Abstracts - American Musicological Society

Saturday morning
BENEVENTO AND MILAN: RITEs AND MELoDIEs coMPARED
Thomas Forrest Ke11y, Arnerican Academy in Rome
The Beneventan chant of south .Ita1y has been
recognized si.nce the pioneering studies of Dorn Hesbert
half a century ago as the remnarrt of a liturgical
practice that antedates the introduction of Gregorian
Chant in the region, When the scribes of the surviving
manuscripts refer to the local music, however, they
invariably call it "Anbros ian. " And indeed, pope
Stephen IX in 1058 specifically forbade the singing of
"ambrosianus cantus" at Montecassino.
Arnbrosian is, of cou!se, also the name for the
rite of Milan, one of the ferr non-Gregorian chant
repertories to survive the Carolingian urge to
unifornity. And although these two bodies of chant are
substantially independent, a thorough conparison shows
that a nurnber of pieces share common texts and, in some
cases, melodies.
This paper details these sinilarities. Melodic
comparisons shorr the nature of the musical relationship
between the repertories and suggest that in many cases
the Beneventan version of a chant represents a stage
closer to a common original. The separate development
from the joint repertory is connected with the fall of
the northern kingdorn of the Lornbards in the eighth
century and the subsequent continuation of Lombard
tradition in the Beneventan South.
FORMULAIC USAGE AMONG GREGORIAN INTROITS
Theodore Karp, Northwestern University
In the past Gregorian melodic constructions have
ordinarily been classified according to a system with
three categories: type melodies, centonized melodies,
and free nelodies, As scholars have moved towards more
precise descriptions of chant, the shortcomings of this
system have becorne increasingly apparent. The need for
a reappraisal of the term " centonization" has already
been recognized by several. The term ufreeu melodies
as applied to lntroits, Offertories, and Communions, is
equally open to misconception and misuse. It tends to
create the irnage of individualistic rnelodic
constructions that avoid the stereotypical. Yet the
forrnulaic character of Gregorian Introits has already
been noted by scholars such as Thomas Connolly and
Hendrik van der Werf. Study shows that these chants
differ frorn the melisnatic genres prinarily in terms of
the structural leve1 of formulaic usage and only
secondarily in terms of the density of such use. At
ptesent we do not have any account of the manner in
r+hich formulae operate within this repertoire. This
paper wil"l demonstrate the various principles of