Musical Values and Practice in Old Hispanic Chant
Emma Hornby
Augustine's appraisal of music's moral value in Confessions, as selectively abbreviated by Isidore Seville, provides a conceptual framework for understanding early medieval Iberian musical values. Augustine advocates devotional focus primarily on text, expressing anxiety about elaborate liturgical music. For Isidore, contrast, diverse melody leads both faithful and unfaithful toward transcendent anticipation heaven, beyond reason-based concentration text. In this article I test the hypothesis that Isidore's values shaped extant Old Hispanic chant texts melodies, offering new way practice relate. Examples are drawn from (“Mozarabic”) chant, whose (preserved before 732) closer to late antique context than any other Western liturgy. melodies preserved unpitched notation ca. 900. The methodology developed here has potential be applied ritual traditions.
Journal of the American Musicological Society|Bristol Research (University of Bristol)|Bristol Research (University of Bristol)|Bristol Research (University of Bristol)|Bristol Research (University of Bristol)|Bristol Research (University of Bristol)|Bristol Research (University of Bristol)|Bristol Research (University of Bristol)