Mark Alan Leach, Ph.D. 1986

Advisor: James W. Pruett

Dissertation Title: The Gloria in excelsis Deo tropes of the Breme-Novalesa Community and the Repertory in North and Central Italy

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Dissertation Abstract:

Gloria in excelsis deo tropes were numerous and widely distributed during the tenth to the twelfth centuries, and they form an important part of the medieval musical legacy. Yet Gloria tropes in Italy have remained largely unexplored. The present dissertation, then, investigates this nearly unknown repertory, which is seen to include fully one-half the complete European stock of about one hundred and twenty tropes. By identifying the manuscripts, and cataloging and analyzing the tropes, we examine an aspect of the role that musicians in Italy played in the creation, preservation, and transmission of medieval chant.

The study focuses on north and central Italian manuscripts, ca. A.D. 900-1200, and gives particular attention to the large collection of tropes in MS. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Douce 222 (Ox 222), an eleventh-century source from the old and distinguished monastic community of Breme and Novalesa, in northwestern Italy. Based on paleographic, textual, and musical analysis, we also suggest that the Breme-Novalesa community produced yet another manuscript containing Gloria tropes: this is MS. Rome, Biblioteca Casanatense 3830, from the late eleventh or early twelfth century.

Included in the study are editions of most Gloria tropes found in north and central Italy. Diversity of textual and musical forms suggests that distribution patterns in Italy were quite diverse, although perhaps two areas of especially active circulation may be perceived, the first among centers east of Bobbio and south of the Po, and the second among those locales from Bobbio west and north of the Po. Musically speaking, Gloria tropes in Italy may be based on variants of two melodic formulae or may be freely composed; some tropes are melodically derived from earlier examples or are found to contain melodic idioms in common with older pieces. A certain number of tropes were intended to interpolate particular Gloria melodies. Volume II reconstructs the non- diastematic melodies of Gloria tropes in Ox 222. These reconstructions supplement the analyses of volume I and reveal aspects of the notation that would be useful in recovering other music from the manuscript.

In 2008, Dr. Leach published an edition of three string quartets by the German-Austrian composer Peter Hänsel in AR Editions’ series Recent Researches in Music of the Classical Era.