Project Description

CM-Tropen.jpg 
Tropes to the Introit Antiphons of the Mass: San Candido, Library of the Collegiate Abbey, VII a 7, f. 298v (edition in Corpus monodicum, Dept. II, vol. 2, »Tropes to the Antiphons of the Mass from Sources of German Origin«).

The project is dedicated to the research and edition of music-historically significant, editorially still unexplored collections of monophonic ecclesiastical and secular music of the European Middle Ages with Latin text. Until the end of the Middle Ages, the music of Europe was determined by unison. The permanent disclosure of monophony and the new concept of polyphonic composition are the foundation of the musical cultural uniqueness of modern Europe and at the same time condition the perception of the Middle Ages as a foreign musical culture.

The manuscript sources of the monophonic music of the Middle Ages are relatively well indexed today, and most of the texts of the chants and songs preserved in these manuscripts are available to researchers in older and newer editions. On the other hand, only a small number of the melodies are accessible in editions that meet scholarly standards. The edition project therefore makes a significant contribution to a complete indexing of the entire stock of European unanimity. As basic research, the project aims to eliminate one of the greatest deficits in music medievalism and to lay a philologically secure foundation for further research into the formative phase of European music.

The long-term project, which is scheduled to run for 16 years, has a modular structure. 26 planned volumes are divided into six sections (Ordinary Chants of the Mass, Tropes, Sequences, Songs, Plays, Antiphons).

The results of the project will also be made available in digital form. For this purpose, a software for the digital transcription of monophonic melodies notated in non-mensural form has been developed (mono:di 1.0).