1. The Growth of Chant Research

1.1 Since the 1990s, interest in the ecclesiastic chant of the early modern era has grown. Long discredited by musicologists and scholars of liturgy as a mere appendage to a period of decadence, and unworthy of interest, the study of this chant has opened gradually to new research by scholars. Several types of inquiries have fueled this resurgence of interest:

Questions of interpretation tied to the rediscovery by musicians and scholars of the religious repertory of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries—notably the practice of musical alternations between organ, musica (vocal and instrumental polyphony), and cantus (singing)¹

The identification and study of specific sources, such as the Laurence Feininger collection²

Attempts to reconstitute the musical history of individual geographic areas³ or the musical practices of particular chapels⁴

The recognition of the work of composers of plainchant⁵

A growing interest on the part of performers and scholars of medieval music in the different local forms of “Gregorian” chant—diocesan, monastic, or parochial—which sometimes necessitates taking into account later sources that can delimit constants and developments over the course of history⁶

1.2 Through these diverse reevaluations, plainchant has begun to be considered in all its historic continuity as a full-fledged object of study.

2. Introducing Sequentia

2.1 Because of the large number of melodies and the variety of sung forms (e.g., metrical chant, plain-chant musical, fauxbourdon) used in the divine service (two particular areas of musical expansion in the early modern era), as well as the dissemination of their sources, efficient and in-depth research of chant has not been easy. These difficulties have forced researchers to develop new tools and methods; it is this that has led us to create Sequentia, an online database involving scholars from three French research organizations, and steered by an international group of scholars.⁷

2.2 Our principal interest is ecclesiastic chant, an expression that was in use throughout the early modern era, albeit with changing meanings. “Ecclesiastic chant” is used here to designate all the sung forms used in the divine service, encompassing such categories as revised chant, neo-gallican chant, new ecclesiastic chant, plains-chants musicaux, metric chant, and fauxbourdon. “Early modern era” here corresponds with the emergence of new cantorial practices linked to the publication of liturgical books issued by the Council of Trent (the Roman breviary, missal, pontifical, and ceremonial). This period extends from the beginning of the Counter-Reformation until around 1840–1850, when several projects for the revision of Gregorian chant began, in particular those of the Benedictines at Solesmes.

2.3 The sources given priority for indexing in Sequentia are books of liturgical chant (antiphonaries, graduals, processionals, hymnals, Directorium chori, and excerpts or combinations of these different books), as well as the parts of other liturgical books (e.g. breviaries, missals, rituals, pontificals)—both printed and in manuscript—that contain chants. The works chosen can be accessed in their entirety or selectively. At present, we are working to make accesible a French version of the Roman repertory, represented by the editions of Guillaume-Gabriel Nivers⁸ (all published in Paris by Ballard): the Gradual romanum (1697), the Antiphonarium romanum (1701), the Processionnale romanum (1723), and the Passions … cum Lamentationibus Jeremiœ … & formulis cantus ordinarii officii divini (1670?, 1683; reprinted in 1684, 1698, 1719, 1723, 1741). The Graduale romanum is now entirely accessible, with more than 1,000 musical works. The Antiphonarium romanum will be put online next.

2.4 No reference works exist for chant from Europe in general during this period, although this French corpus (antiphonary, gradual, processional) was widely dispersed. We intend to complement it with another body of printed Roman chant that circulated widely in Europe throughout the early modern era; for that, we envision indexing editions of chant from Venice or Antwerp. After that, Sequentia will be in a position to offer comparative data of interest to a larger number of scholars, including those who work on other bodies of chant, whether national, diocesan, or monastic. To the books of Roman chant listed above will be added the chants of the Missale romanum (Pius V, 1570; Clement VIII, 1604; Urban VIII, 1634), as well as those of the Roman pontifical (Clement VIII, 1595) and ritual (Paul V, 1614), which appeared in the wake of the Council of Trent; additionally, the chants of the Directorium chori of Guidetti (1589, 1618, 1642) will be included.

