Analyzing a few sequences, Part 2: Dies irae, dies illa

Another sequence I mentioned in an earlier entry was Dies irae, dies illa from the Requiem Mass and its text is probably the most famous among all medieval sequences (thanks to Mozart's Requiem) , and also quite late comparing to others which remained in the liturgy after the Council of Trent (mid. 16th-century). The text is attributed to Thomas Celano (biographer of St. Francis of Assisi) and it is probably from the mid. 13th-century (more or less the same time when Meister Alexander said to be becoming active).

 

English translation:

Dreaded day, that day of ire,

when the world shall melt in fire

told by Sybil and David's lyre.

Fright men's hearts shall rudely shift,

as the judge through gleaming rift

comes each soul to closely sift.

Then, the trupet's shrill refrain,

piercing tombs by hill and plain,

souls to judgement shall arraign.

Death and nature stand aghast,

as the bodies rising fast,

hie to hear the sentence passed.

Then, before him shall be placed,

that whereon the verdict's based,

book wherein each deed is traced.

When the Judge his seat shall gain,

all that's hidden shall be plain,

nothing shall unjudged remain.

The poem itself is a meditation and a paraphrase of the Revelations from the New Testament (see for example Rv 8,6 or 11,15) and deals with an apocalyptic subject matter. The structure is consistent: using paired versicles with equal number of syllables per line. Each versicle consist of 3 lines forming a tercet and the lines inside the tercets rhyme with each other.

Quantus tremor est futurus
quando judex est ventúrus,
cuncta stricte discussurus.

This form is typical among late sequence verse structure and composing rhymed tercets of eight syllable lines were very much the norm by the mid. of 12th-century, not only for sequences but for new Office formularities as well). Seeing such progression towards regularities in composing a century before Alexander shows that there were indeed attempts to set up rules in compositions in order to make newly composed pieces (even if they were meant for liturgical use or not) easier to remember.

The beginning of the melody is a parody on the responsory verse of Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna, and the whole sequence is in Mode 2. Phrase A uses almost the whole (so to say) 'official' range of the modus, begins on its dominant (reciting note)  f and ends on the finalis d. Phrase B exceeds the ambitus of Phrase A but also ends on the finalis, while the melody of Phrase C leads back to the music material of Phrase A and also goes a fourth below the finalis.

Also in this case, the textual and musical material of Phrase C is not shortened, but its melodic progressions seem to lead back to the characteristics of Phrase A.

Used sources:

Taruskin, Richard: Music from the earliest notations to the Sixteenth century, Oxford University Press, USA (July 27, 2009), Chapter 3: Retheorizing Music, pp 88-89

Hoppin, Richard: Medieval music, (Norton, 1978), Chapter III, pp 64-66

Analyzing a few sequences, Part 1: Victimae paschali laudes

In an earlier entry about the medieval sequence I have already discussed the importance of this genre in the process of reconstructing the missing melodic lines and also to understand the structure of the poem which will lead me to understand the construction of the music as well.

This first example is the famous Easter sequence Victimae paschali laudes, written by Wipo of Burgundy (mid. 11th-century) and this is one of the four sequences that the Council of Trent (1545-63) kept in the liturgy.

 

English translation of the text:

To the Pachal Victim, hymns of praise, come, ye Christians, joyous raise:

Lamb unstained, unmeasured price hath paid, ransom for the sheep that strayed.

To a father kind, rebellious men sinless Son hath led again.

Life and death in combat fierce engage, marvel dazzling every age.

Price of life by hellish monster slain living now shall ever reign.

Tell us, Mary, thou our herald be, what in passing thou didst see?

Empty tomb, where Christ, now living, lay.

Angels saw I in bright array: shroud and vesture loosely cast aside

Prove he's risen glorified.

Yea! my Hope hath snapped the fatal chain, smiting Death hath risen again:

quick before you, sped to Galilee.

(More trust is to be put in honest Mary [Magdalen] alone than in the lying crowd of Jews.)

Know we now that Christ hath truly risen.

Glorious King, help us while we sing.

Its structure was originally A BB CC DD, but the version that remained in the liturgical use lacks a repetition of phrase D, which has been officially removed by the Council of Trent because its nastiness and anti-semite content (along with almost all the other sequences from the liturgy). The original text follows the favored paired versicle structure (which was a characteristic of late French sequences), and the end of the lines are rhyming therefore theorists of that time called the rhymed and metrical sequences versus in order to distinguish them from the earlier prosa. 

