Ambrosian chant is better understood if one bears in mind the fact that throughout the Christian West, until about 1000 A.D., many different religious rites were in use, but that they gradually all gave place to the increasingly authoritative Roman liturgy — with the sole exception of the liturgy employed at Milan. This has remained almost unaltered, with its own plainsong melodies, from its origins in the 4th century right through to the present day, a span of almost sixteen centuries. Why at Milan?, one is bound to ask. By the end of the 4th century Christianity had triumphed over paganism as the new State religion, despite violent disputes with sects holding heretical views, in particular the Arians. At that time Mediolanum, as Milan was then called, together with the seaport of Aquileia (which today is a mere inland village owing to the silting up of its shores over the centuries, but which still possesses extremely impressive remains of its former glory), was the most important Imperial capital city in the western half of the mighty Imperium Romanum Christianum. A government official in Milan who was also greatly gifted as a writer, poet and orator, Aurelius Ambrosius (339—397) was chosen by the people as their Bishop in 374 A. D. He was responsible to no small degree for the leading position which Milan came to occupy among cities as "Roma secunda". The authority of this powerful personality led to the adaptation of the term "Ambrosian" for the Milanese liturgy and its plainsong melodies since the 9th century. Formerly they were used almost everywhere in northern Italy, and in parts of southern Germany (Augsburg, Salzburg, Prague etc.), but today the Ambrosian liturgy is restricted to the city of Milan and its surroundings, and to a few valleys in the southern Alps. Until 1898 a special Milanese form of musical notation was in use, but in 1935 it was superseded by the customary Roman square note system. This form is used in the edition of the Ambrosian Mass chants produced by the Mont-serrat Benedictine G. M. Suñol (1935), although as the facsimile shows, the authentic Milanese neumes are easier to read. For this reason the first new edition of the complete Milanese chants in the Monumenta Monodica Medii Aevi 13/14 (by Bonifazio Baroffio) returns to the use of the old notation, and also corrects various errors in Suñol's edition.
Milan's overriding importance as seat of the Imperial government with its worldwide trade links, effected the liturgy. Outside influences were accepted more readily there than, for example, in Rome, which at that time was a less important, almost provincial city. Liturgical elements from elsewhere came into use at Milan between the 5th and the 7th century. From Rome, Milan adopted a number of In-troit chants, which became known as Ingressae (e.g. No. 1), and certain Graduals now known as Psalmelli (No. 2). From the East came some Byzantine texts, such as "Coenae tuae", sung by the Milan Schola as No. 5; this was sung at Byzantium from the 6th century onwards, and may go back to an even earlier Syrian-Palestinian tradition. Unfortunately, despite intensive research it has not yet proved possible to discover or reconstruct the original Oriental melodies to these texts, and the same is true of other Ambrosian chants whose words the editor of Paleographie Musicale 5/6 (Cagin) has shown to be translations of texts from Eastern liturgies. Certain melodic configurations may possibly have reached Milan from rites which had originated in Gaul; I have in mind the typical formal characteristics of "In Bethlehem Judae" (No. 4) and of the two Transitories (Nos. 10 and 11) sung during the reception of the Communion. Here the melody consists of more or less numerous repetitions of a single melodic line (comparable to such Gallic pieces as the "Exultet"; also, to quote a late example, the earliest French crusaders' hymn of 1147). To sum up: Milan was receptive to the good and beautiful from whatever source, while Rome deliberately excluded many outside influences, for example restricting the texts used to those from the Psalms. This gave the Milanese liturgy as a whole a more colourful character, its plainsong providing contrast to the more uniformly sober Roman form. Seen in another light, the contrast was between the inorganic compilation of variegated material at Milan, and the strictly constructed Roman edifice.