2.5 Parallel to these first two relatively general and complete bodies of chant, other French sources will be included (sources that will be individual research projects):

Collections of so-called plain-chants musicaux (such as the Masses in plain-chant musical by Henri Du Mont)

Collections of new chant, notably those of the Oratorians of Pierre de Bérulle and the nuns of Val-de-Grâce

Parisian chant from diverse periods, such as that of Martin Sonnet (1660s), Claude Chastelain (1680s and 1690s), and Jean Lebeuf (1730s and 1740s)

Chants composed for new offices in various Parisian parishes

Collections of fauxbourdons, such as those published by Ballard in Les Hymnes sacrez, odes, et noels pour chanter au Catechisme … avec plusieurs excellens faux-bourdons sur les huict Tons (1623) and by Hérissant in Faux-bourdons pour les fêtes solemnelles (1777)

3. What Sequentia Offers

3.1 Sequentia offers a summary description of liturgical books and a thesaurus of liturgical feasts, but also some details that have not yet been developed in existing databases of liturgical chant:⁹

A description of musical pieces contained in the sources, taking into account the following elements: text incipit, possible author of the text, musical incipit or psalmodic formula, descriptions of the mode and ambitus, possible author of the melody, location within the liturgy (feast, office, rubric), type of piece, and location within the source

A facsimile of each piece

The ability to compare the different musical settings of each text

A searchable transcription of the complete text

The ability to extract a complete table of contents for the source

The potential of reconstituting the order of an office contained in a source

4. The Entries for the Sources and the Liturgical Texts

4.1 The sources are described in the database as in the following example:

Titre Graduale romanum juxta Missale sacro-sancti concilii Tridentini et S. Pii quinti pontificis maximi authoritate editum. Cujus antiquus Ecclesiae cantus gregorianus è puro fonte Romano elicitus accuratè notatur Titre uniforme Graduel romain, Nivers, 1697 Cote [as needed] Lieu de conservation Collection privée Auteur(s) intellectuel(s) Nivers, Guillaume-Gabriel Usage romain Commentaires Autres personnes : Henri Du Mont et Pierre Robert ; voir Image jointe des pièces liminaires Date 1697 (édition) ; réédition : C. Ballard ou N. Pepie, 1706 Imprimeur ou éditeur Christophe Ballard (imprimeur et éditeur), ou Pierre Hérissant, ou R. et N. Pepie Lieu d’édition Paris

4.2 Explanation of the example:

Titre, Titre-uniforme (Title, Uniform Title)
The title is a literal transcription of the original title, unlike the uniform title that follows; the latter is used for all internal operations in the database.

Cote, Lieu de conservation (Shelf Number and Location of the Source)
These refer to the exemplar of the source that was used for indexing and for photo reproduction.

Auteurs(s) intellectuel(s) (Intellectual Author(s))
This refers to the people, whose names do not always appear on the title page, who were responsible for the version presented in the edition under consideration.

Commentaire (Commentary)
Commentaries can be of any type: a listing of any preliminary pages (preface, dedication, avertissement, etc.), dates of the registration of the printing privilege of the edition; a cursory comparison of various editions of the same work, etc. Facsimiles of preliminary pages are linked.

Date
The first date listed refers to the exemplar inventoried in Sequentia, followed by the dates of the first and and later editions; these suggest the chronological range of the practice associated with this source.

4.3 Each source is linked to notes describing the texts that it contains in the categories shown below:

Incipit texte	Gaudete in Domino
Auteur texte	[as needed]
Texte	Gaudete in Domino semper iterum dico gaudete: modestia vestra nota sit omnibus hominibus Dominus enim prope est nihil soliciti sitis sed in omni oratione petitiones vestrae innotescant apud Deum Ps. Benedixisti Domine terram tuam avertisti captivitatem Jacob. V. Gloria
Notes texte	[as needed]

4.4 Explanation of the example:

Incipit texte (Text Incipit)
The list of all the text incipits in Sequentia is created and managed so that a single incipit corresponds with only one text. For this we have adopted a proven classic system: where similar incipits exist, each is continued up until the first element that distinguishes one from the other (e.g., Benedicam Dominum qui tribuit, which differs from Benedicam Dominum in omni). If the distinction is not reached until further into the text, an elipsis is used: Simile est … fermento differs from Simile est … grano. The complete list of text incipits in Sequentia is brought up to date regularly in PDF format, and is among the complementary tools available on the home page.

