant ca. 700-1400, (2) the role of the formula in the construction of chant, and (3) the varying degrees of stability or instability in the transmission of chant" (p. ix). Karp explores these themes individually and in various combinations over the course of the book. The methodologies employed range from traditional source studies (especially collations of multiple sources), to psychological theories of memory (both constructive and abstractive processes are considered), to "folkioristic" studies of the transmission of various oral literatures (Homeric, the Hindu Veda, and synagogue practices, inter alia). The transmission of Gregorian chant, initially oral and later via notation, is thus placed in context with other literatures that have to varying degrees undergone similar processes and transformations.

The book comprises an introduction followed by nine essays. Each essay is relatively self-contained, with its own brief introduction. Several have concluding summaries. Nevertheless, the interrelatedness of the essays is apparent from their titles; connections among the essays are, of course, far richer than that, and the text is extensively cross-referenced.

As their titles suggest, the first and last essays ("Aspects of Early Gregorian Orality" "Formulas and Orality in Roman and Gregorian Chant: A Further Look at the Interrelationships between Roman and Gregorian Chant") frame the set. The first sets out "to investigate the imprints that [Gregorian orality] has left on our early notational records" (p. 1). Beginning with a consideration of the nature of learning and memory, and a survey of other oral literatures, the discussion moves on to examine the degree to which early sources reflect the oral tradition, and the extent to which either the oral or written traditions were fixed. Close analysis of the variants found among early sources for Locus iste, as well as formulaic phrases from a host of other melodies, together with the testimony of the theorist John (pseudo-Cotton), support Karp's points concerning "the changeable nature of the oral traditions," and that divergent readings result neither from processes of human memory" nor from processes of oral-formul aic composition" (p. 58). Whereas the first essay considered the relationship between Roman and Frankish chant as a secondary issue, the final essay puts the matter front and center.

The second, third, and seventh essays ("Formulas that Interrelate Chants of Different Genres and Modes"; "Formulaic Usage in Melismatic Chants: A Chronological Approach to Second-Mode Tracts"; and "Formulaic Usage among Neumatic Chants: The Construction of Gregorian Introits") concern relatively circumscribed segments of the Gregorian repertory and consider the role of formulas in them. The second essay, however, deals with the phenomenon of "crossing," specifically as it occurs among chants belonging to different modes and/or genres. Karp relates this to similar phenomena in other oral literatures. Numerous examples are explored in detail, including the Alleluja Dies sanctificavit that is the focus of the fourth essay. Certain aspects of second-mode Tracts are also considered here, with some observations concerning the use of ...