Projects / Programmes
Forms and transformations of monastic musical traditions in medieval Europe:
Carthusian plainchant in the light of a comparison with selected liturgical music traditions
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 6.08.00 |
Humanities |
Musicology |
|
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| H320 |
Humanities |
Musicology |
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| 6.04 |
Humanities |
Arts (arts, history of arts, performing arts, music) |
monastic plainchant traditions, Carthusian liturgy, Charterhouse Žiče
Researchers (1)
| no. |
Code |
Name and surname |
Research area |
Role |
Period |
No. of publicationsNo. of publications |
| 1. |
27509 |
PhD Katarina Šter |
Humanities |
Head |
2013 - 2016 |
419 |
Organisations (1)
Abstract
The abstract of the proposed project can be comprised in one sentence: Forms and transformations of the monastic muscial traditions in medieval Europe: Carthusian plainchant in the light of a comparison with selected liturgical traditions. This project tries to define the characteristics of the Carthusian musical tradition in comparison with some other traditions, which were connected with the Carthusians in one way or another. There are two traditions which must have been among the sources for the Carthusian plainchant in the time of its formation: Benedictine and Aquitanian plainchant traditions. On the other hand there is another tradition which sprung up in the similar circumstances and with the similar aims as the Carthusian tradition: this is the Cistercian tradition. The focus of research is to find out, how the Carthusian tradition was formed on the basis of the other traditions and how it was later transformed into something new and individual. The characteristics in which the Carthusian plainchant differs from the plainchant of the other traditions will help us define the essence of the Carthusian plainchant.
Essential characteristics of the Carthusian tradition will become clearer by the means of comparison and analysis of the manuscript sources – in this case antiphoners. At least two sources will from each of the four above-mentioned plainchant traditions will be taken into comparison. Selection and categorization of sources will take about one half of the time intended for the project, and another half will be spent for analytical comparisons of the sources and for drawing the conclusions and further syntheses out of the analyses. The analysis of selected chants which will be found in all four traditions, will be carried out in several layers. These will be foremost textual and musical layers (melodies), and in some smaller degree also the layer of notation. Conclusions about which texts and melodies the Carthusians accepted and which not, and which of the accepted ones were later transformed, how, and why, will enable us a new insight in how the first Carthusian monks understood other traditions and what the new textual-musical entities meant to them.
Novelty and importance of this project is comprised in two things. Firstly, the starting-point and focus of the research is a tradition of the till recently very little-researched Carthusian plainchant. The analysis will be further focused on the texts and melodies of the Carthusian antiphoner which was researched less than the Carthusian gradual. Some studies were performed on the basis of the texts of the Carthusian antiphoners, but it is the melodies of the Carthusian antiphoner which seem to be known least. This is not the only gap in the field of musicology that the project intends to fill. Second novelty of the project is, that the main sources of the analyses will be till recently not much known medieval antiphoners from the Charterhouse Žiče, one of the most important charterhouse of the former German territory. Even in those few researches of the Carthusian plainchant, mostly French, Italian and occasionally German and English sources were taken into account. In the best case, the manuscripts from Žiče were mentioned in the list of sources for comparison.
This project represents a chance to put medieval music heritage of the Slovenian territory on its rightful place in history of medieval music in Slovenia as well as Europe. In this way the music manuscripts from Žiče, one of the most important corpuses of medieval music from Slovenia which is of great importance for the liturgical history of the whole Carhtusian order on the European basis as well, will be able to contribute to wider acknowledgment of the Slovenian cultural heritage.
