The Music of the Old Hall Manuscript--A Postscript

Author(s): Oliver Strunk

Source: The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 35, No. 2 (Apr., 1949), pp. 244-249
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/740123
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 THE MUSIC OF THE OLD HALL
MANUSCRIPT--A POSTSCRIPT
By OLIVER STRUNK

PROFESSOR ManfredF. Bukofzer'sexhaustiveand penetrating

study of the Old Hall MS will have served to reawaken general
interest in this crucial insular document whose interpretation is
decisive for the interpretation of subsequent Continental develop-
ments. With the settling of the controversy over the date of the MS
it at last becomes possible to relate it to the general scene. Particu-
larly helpful from this point of view are the additional concordances
with Continental MSS, which show that the Old Hall repertory was
rather more widely diffused than formerly supposed, and the demon-
stration that the MS itself contains at least one additional piece of
Continental origin. Significant, too, is the bearing of the date of
the MS upon the date of Leonel Power's removal from England to
Continental Europe.
Early in the first installment of his study Professor Bukofzer dis-
claimed any intention of dealing with all aspects of the Old Hall
repertory. The purpose of this brief postscript, which Professor
Bukofzer has encouraged me to prepare for publication, is to draw
attention to a group of pieces discussed only briefly in what has
gone before. This seems worth doing, not only because the pieces
are in themselves important, but also because they are imperfectly
and incompletely represented in the published edition.

As published in the edition brought out by the Plainsong &

Mediaeval Music Society, the Old Hall MS contains five canonic
settings of texts belonging to the Ordinary of the Mass-three Glorias
244
 The Music of the Old Hall Manuscript-A Postscript 245
by Pycard (I, 76, 84, and 119) and two anonymous Credos (II, 82
and loi). For the solution of the canons in all but one of these pieces
the MS itself gives explicit Latin directions. In the one case remain-
ing (II, 82) there is no direct indication that canonic writing is
involved, but an attempt to score the three voices found in the MS
shows unmistakably that something is missing. Mr. H. B. Collins
offers a brilliant and altogether convincing solution of this piece-
as a three-part canon with two accompanying voices-in the second
volume of the Society's edition, and in a note printed with his
transcription he remarks that at several points within the piece the
written cantus part has two sets of words-at "Genitum non factum"
the second set begins from "Qui propter nos", while "Et in Spiri-
tum" is similarly combined with "Qui cum Patre", and "Confiteor"
with "Et exspecto". At the corresponding points in his transcription,
Collins adapts the upper lines of text to the voice beginning the
canon and to the first of the two voices that follow it, leaving the
lower lines to the second of the consequent voices. In effect, the
result is not unlike that seen in the familiar "telescoped" settings
of Gloria and Credo.
Thanks to Mr. Collins and his remark about the double set of
words in his anonymous Credo, it is not difficult to add a new item
to the list of canonic settings in the Old Hall MS and to show that
another item, already on this list, is not a simple canon, as indicated
in the MS, but a double one. For once it is recognized that a single
voice-part provided with a "telescoped" double text may in itself be
an indirect indication of the presence of canonic writing, the rest is
easy and the surprising thing is that the obvious conclusions were
not drawn long ago.
The first of the two pieces in question is a Gloria by Byttering
(I, 47)-No. 15 in Barclay Squire's thematic list of contents. This
is a setting in three written parts, with vocal cantus and instrumental
tenor and contratenor. Here the "telescoped" double text runs with-
out a break from the first measure of the cantus part to the last,
the upper line giving the beginnings of the successive clauses, the
lower line the endings. If one approaches this piece with the pos-
sibility of unspecified canonic writing in mind, the solution leaps
to the eye-in the first section (Tempus imperfectum cum prolatione
246 The Musical Quarterly
majore) the consequent voice enters at the unison after four mea-
sures, with this result:

Exi V r- . .

Bo - e vo- lun-

Et in ter- ra pax hmin - bus Lau- da - muS te Be-

A8 3 3

, n -- z 31 rT 3 3_ i 3- -e. .
... -

rn _ 3 -

ta - - tI AAo-ja -mus te G1Q-r-fii-eaimu4te Propter

54 ) . /
5vJ
i ' ,t#J- i

-.di-inu te Ga-ci-as a-gimus ti - - b Do-

3 2 -,
r=]-MF"

ere.

Not only does the consequent voice fit perfectly with those given
in the MS, it also supplies the missing fifths and thirds for a number
of incomplete triads and fills in occasional gaps in the texture. With
three voices only, the sudden cessation of movement in measures 5
and 6 of the tenor and contratenor has an awkward appearance;
with four voices, it is seen to be a deliberately calculated refinement.
Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that without the fourth voice
the piece makes no real sense at all.
In the second section of Byttering's Gloria (Tempus perfectum,
with the contratenor in Tempus imperfectum at the beginning) the
entrance of the consequent voice is again at the unison; a nice stroke
is the reduction of the time-interval from four measures to three
for this, the final section of the piece:
 The Music of the Old Hall Manuscript-A Postscript 247

Ex.2
t---^- -^- --- NI. JU ^ J
Mi - se-re - re ni-hio

Qui tol-lis pec-ca-ta mlundi_ Quitl- li pec-ca - ta mund

J IJlr IJ IJ _- N IS
ef.

