Abstract
Rebecca Maloy’s latest book focuses on the Old Hispanic sacrificium, an offertory chant that was sung at Mass during the procession to bring bread and wine to the altar. Maloy’s interest in the world of the Old Hispanic sacrificium should come as no surprise: she has studied the Gregorian offertory extensively (Inside the Offertory: Aspects of Chronology and Transmission (Oxford and New York, 2010)) and, in recent years, she has bravely ventured into the study of Old Hispanic chant (with Emma Hornby, Music and Meaning in Old Hispanic Lenten Chants: Psalmi, Threni and the Easter Vigil Canticles (Woodbridge, 2013)). Maloy’s book is an excellent example of how a niche area of musicological research can have a wide reach, and of how to construct a compelling research narrative. Indeed, the highly specialized analysis of the text and music of the sacrificium allows Maloy to launch a broader discussion of pre-Gregorian plainchant creation and transmission, and of how Visigothic Christian identity was shaped in its early days. Last but not least, this book provides an interesting perspective on Visigothic devotional book culture, shedding some light on the cultural exchanges woven through the surviving manuscript sources. The book is paired with a companion website that has ten online musical appendices representing the material discussed in the book, and where further examples and bibliographical references are given. The appendices provide useful material for future studies in the sacrificium and similar chant genres; they also allow the reader to follow Maloy’s thought process and methodology step by step, showing the huge amount of work that has gone into this book.
Published Version
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