The Scientia artis musice of Hélie Salomon : teaching music in the late thirteenth century

317 Pages·2018·8.5 MB·English

by  Dyer

The Scientia artis musice of Hélie
Salomon: Teaching Music in the
Late Thirteenth Century
The sole surviving copy of the medieval music treatise, Scientia artis
musice, written by Hélie Salomon and dated precisely to the year 1274, is
the original manuscript presented to Pope Gregory X. This unique manu-
script remained hidden in an ecclesiastical archive at Lyon, the city where
the treatise was presented to the pope, until it was discovered in the early
seventeenth century and transported to Milan by an agent of Cardinal Fed-
erico Borromeo. The treatise is a practical manual devoted to basic concepts:
the structure of the tonal system, psalmody, vocal pedagogy, the musical
(“Guidonian”) hand, clefs as indicators of the tone (mode) to which a piece
belongs, and practical instruction in the singing of four-voice parallel or-
ganum. Although Hélie Salomon denounces whatever he regards as abuses
that deviate from traditional practice (condemned as “falsa musica”), he is
not above proposing radical ideas of his own. Found throughout the treatise
are many digressions that reveal aspects of how the author thought chant
ought to be performed, in particular, free from rhythmic influences derived
from the mensural system. Joseph Dyer presents the first complete modern
edition of Salomon’s treatise with an English translation accompanied by a
comprehensive introduction and commentary. This edition corrects errors
in the 1784 edition of Martin Gerbert, and it includes the music of chants
omitted by Gerbert from the tonary. It also makes available for the first
time reproductions in colour of the eight illustrations in the treatise that are
essential to its understanding.
Joseph Dyer taught music history at the University of Massachusetts Boston
until his retirement in 2001. He has published about a hundred articles,
book chapters, and encyclopedia entries on topics relating to the chant and
liturgy of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages (especially Rome), psalmody,
monasticism, performance practice, medieval music theory, and music in
the intellectual life of the Middle Ages. He is an Associate of the American
Guild of Organists and a Fellow of the Royal School of Church Music.

The Scientia artis musice of
Hélie Salomon: Teaching Music
in the Late Thirteenth Century
Latin Text with English Translation and
Commentary
Joseph Dyer
First published 2018
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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© 2018 Joseph Dyer
The right of Joseph Dyer to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-138-28166-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-27100-2 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by codeMantra
To Michael Bernhard
on the occasion of his retirement from the
Musikhistorische Kommission of the
Bavarian Academy of Sciences

Contents
List of illustrations viii
List of abbreviations ix
Preface xii
Acknowledgments xvii
1 The Scientia artis musice and its author 1
2 The Ambrosiana manuscript 14
3 Scientia artis musice 22
Plates
4 Commentary on the treatise 174
5 Postscript 238
Appendix 1 Chants mentioned in the text 240
Appendix 2 Chants in the tonary 243
Appendix 3 Proverbial sayings in the Scientia artis musice 252
Appendix 4 Legal maxims in the Scientia artis musice 256
Appendix 5 Letter of Pope Gregory X (Lyon, 6 September
1274) bestowing a canonry on Hélie Salomon
(Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Reg. lat. 37,
no. 413, fols. 145–145v) 260
Bibliography 263
General index 281
Index of chants 287
List of illustrations
Tables
4.1 Alignment of Letter, Clavis, Punctum, and Rule in the
Outer Rings of the Illustration (Pl. 3) 186
4.2 Chants in the Scientia Tonary and the St. Yrieix Gradual 188
4.3 The “Practice” of the Eight Tones 202
4.4 Relationships between Clef and Tone 211
Music examples in the commentary
4.1 Incipits of the antiphons Nativitas tua and Arguebat 195
4.2 Seculorum 1 and 2 of tone 1 195
4.3 Seculorum 3 of tone 1 196
4.4 Incipit and cadence of the antiphon Postulavi patrem 196
4.5 Incipit of the antiphon A bimatu 197
4.6 Incipits of the antiphons In patientia and Ecce in nubibus 197
4.7 Incipits of the antiphons Volo pater and Ecce vere 198
4.8 Modus legendi gallicorum 206
4.9 Modus legendi monachorum 207
4.10 Item monachorum 207
4.11 Modus legendi provincialium 209
4.12 Hypothetical beginning of Inveni David on A with ending on C 220
4.13 Succession of two Vespers antiphons 222
List of abbreviations
AH Analecta hymnica medii aevi. 1886–1915. Edited
by Guido Maria Dreves, Clemens Blume and
Henry Marriott Bannister, 55 vols. (Leipzig:
Fues’s Verlag [R. Reisland]). Register. Edited
by Dorothea Baumann and Max Lütolf, 3 vols.
Bern: Francke (also available online).
AM Antiphonale Monasticum pro diurnis horis. 1934.
Tournai: Desclée.
AR Antiphonale sacrosanctae Romanae ecclesiae pro
diurnis horis. 1949. Tournai: Desclée.
ASar Antiphonale Sarisburiense. 1901–1902. Edited
by Walter Howard Frere, 6 vols. London:
Plainsong and Mediaeval Music Society.
Bosse Detlev Bosse. Untersuchungen einstimmiger
mittelalterlicher Melodien zum “Gloria in
excelsis deo.” 1955. Regensburg: Bosse.
BSHAP Bulletin de la Société historique et archéologique
du Périgord.
CAO Corpus Antiphonalium Officii. 1963–1979.
Edited by René-Jean Hesbert, 6 vols. Rome:
Herder.
CHA Antiphonale missarum sancti Gregorii, Xe siècle:
Codex 47 de la Bibliothèque de Chartres
[PM 11].
CS Scriptorum de Musica nova series. 1864–1876.
Edited by Edmond de Coussmaker, 4 vols.
Paris: V. Didron [repr. 1963].
CSM Corpus Scriptorum de Musica.
D-S (A) László Dobszay and Janka Szendrei. 1999.
Antiphonen. 3 vols., Monumenta Monodica
Medii Aevi 5. Kassel: Bärenreiter.
D-S (R) László Dobszay and Janka Szendrei with Beáta
Meszéna. 2013. Responsories, 2 vols. Budapest:
Balassi Kiadó.