A particularly attractive feature of Byttering's little piece is the

carefully planned coordination of words and music. As a result of the
canonic structure, the first section falls into periods of four measures,
the second into periods of three. In dividing the liturgical text
between antecedent and consequent, Byttering follows this over-all
periodization exactly, with the result that in each period the conse-
quent voice completes the clause left unfinished by the antecedent,
echoing the notes that have just been sung, while the antecedent
voice is simultaneously propounding the first half of the clause that
follows. A further result, characteristic of many canonic and quasi-
canonic settings of the Gloria text, but unusually well worked out
in this one, is the symbolically simultaneous declamation of the
appeals to Father and Son: while the consequent voice is singing
"Deus Pater omnipotens", echoing the "Domine Deus Rex caelestis"
that has just been heard, the antecedent voice is already beginning
the "Domine Fili unigenite". Similarly, but with another shade of
meaning, "Domine Deus, Agnus Dei" and "Jesu Christe" are heard
at the same time.1
We ought now to be ready to assume that any voice provided
with a "telescoped" double text is a potential canonic antecedent,
and meeting with one more such voice among the Glorias of the
Old Hall MS we shall naturally put it to the test. This time (I, 84)
the composer is Pycard, by whom we have two other canonic Glorias
(I, 76 and 119) and-if Professor Bukofzer's attribution is accepted-
1 Compare the comments of Friedrich Ludwig on a similar treatment of the
Gloria text in Modena 568 (Die mehrstimmige Messe des 4. Jahrhunderts, in Archiv fiur
Musikwissenschaft, VII [1925], 423).
248 The Musical Quarterly
a canonic Credo (II, o10); his piece is No. 24 in Barclay Squire's
thematic list. There are two vocal parts, one with a "telescoped"
text that is alternately single and double (as in the Credo transcribed
by Mr. Collins), the other with the complete text in the usual form.
Accompanying them is an instrumental tenor with the direction:
Tenor et contratenor in uno, unus post alium fugando quinque
temporibus. The MS has also a "solus tenor" part which may be sub-
stituted for the canonic tenor and contratenor if a reduction in
the number of voices is desired. As it stands, then, the piece appears
to be for four voices (or for three, if the "solus tenor" is used). But
the "telescoped" text below the one cantus part suggests that it is
actually for five voices (or for four), and an attempt to apply the
tenor's rule to the cantus confirms this. In the example that follows
(four five-measure periods from the concluding "Amen"), the alter-
native "solus tenor" is omitted.
Ex3

| 3 13 (A3 _ X
3*'
'-r-' '--- '--" . _ C-' rJ
3e - Su ChristeCumSan,o Sp-ri-tu ingl.ia De-i Pa- tri

r< ~P~ rr J. d.
f. rJ --
0

z_.. - ,
j-==
ij _^
^ ^

-. j r--4 -cI . j"

etc.
-_M A

.Jj -=r Pr r r i _
"r __ ?
J_J 1" r; ["
 The Music of the Old Hall Manuscript-A Postscript 249
As in the Gloria by Byttering, the added consequent voice fills out
a number of incomplete triads. What is more striking, it also com-
pletes the hockets: the construction of the antecedent voice, which
sings alternately after and on the beat in the corresponding measures
of the successive five-measure periods, is now seen to be a deliberate
and ingenious calculation. Once again the piece becomes fully
intelligible only when the unspecified canon is resolved; it is this
canon that is the truly essential one-not the specified canon of tenor
and contratenor, whose omission the composer expressly sanctions.
Pycard's canonic Gloria is doubtless somewhat earlier than Dufay's
familiar Gloria ad modum tubae and is in any case one of the very
few multiple canons that we have from the time before Josquin
and the later Ockeghem.
* *

Surely it is significant that of the six canonic pieces in the Old

Hall MS four are Glorias while only two are Credos. Throughout
the earlier 15th century the Gloria text is the preferred text for
canonic treatment: we have no Credos to offset the canonic Glorias of
Modena 568,2 of Arnold and Hugo de Lantins,3 of Trent 90,4 of
Dufay. It is also significant that of the six canonic pieces in the Old
Hall MS only the two Credos involve three-part canonic writing.
For their time, these six pieces constitute the largest known group
of their kind. And they follow too closely on the heels of the pair
ihl Modena 568 to justify the assumption of a direct borrowing from
Italy; it is at least equally possible that the application of the canonic
principle to the Ordinary of the Mass began independently and more
or less simultaneously on both sides of the Channel.
2 An anonymous dialogue-like setting with accompanying instrumental canon (fol.
2V), published in part by Jacques Handschin in Zeitschrift fur Musikwissenschaft, X
(1927/28), 552-55, and an accompanied canon ("Fuga", fol. gv) by Matteo da Perugia,
cantor at the Milan Cathedral from 1402 to 1414.
3 Charles van den Borren, Polyphonia sacra (Nashdom Abbey, 1932), pp. 1o (the
canon broken off at "Laudamus te") and 118.
4 Nos. 925 and 927 of the thematic catalogue.