Western Plainchant in the First Millennium

Sean Gallagher, James Haar, John Nádas and Timothy Striplin

• Contents: Preface; Afterthoughts on The Origins of the Liturgical Year, Thomas J. Talley; The desert, the city, and psalmody in the late 4th century, Joseph Dyer; Monastic reading and the emerging Roman chant repertory, Peter Jeffrey; Songs of exile, songs of pilgrimage, Nancy van Deusen; The geography of martinmass, Alejandro Enrique Planchart; Style and structure in early offices of the Sanctorale, David Hiley; From the advent project to the late Middle Ages: Some issues of transmission, David G. Hughes; Glosses on music and grammar and the advent of music writing in the west, Charles M. Atkinson; Concerning a chronology for chant, László Dobszay; Tollite portas: an Ante-Evangelium reclaimed?, Kenneth Levy; The diagrams interpolated into the Musica Isidori and the scale of old Hispanic chant, Michel Huglo; Old Roman votive-mass chants in Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana, MSS 299 and 300 and Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Archivio San Pietro F11: a source study, John Boe; Reading the melodies of the old Roman mass proper: a hypothesis defended, Edward Nowacki; 'Epulari autem et gaudere oportebat', Ruth Steiner; From alleluia to sequence: some definitions of relations, Calvin M. Bower; Some Notkerian sequences in Germanic print culture of the 15th & 16th centuries, Theodore Karp; Modal Neumes at Sens, Thomas Forrest Kelly; Singing the nuance in Communion antiphons, Richard Crocker; Bibliography; Indexes.

'The list of contributors is in itself almost a roll-call of the leading chant scholars, and their presence makes it superfluous to draw the attention of those interested in the subject to the book: there's no way they would miss it.' Early Music Review 'This volume provides a window onto the central questions being addressed by some of the most distinguished scholars working on western chant. Essential reading for specialists, it has plenty to offer the general reader.' Choir and Organ 'The essays compiled in Western Plainchant in the First Millenium are the beginning of an engagement with McKinnon's challenging ideas. This commendable [...] collection explores a number of methodologies, including manuscript studies, exegetical concerns of genre and liturgy, and problems of medieval music theory and chant analysis. Its breadth documents the state of the field, testifying to the depth and richness of chant studies... The sheer bounty and diversity of scholarship contained within Western Plainchant in the First Millenium is a fitting tribute to the life and work of James McKinnon.' Current Musicology