The number of syllables in the phrases are well balanced and starting from Phrase B each last line of the phrases consist of 10 syllables and also the rhyme scheme within the identical phrases are following the same pattern (see table above).

As we take a look at the musical setting of the text, we can see that it is on Mode 1. The melody of Phrase A begins and ends on d, while Phrase B explores and uses the whole ambitus of Mode 1 including the characteristic use of the note below its finalis. Phrase C goes in the opposite direction than Phrase B and goes below the finalis with a fourth, but ends on d Phrase D has the same ambitus and direction as Phrase B.

The ambitus of the sequence is an octave plus a fourth (lowest: A, highest D'), and it is still in Mode 1, because although according to the theory the ambitus of each modus is an octave, later melodies move within the the range of an octave plus a third or fourth.

Although the form is not the same as Sion trure's, the ambitus is the same and the melodic material gives a little bit of information about the musical relation between the phrases. Of course, every modus has their own characteristic musical progressions and melodies in Protus tonality (mode 1 and 2) come up very often as well as in chant as in vernacular repertory. Also in sequences the textual and musical material in Phrase C is not shortened (like in the minnesinger piece by Wizlav or in Sion trure itself) comparing to the rest of the phrases.

Used sources:

Taruskin, Richard: Music from the earliest notations to the Sixteenth century, Oxford University Press, USA (July 27, 2009), Chapter 3: Retheorizing Music, pp 86-88

Hoppin, Richard: Medieval music, (Norton, 1978), Chapter VI, pp 164-166

Performing the 1st strophe

This performance is from my first master recital (5 July 2013). Since I haven't had a decent translation of the 2nd strophe, I decided to perform only the 1st strophe without any reconstruction, and experiment whether it worths to reconstruct the melody or not.

Notice:
Anyone who expects some early music interpretation in the fashion of '70s, '80s or '90s should really not listen to it. This is my interpretation, trying to go with the text and not making unnecessarly nice sound.

Analysis of Wizlav's 'Der Unghelarte hat ghe machet'

Just as I mentioned in the Introduction of my research report, I found a piece by Wizlav von Rügen III which shows structural similarities with Sion trure and this piece can be found in Jenaer Liederhandschrift (75v-76r).

Manuscript pictures

Transcription of the melody, and original text with nachdichtung

At analysing the piece we can conclude the following: it is in Mode 1, and its ambitus is relatively small (mostly moves within the fifth between d and a). The setting of the text is syllabic except for the little melismas in C1 and C2. The structural units does not show similar lenght, and their ambitus also change:  

• A is the longest and uses the whole ambitus of the fifth
• B is shorter than A, but keeps the ambitus of A
• C1 is even shorter than B, and its ambitus narrows down to major third (f-a), but shows a rather melismatic character
• C2 has an equal length with C1, has the same rather melismatic character and its ambitus grows up to a fourth (moves between e and a). The only difference between C1 and C2 is the little ornament on the last syllable of ture, which leads back to the melody of A
• ends with another A section
  

The structural scheme is the following: A A B B C1 C2 A. Although it does not share much characteristic similarities with the medieval sequence, except for the usage of paired versicles the piece gives me ideas regarding the reconstruction of the missing melodic lines of Sion trure. Just like in this piece by Wizlav, in Alexander's Zionlied the structural units marked with C shows also a shortened textual, therefore melodic material and has the role to lead back to the original tritus tonality which was already indicated in A.

Poetic form - back to the roots: the Medieval sequentiae

Short introduction
After studying the structure of Sîôn trûre I could figure out that the form the following way: AABBCCA'
The last unit could be marked with D, since there is a difference in the rhyming scheme, but only slight. For comaprison let's take a look at the first, second and the last unit:

Sîon, trûre

dîn burchmûre

hât von schûre

und von winde manigen stôz.

Darnach weine

dem ortsteine

der alleine

dîne wende tzusamne slôz:

[...]

Noch wachent alle,

vur dem walle,

wachent wol,

da man wachen sol! 

