Project MUSE

Project MUSE: "Snyder, John L. 1950- 'Aspects of Orality and Formularity in Gregorian Chant (review)'
Notes - Volume 58, Number 3, March 2002, pp. 560-562
Music Library Association

Excerpt


Gregorian chant has long been a focus of musicological research, and recent decades have seen new research paradigms, reinterpretations of established data, and the development of new views concerning the origins, transmission, and notation of this vast repertoire. Representative works include Leo Treitler, 'Homer and Gregory: The Transmission of Epic Poetry and Plainsong' (Musical Quarterly 60 [1974]: 333-72); Kenneth Levy, 'On Gregorian Orality' (Journal of the American Musicological Society 43 [1990]: 185-227); and Peter Jeffries, Re-envisioning Past Musical Cultures: Ethnomusicology in the Study of Gregorian Chant (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992). The present offering is thus of exquisite timeliness.

The book 'revolves about three themes: (1) the role of orality in the transmission of chant ca. 700-1400, (2) the role of the formula in the construction of chant, and (3) the varying degrees of stability or instability in the transmission of chant' (p. ix). Karp explores these themes individually and in various combinations over the course of the book. The methodologies employed range from traditional source studies (especially collations of multiple sources), to psychological theories of memory (both constructive and abstractive processes are considered), to 'folkloristic' studies of the transmission of various oral literatures (Homeric, the Hindu Veda, and synagogue practices, inter alia). The transmission of Gregorian chant, initially oral and later via notation, is thus placed in context with other literatures that have to varying degrees undergone similar processes and transformations.

The book comprises an introduction..."