Auteur texte (Author of the Text)
Because the database includes the authors of numerous neo-Latin texts composed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the name of the author of a particular text can be searched.

Textes (Texts)
The texts are transcribed in full into the database, allowing a search of all the words. The transcription of the text takes into account such formal elements as the symbols or words that denote repetition (e.g. répons).

Notes texte (Notes on the Text)
This field allows for pointing out minor variants among the sources, or providing other comments on the text.

5. The Entries for the Musical Pieces

5.1 The musical settings of each text are linked to the text field, and it is possible to search them directly, without making a new request. The entries are constructed as in this example:

Incipit musique [musical incipit numerically encoded, not indexed at this time]
Formule [as needed]
Mode: 1er ton
Indication mode: non
Finale: ré
Ambitus: la1-mi3 (R: la1-la2; V: do2-mi3)
Note(s) altérée(s): sib (1: V.)
Incipit texte: Universi qui te expectant
Genre: graduel
Office: messe
Calendrier: Avent, dimanche 1
Source: Graduel romain, Nivers, 1697
Pages: 5 (1)
Rubrique: Dominica prima adventus, ad missam
Numéro: Graduel, Nivers 1697, Avent, dim. 1-01
Commentaire pièces: [as needed]
Voir l’image

5.2 The sample piece corresponds to this text:

Incipit	Universi qui te expectant
Auteur
Texte	Universi qui te expectant non confundentur Domine V. Vias tuas Domine notas fac mihi & seminas tuas edoce me

5.3 Explanation of the example:

Incipit musique (musical incipit), Formule
These fields encode the musical incipits in numbers, permitting searches and the verification of melodies through cross-checking. Although not now indexed online, this field will soon be used for indexing a body of plains-chants musicaux through coded intervals; we have waited to include this feature in the expectation of more advanced techniques of melodic recognition. The formula field is used for the encoding of formulas of psalm terminations, which will be transcribed in full into the database.

To permit a finely delineated search for modes, a variable issue in the early modern era, five fields are dedicated to indexing the modal description:

Mode, Indication mode (Modal Indication)
The mode of each piece is systematically indexed. To take into account the complexity of the notion of mode and the multiplicity of modern views on it, the field Indication mode shows whether the mode is specified in the source (indicated by the response “oui”), or if it has been assigned by the person who entered the data (indicated by the response “non”).

Finale (Final), Ambitus, Note(s) altérée(s) (Altered Notes)
These complementary fields are used to describe more precisely the objective elements of each piece and to offer a greater number of ways to search the database.

Calendrier (Liturgical Calendar)
This field locates the item within the liturgical year,¹⁰ according to the index of feasts of the Antiphonarium monasticum of Solesmes. The Proper of the Time is classified by liturgical season, then by liturgical event: thus, the third Sunday after Pentecost would be indexed “Pentecostes, dominica 03.” For the feasts of saints (Proper or Common of Saints), the name of the saint or of the group of saints is indexed, supplemented as needed by their categories (martyr, virgin, pope, etc.), in order to distinguish between two saints with the same name—“Stephani protomartyr” is thus differentiated from “Stephani papae et martyr.” The octave of a feast is taken into account: “Stephani protomart., octave.”

Pages
The page numbers are given for every item.

Rubrique (Rubric)
This provides any indications of the order of the liturgy as it appears in the source.

Commentaire pièce (Comments on the Piece)
This is used for miscellaneous comments.

