THE IBERIAN PENINSULA AND THE FORMATION OF EARLY WESTERN CHANT

Abstract

Studies in plainchant have increasingly focused on the different regional repertories ?Roman, Beneventan, Ravennate, Milanese, Gallican, Old Hispanic, Celtic, etc.? that flourished before the Gregorian-Roman re pertory came to be universal during the later 8th century. The local chant ?dialects? are of interest not only for themselves but for what thay reveal in comparisons with their sister dialects. Their styles, substances, and in terrelationships enlarge the prespectives on plainchant origins. For long it was supposed that the authoritative, mainstream chant was Gregorian chant, and that this flowed from a single source ?a written model that was neumed at Rome in the time of Gregory the Great. Other regional dialects seemed no more than local tributaries of the ?Gregorian-Roman? usage. This Roman-centered view has been replaced, and the regional dialects are now understood as potential indicators of musical states be fore the Gregorian was given its definitve Carolingian form. There are rich materials for studying this question. Four complete musical repertories have come down from the medieval Latin West. Where primacy was long assigned to the Gregorian-Roman, now the Ur ban Roman repertory, with a liturgy and music that are in many respects more Roman than those of Gregorian chant, is recognized as of equal im portance. There is also the ?Milanese? repertory that flourished in parts of cisalpine Gaul. Covering a large area, there is the Old-Hispanic reper tory, with some important subdivisions. Old-Hispanic is the most difficult of access because its surviving transmissions are almost exclusively in un heighted neumes.Yet it has the allure of being in some respects the most archaic as well as the most complete surviving repertory. It may also have played a larger role than the historical picture has so far assigned it. This Round Table focuses on aspects of the Old Hispanic chant, in its own manifestations and in its contribution to the larger picture. Alongside the four full surviving repertories from the Latin West