On the origin of neumes
Kenneth Levy
How did Latin neumes begin? And what developments lie between those beginnings and the first plentiful documents of neuming which date from about 900? A long line speculations has failed to produce generally credited answers these questions. Figure 1 shows a stemma by Joseph Froger that can serve as orientation problem. This does not address ultimate origins. Its ‘original’ is archetypal neumation Frankish–‘Gregorian’ mass propers, lost formation compiled some time after neumatic beginnings. It goes on regional neume-species 900, all ostensible outgrowths archetype: Ept – German; Cla north Italian; Clu Cluny; Dij Burgundian; Den St Denis; Lan Lorraine or ‘Metz’; Mur 3 Gall ‘Alammanian’; Cha Breton; Alb Aquitanian; Ben south Italian/Beneventan. Between unknown multiple around 900 an obscure evolution takes place. There is, in Froger's words, ‘une sorte de nuée opaque… [une] zone brumeuse’.
Early Music History