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 Anno Domini 1010-1020

• Latin antiphonaries
• Lateinische Antiphonale
• Antifonare latine
  
• Latinski antifona

– Provenance; Herkunft; Proveniență; Poreklo: Florence, Italy; Florenz, Italien; Florența, Italia; Firenca, Italija.

– Size file; Blattabmessungen; Dimensiuni file; Veličina lista: 600 x 445 mm;

– Wood  panel size; Holzplattenabmessungen; Dimensiuni paravane lemn; Veličina drvenih panela: 1700 x 550 mm.

– Initials Number; Anzahl der Initialen; Număr inițiale; Broj inicijala: 5.

Size; Abmessungen; Dimensiuni; Veličina: 111 x 75 mm.

Letters; Buchstaben; Litere; Slove: H = 20 mm.

ENGLISH

Neume – musical notations set on four-line staves

The appearance of the first ecphonetic notations occurred in the 5^th century.

They were used as symbols that framed portions of the text and were based on simplified notations of various musical formulas. The origin of neumes is not well known, there are many theories regarding their evolution from grammatical accents that would have been taken from Latin or ancient Greek, in the sense of mimicking the gesticulation of the singer or as being taken from ecphonetic notation.

There are several kinds of neume notation systems, the most important being musical notations placed on four staves, from which later notations with five musical lines evolved, thus indicating the approximate pitch of the sounds needed to compose a musical phrase.

When performing a song, in general, the choristers or participants in a congregation or church service relied on its oral tradition, although in order to preserve the musical tradition there was an early need to develop a more accurate system of notation, which occurred around the middle of the 11th century.

The neumes were lined up on a stave, a precise notation that came about thanks to the innovation of the brilliant theoretician and musician of the time, Guido of Arezzo (990–1050), who pioneered the notation of notes on four-line staves.

These traces of Gregorian notation – written with a pen on four lines – have been preserved since the twelfth century, e.g. parchment no. 5 from approx. 1113, page 10 (signature 517/…), where we also find a footnote (written in Latin):

Ipsorum est enim regnum coelorum, qui contempserunt vitam mundi et venerunt; ad praemia regni currunt et stolas suas lavant in sanguine Agni. Evovae[1].

Translation: For theirs is the kingdom of heaven who despised the life of the world and came; they run to the rewards of the kingdom and wash their robes in the blood of the Lamb (= Blessed are those who wash their robes clean, that they may have a right to the Tree of Life, and may go through the gates into the city; = Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven).

Gregorian music, or Gregorian chants, represents a liturgical musical style used in Catholic Christian worship and had developed between the 6th and 11th century.

It is considered to be the music of the first generations of Christians on the territory of the Western Roman Empire, present in Hebrew music and in the decadent Greece of the time.

Gregorian chants were usually learned and passed on by voice.

The writing of some Gregorian documents dates back to around 800, their name coming from Pope Gregory I, the Great (pontiff of Rome between 590-604).

Signs corresponding to melodic movements (musical notes) are called neumes; later they were placed on reference lines and the musical staves appeared.

The Benedictine monk Guido of Arezzo (990–1050) theorized the system of notation and interpretation of liturgical music, which was the basis of Western European religious music, by adopting the solfegiere (= solmization/syllabication) musical system based on staves (so-called guidonic notation), where a set of gestures from the conductor or the head of orchestra is used.

[1] Evovae (= In saecula saeculorum, Amen = Forever and ever, Amen).