The important thing is that the chants imported from elsewhere were creatively transformed in accordance with the stylistic characteristics of Ambrosian plainsong, "Ambrosified" so to speak. This brings us to the key question: What is the distinguishing characteristic of the Ambrosian style? Let us for the moment ignore the wider liturgical context, the typical ordering of the chants for the Mass (Nos. 1—11) and Offices (Nos. 12—21), on which this recording is based, and consider solely the melodic style evident in the chants as a whole. What first attracts our attention is the constant repetition of innumerable melodic fragments moving by small intervals; the Bavarian "Scholasticus" Aribo termed this method of melodic progress "spissim" in contrast to "saltatim", the use of wider leaps favoured in northern lands. (The use of small intervals was a hallmark not only of Milanese but also of early Roman and Bene-ventan chants, and with Oriental melodies, Byzantine and Syrian in particular, so that it is correct to consider this a characteristic of vocal music in Mediterranean lands). The melodic repetitions are not always literal, being subjected to slight modifications or "Gestalt"-variations, as they have been called. Consequently the Milanese chants appear, to a greater extent than others, to be permeated with music, as such motifs are constantly in evidence. By comparison Roman plainsong creates an effect of austerity: the placing of the individual notes or melodic figures is subordinated to the grammatical characteristics of the text, while Milanese plainsong flows apparently unconcernedly across sentences, verbal phrases and caesuras. Its range extends from simple Antiphons like the Advent "Rorate" (No. 17) and "In exitu" (No. 18), called syllabic because in such pieces it is rare for a syllable to be spread over more than one note, right through to the extravagant melismata of the "melodiae", in which up to 200 notes are sung to a single syllable (No. 3, more details of which are given below). Between these two extremes the great majority of the chants are in a mixture of the syllabic and melismatic styles. Examples of this among the chants for the Mass given here are the Ingressa (No. 1), which fulfils some of the functions of the Roman Introit, the two chants intoned between the lessons "Laudate" (No. 6) and "Domine, domine deus" (No. 7), the Confractorium "Ille homo", the chant to accompany the breaking of the bread (No. 9). From among the chants for the Divine Office the Schola sing the "Venite omnis creatura" (No. 19), put together from two Antiphons, the Psallendae Nos. 20 and 21 which serve to frame a Psalm, and the celebrated "Tenebrae factae sunt" of Holy Week (No. 16); the three Hymns (Nos. 12—14) are referred to below. They are followed by the "Omnes patriarchae" (No. 15), which is preceded liturgically by the Benedictus of the three youths in the fiery furnace, classified as a Hymn. More richly melismatic in style are the Psalmellus "Pacifice" (No. 2), the counterpart to the Roman Gradual, and the Offertory "Ubi sunt nunc dii" (No. 8), whose reference to "false" gods suggests that it dates from a time when heathenism was still a force to be reckoned with. At the other end of the stylistic spectrum are the melodic patterns whose melismatic richness is without parallel: These are the "melodiae cum infantibus", a true Milanese creation (No. 3). A long Alleluia — St. Augustine had warm praise for its chains of notes which he called "jubilus" — acts as a refrain framing the heart of the piece which tells of the coming of the Three Wise Men, the "Magi venerunt". First it is sung by men's voices, then a repeat follows in which boys' voices take part — this is an extended version known as "melodiae primae"; for the third and last time it is sung by the boys to conclude the piece in a yet more radically altered version, the "melodiae secundae". "To present a 'scheme of motifs' is not in accordance with the style of the melodiae. It is better to surrender to the flow of this infinitely fine-nerved line, and at the same time to observe how the same or similar figures constantly recur. It will also be observed that lengthy stretches are repeated, and finally it becomes apparent that brief and longer sections are not put together haphazardly as seems at first to be the case, but that a formative will is in sovereign command of the endlessly flowing melodies" (B. Stablein, "Das Schriftbild der einstimmigen Musik des Mittelalters", Illustrations 21 a and b, P. 132). Fran-chino Gaffori (died 1522), who directed the Cathedral music in Milan for 38 years and after whom the present Schola is named, gave a masterly description of the evolution and fine flow of the melodic line when he referred to a "continuato et perenni transitu", a species of endless melody.
In addition to the "melodiae cum infantibus" Milan created another new class of composition, which — unlike the "melodiae" which remained unique to Milan — soon came into use throughout the whole of the Latin Church: the Hymn (Nos. 12—14). Its origin is known: when their Arian foes were holding the Bishop and his faithful followers prisoner in Porziana Basilica for several days and nights in an attempt to compel their submission, Ambrose kept his people from succumbing to weariness by teaching them hymns whose words he had written, and which they then sang. The basic form (8 four-line verses, sung antiphonally by men and women) and the style of writing, with profound ideas expressed in words which all could easily understand, were soon taken up by all churches and called simply Ambrosiani. These hymns had a striking effect on the masses in Milan: they were sung so enthusiastically by the populace that the Arian foes described them as magical songs (in-cantationes) with which the Bishop had turned the people's heads — an accusation which gave Ambrose cause for pride. All three hymns sung here, the well-known "Splendor paternae gloriae" (Monumenta Monodica Medii Aevi 1, Melody 3), "Agnes beatae virginis" (ditto, 24) and "Apostolorum passio" (12), are given at their first appearance in the sources (12th century) in the authentic and best Ambrosian tradition, including the addition of the customary melismata.
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