Riviste Polifonie/119_2005 n 2.pdf - Fondazione Guido d'Arezzo

MARCO GOZZI
Editio Medicaea, on the other hand, the tonic syllable eleison is anticipated;
the characteristic cadential preparation with the broad stepwise six-note
descent is destroyed; and on this penultimate syllable a different type of conclusion
is created ex novo, even though it no longer rhymes with the initial
invocation. These changes seem not have had any following in the subsequent
printed tradition, which continued to restate the well-known melody, introducing
only small adjustments to the positioning of the syllables.
These two short examples (which we add to the studies already carried
out 15 and those that will need to be done in the future) show first that every
composition must be examined for the changes made by the editors (changes
that does not always reveal the same approach) and, secondly, that there are
different reactions vis-à-vis these changes. Sometimes they are accepted, but
more often they are rejected, above all when it is the publisher who does the
editing work and not a paid musician.
Whatever the case, between the end of the 16th century and the second
half of the 17th many chant books (particularly those printed in Venice) were
extensively revised and very often we do not even know who was responsible
for the changes.
The considerations outlined above do not only concern plainchant, but
also have strong implications on other aspects of sacred music: for example,
organ practice, the philological reconstruction of appropriate liturgical contexts
and the use of the cantus firmi in polyphony.
Extensive investigation, musical comparison and archival research is still
required.
15
GOZZI, Il Graduale; KARP, On the transmission; MILANESE, Variantistica and INDINO, Il Graduale.
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