Significance for science
By coincidence, the project was in its course in the time when the research on the origins of the Carthusian antiphoner was being conducted by the liturgical experts such as A. Zerfass, Hj. Becker and A. Franz. On one hand, this was a sign of the actuality of such research in a wider context of the history of the liturgy, but on the other it was concerned mainly with the texts of the antiphoner. Music, once again, was not a part of the liturgical study and so this important aspect of the Carthusian antiphoner was left behind. That is why a research on the music and chant melodies of the Carthusian liturgy must be especially welcome in this time, since it helps to complete the image. Next to that, the Carthusian chant in general, researched by a few scholars, is one of the white spots of the medieval musicology and that is why it is important to know more about it to gain a more complete image of the musical life in the Middle Ages. There are liturgical and musicological reasons to know this tradition better, and its little known or even completely unknown sources represent a step further in our knowledge about the important European musical traditions (this is actually the one which survived in its early form until today). Music traditions are not isolated phenomena: there were intersections among them, some of them influenced the others and the others were changed in one way or another. Their characteristics are best seen in the comparison with one another: here we can see their specialities and their differences, but especially what they themselves want to be. This project has shown what the Carthusian plainchant in the light of comparison with other traditions is and what is typical for it. It has also shown one of the typical (and to us perhaps a bit strange) concepts of medieval creativity which seems to flourish exactly where and when it wants to stick firmly to the authority and tradition of word and music. Discovering such concepts from the past (or our time) on the basis of some artistic or liturgical creativity is one of the main tasks of humanities. At the end of the project, several 16th-century Carthusian antiphoners from the Charterhouse Pleterje were included in the research and presented at an international conference. They come from the Carthusian nunnery in Gosnay and they belong to the relatively small group of manuscripts of the Carthusian nuns. In this way, Pleterje became one of the interesting keeping places of such manuscripts, and on the other hand the manuscript themselves seem to be important sources since the scholarly attention is turning to the musical traditions of the even less known female (branches of the) monastic orders more and more.
Significance for the country
Adding medieval musical sources coming from the Slovenian territory to the European musical map is something that is important for Slovenia and for Europe as well. Knowing our own cultural heritage (which includes the manuscript sources from our monasteries kept abroad and in Slovenia as well as the manuscripts kept in our institutions) and its importance – which was one of the tasks of the project – helps us create our cultural identity in the European setting. The institutions which were active and influential on the territory of today’s Slovenia in the past (such as Charterhouse Žiče / Seitz) were also of great importance for the musical history of Europe. Even if the sources coming from this once important centre of musical copying are lost today or distributed widely across Europe (as is the case with most of the sources coming from the Slovenian charterhouses), it is important to know that on this territory and in these institutions important music manuscripts had been copied and written. The Slovenian cultural heritage has also grown a little bit with the help of this project: an until now unidentified 13th-century gradual from the Czech National Library in Prague has been identified as a gradual from Jurklošter (Geirach); there is another 13th-century gradual from Bistra (Freudenthal), but otherwise the Carthusian manuscripts coming from this period are relatively rare. There is no doubt that such project not only helps us to understand better the musical past of our country, but in its way also adds to it and enlarges it. The manuscripts from the Slovenian lands were included in the comparison as representatives of an individual monastic tradition. In this way, they are not only represented on equal level as the manuscript of the perhaps more famous traditions. They can even be found by the scholars who are concerned primarily with other traditions. They step into dialogue with the traditions of other places, and perhaps they will appear in some other study. It is certainly important that the scholars can read about them in the languages they understand. The Carthusian order is still active in Slovenia, so knowing the Carthusian tradition and its respect for the Bible and Gregorian melodies can be important for a better understanding better of the tradition which can still be seen and met with. Perhaps it was exactly this great respect for the tradition that kept the Carthusian tradition alive to this day. The results of the project could be of some use to the cultural workers, and musical material can still be performed today. The results of the project research have enabled the project leader to connect with the Public Fund for Cultural Activities of the Republic of Slovenia (JSKD RS) to bring the project even further: there will be a theoretical and practical weekend workshop for amateur and professional musicians where the Carthusian chant will be presented and sung as an important part of the Slovenian (and European) cultural heritage.
Most important scientific results
Annual report
2014,
final report
Most important socioeconomically and culturally relevant results
Annual report
2013,
2014,
2015,
final report