We can see that there is a slight difference in the rhyme scheme: withing the first and second units' first 3 lines in each are rhyming with each other creating a triplet, and the last lines of the the units (stôz-slôz). But as we can see the rhmye scheme changes in the last unit and every two line rhymes with each other: the first with the second, and the third with the fourth. The question may come up why could it be still called as A' instead of D? Well, the answer lies in comparing the number of the syllables:

Sîon, trûre     4

dîn burchmûre    4

hât von schûre     4

und von winde manigen stôz.    8

Darnach weine     4

dem ortsteine       4 

der alleine        4

dîne wende tzusamne slôz:      8

[...]

Noch wachent alle,      5

vur dem walle,         4

wachent wol,     3

da man wachen sol! 5

Although the number of the syllables of the very last line contains 3 syllables less, this kind of irregularity is not that unusual and also if we still suggest that Alexander bent the rules according to his taste the melody of the first two units can be easily applied (with the right adjustments) on the last structural unit.

On the other hand the difference is not that remarkable - in my opinion and for the sake of a decent melodic reconstruction.

Medieval sequentiae

In order to understand this poetic form I took a closer look on similar Medieval genres that would hold similar characteristics. There was a genre that begun to develop in the middle of the 9th-century in France and florished until the late Renaissance throughour whole Europe; it gave freedom to religious authors and composers for self-expression within the liturgy. Slightly after the development of tropes a new prose genre came into view: the Sequence. In its earlier form it was not that poetic as later, starting from the 11th-century. The early sequence was an appandage of the Alleluias (or other richly melismatic chants), and according to a monk in St Gall from the 9th-century, Notker Balbulus, the genre was born when as he found difficult to remember the long melismatic jubilus melodies. The one day a monk from another monastery came with an antiphonary in which some text were fitted to some of these extremely long melodies. Following this example Notker began to compose his own sequence texts so he could help on his "unstable little memory". (For extent version and more, see Hoppin, Medieval Music; Chapter VI: Expansion of the liturgy: Tropes and Sequences, p154-161)

Later on, starting from the 11th-century and also at the same time of the rise of poliphony in Paris, as we now know School of Notre Dame, sequences became rather poetic: their lines tended to rhyme more and more and also new sequences got metric characteristics. However prose and poetry was rather distinguished from each other step by step poetic genres (Hymns, for example) gained general acceptence and the reason for this was that the immediate and graduale usage of rhyming, poetic texts was distasteful for the conservative Church (we should not forget that beforehand poetry was the main characteristic of secular compositions, and prose was rather used for religious purpose).

But what is interesting in this genre that by the development of sequence from the mid-9th-century the basics of poetry had been settled down and it led naturally to the development of secular poetry. There are several collections of sequences remained for us from France, Germany and Italy, which suggests the usage of this florishing repertory. Music of the Church and outside the Church has been influenced each other in an interactive way and the poetic forms were used in both worlds. 

Therefore by looking for similarities between the form of Sion trure and sequences forms helped me to see the relation between music and text. Normal sequences tend to use paired versicles (for example aa bb cc, etc.), which could apply for the structure of Sion trure as well. The melody works always in parallel with the textual features as well, and  - ingeneral - you can repeat a as many times as you want and even standing alone in the end of the whole pattern (for example aa bb cc dd a), without a change or changing it according to the irregularities of the text.

In the music material (after studying a few sequences, such as Victimae paschali laudes, and Dies irae), the melody of a stays within the mode, while b very often exceeding the limits of the mode upwards, but then in c the melody either comes back or leads back to the original modus, and even in some cases its textual and musical material is shorter than the ones before.

In the remained melody lines of Sion trure we can see similar progressions in A and B: A identifies the modality which is could be Mode 5, and then B exceeds the limits of Mode 5 extremely therefore let's assume that Sion trure has a tritus tonality, by mixing Mode 5 and 6. The fact that Sion trure shows similarities with sequences gives a little bit of help to reconstruct the missing melody for unit C.

Which church mode is it now?

In order to continue my invistigations to continue the reconstruction of the missing melodic lines, today I have digged myself in the system of Chruch Modes. My companion was (this time) Richard Hoppin's Medieval Music from which I would like to quote a few fragments as well, using them as footsteps towards my opinion on the "tonality" of Syon trure (note: however using the term "tonality" is definately not the best one to indicate the character of the range in the case of Medieval compositions, but I would stick to modern theoretical terms, so even non-early musicians will be able to understand more or less what I am talking about).