Voir l’image
A facsimile of each piece is accessible in a Web format by clicking on “Voir l'image” (see the facsimile). This image can be printed out.

5.4 Each piece is linked to the page describing its text, but also to the page describing the source, each of which can be consulted without beginning a new search request. The page describing the piece’s source can be viewed by clicking on the appropriate link, e.g., Fiche du document Graduel romain Nivers 1697.

5.5 The database is designed to be able to respond to requests pertaining to each of the main categories (sources, texts, musical pieces) and their fields. A search can be launched for any part of a text (letters or numbers) indexed by any item in a pre-established list.

6. Complementary Tools

6.1 The following complementary tools are downloadable as PDF files from the home page:

A list of sources that have been indexed or are presently being indexed
A complete table of contents of each source (a list of musical pieces)
A list of text incipits indexed in Sequentia, noting when it was last updated
The order of individual offices
A list of publications linked to and published by Sequentia
A bibliography of complementary research tools (catalogues, links to other sites or databases, etc.).

7. Online Publication of Articles

7.1 We also plan to publish online (as PDF files) articles that are related to Sequentia’s database. They will provide information concerning plainchant or liturgy that has not found a place in the Sequentia database. This data—proposed and presented by scholars—could be of a diverse nature; for example:

Representative extracts from plainchant treatises or methods by various authors, especially concerning essential points such as the principals of composition or adaptation of plainchant, notation and its significance, or the modal conception of an individual author; examples already accessible on the website concern the Dissertation sur le chant grégorien of Guillaume-Gabriel Nivers (by Cécile Davy-Rigaux), as well as the Traité théorique et pratique de plain-chant appelé grégorien by the abbé Léonard Poisson, and the Traité historique et pratique sur le chant ecclésiastique of abbé Jean Lebeuf (by Xavier Bisaro)

Specific data concerning plainchant sources for which a complete index is not planned at this time; an example can be seen on the website, dealing with the liturgical calendars of books from various French dioceses (by Xavier Bisaro)

7.2 As can be seen in the examples presently accessible in Sequentia, we wish these different types of data to be accompanied by scholarly commentary. The articles are signed by their authors. Proposals for publication by Sequentia will be will peer-reviewed, and the procedures for submission will be posted on the home page.

8. Conclusion

8.1 As a research tool, Sequentia provides several possibilities:

Comparisons of sources, from the standpoint of the liturgical texts and/or the musical pieces they contain

Uncovering new original chants

Identification of liturgical texts, or fragments of texts

Identification of canti firmi

Identification and dating of manuscripts

Finding the liturgical contexts of a text or a piece of music

Study of methods of composition or the adaptation of melodies

Study of the circulation of melodies and various types of borrowings

Study of the types of notation used and their significance

Study of various approaches to modality

8.2 Although these kinds of research are primarily the concern of specialists in liturgical chant, they could also interest musicologists or musicians working in other areas of religious music (researching texts and their liturgical occurrences), specialists in neo-Latin literature, historians interested in the liturgy, or liturgists interested in its history.

8.3 The examples accessible at this time—as well as those planned for indexing in the near future—concern the liturgy of the Roman Catholic church, simply because that is the field of the designers of the database. However, it is possible to use the it for ecclesiastic melodies of other sects (we are thinking particularly of the Protestant and Anglican traditions). Similarly, even though Sequentia is dedicated principally to chant books, it will not be limited to them; indeed, its format can be used for analyzing other liturgical books—notably breviaries and missals—and more generally for any book with liturgical texts.

8.4 Because we have a strong interest in advancing the study of European chant of the early modern era, we offer free access to Sequentia to scholars, researchers, and students. Sequentia offers a gathering place dedicated to navigating the study of early modern liturgy and plainchant in its diverse forms, whether at the headwaters of research (through the database), within its main current (the publication of documents), or arriving at the end (through the publication of articles). Researchers and students in diverse disciplines—musicologists, musicians, those interested in literature, historians, and liturgists—are welcome here.

References