I have been thinking about this recently: which Church mode could the remaining melodic lines belong to? After all it would be essential to know this if I want to make a more or less valid reconstruction of the missing melodic lines. People were thinking about Church modes in the Middle Ages the same way as we think now our system of tonality, therefore Medieval composers were influenced by these modes. The Modality and the solmization system is definately much younger than the whole chant repertory, but at the time of Mesiter Alexander the system was already in use and his chant composer contemporaries used it: it was the music theory of the time. Therefore it is difficult to believe that vernacular composers could make themselves independent from the achievements of the earlier times. People listened to the music based on this system for two centuries in the church from before they would even be born until the day they died. This had undoubtedly an influence on their way of thinking and feeling about music. Just think about how much we are influenced by the music interpretations of the nineteenth-century in the beginning of the twentyfirst-century: we listened to it in our mothers womb and we (as well-educated musicians at the Conservatory) are listening to these interpretations, our teachers are showing us them as the best possible examples to follow.

I do not really wish to give here an extensive explanation of the Church Modes, but shortly: the system of Church modes consist of four pair of modes, these groups are identified by the Greek ordinal numbers: Protus, Deuterus, Tritus  and Tetrardus (see illustration below). Each pair has their own finalis (for example the finalis mode 1 and mode 2 is the "d"), and they consist of an authentic and a plagal scale with a range of an octave. These terms (plagal and authentic) are indicating the position of the finalis in the range of the particular modus (or tonus).

As a matter of range, according to Hoppin: "Not all melodies, of course, have a range of exactly one octave. Many of the chants, especially the older ones, move within the limits of a fifth or a sixth. Later melodies frequently have a range of an octave plus a third or a fourth. Even in melodies of restricted range, the note below the final is commonly used in all authentic modes except Mode 5. For listeneres accustomed to the leading tone in melodies associated with tonal harmony, it is curious to discover that plainchant composers evidently disliked the semitone below the final. In contrast to the usage in authentic modes, plagal melodies frequently extend one note above their basic octave. [...] Further extensions of the range can usually be explained as combinations of authentic and plagal forms, known to medieval theorists as 'mixed' modes."

The last possibility actually caught my attention. I was analysing the music material of Syon trure and I couldn't figure out which mode could this melody fit in? First I was suspecting that it might not fit in the modal system at all, but after reading Hoppin's chapter about the Church modes, but if I think about the last sentence of the fragment above, I have the feeling that in the case of Syon trure this might be the case: 'mixed mode'.
The range of "A" is f-C', and then "B" goes even higher, from C' to B' flat, which makes the whole range from f up to B' flat, and this is broader than an octave of a range, actually an octave plus a fourth. Although the use of B flats are not that often in Mode 5, if we assume, that Syon trure is in a "Tritus tonality", and we know that Meister Alexander knew the rules of composing very well, but he definately broke these rules, or rather to say he bends them... Then why not use a B flat in the melody he composed for Syon trure?

Well, this theory of mine definately needs further investigation, but at least I have a point that I might be able to use when I will finally recontruct the melody. I've taken a breve look at some other melodies by him and he does bend the rules so the result might suit his taste.
And one should not forget that composers (especially the ones with strong character, tending to free themselves from cliches) like to bend the rules of the certain compositional technique (see for example at the later composers Bach or Mozart).

Welcome!

...to the behind scenes blog of my critical edition of Sîôn trûre by der Wilde Alexander!

In this blog you can find all the background information I have found, which led me to reconstruct Sîôn trûre. So you can read about the origin of minnesang and the characteristics of their compositional style, German medieval poetry, biographical matters of der Wilde Alexander (a.k.a. Meister Alexander - according to the Jenaer Liederhandschrift) and details about the reconstruction process - all these things in the strict aspect of Meister Alexander.

There was a reason, he was called "wild": he lived the restless life of a vagabond and his lifestyle defines his compositional style and way of treating poetry. I will be able to show this to you, my dear Reader, after I discussed the fashion and traditions of his time. One could say, that reconstructing a piece by a composer who clearly did not follow the rules is impossible, but I would slightly disagree (at least, for now I disagree in theory) on this point of view. It is often told that The rules are there to break them - so did Alexander in his compositions. Therefore a possible way to reconstruct the missing melodic lines of Sîôn trûre is possibly this:

• find out the rules
• find out how Alexander broke them
• by reconstruction process first apply the rules and then break them

Sounds easy, right? Well, it is not... :)))