PROSE
485
PROSE
that the Alleluia before the Alleluia-verse had in the
time of St. Gregorj' the Great the form which the
Benedictines of Solesmes have established for it in
their valuable publications, then we must admit that
the melismata of the Gregorian Alleluia, even the
longest of them, are much shorter than, and are dif-
ferent in kind from, the melismata of the jubilus
to which the versus ad sequentias and the sequences
proper were attached. According to the " Prooemium
of Notker", the text of the sequences is so set to
the melodia: longissimw of the Alleluia-jubilus that
practically one syllable of the text corresponds to
one note of the jubilus. What then was the origin
of this comparatively long melisma? Was it de-
veloped from the Gregorian Alleluia by similar
melismatic interpolations and musical embellish-
ments, just as responsories of the Breviarj- with their
final melisma grew into the tropes and verbeta with
their more extensive text and music? This view
cannot be accepted; for we always straightway rec-
ognize the original melisma of the responsory as the
basis or leitmotiv of the melody of the verbeta, which
at the end of each division and at the conclusion
regularly returns to the shorter original melody.
Quite different is the case with respect to the sequences
of the first epoch. The introduction, it is true,
follows the melody of its Alleluia; a few words which
follow are frequently adapted to the first notes of the
melisma to the Gregorian Alleluia, but the melody
of the sequence then entirely deserts the meUsma of
the Alleluia and never returns to it. Various modern
liturgiologists have believed that the long jubilus
may be referred to Byzantine influence during the
eighth centurj'; however, no direct positive evidence
has hitherto been forthcoming, and no example of
Bj'zantine music, which might have served as a
model for the long Alleluia jubilus, has come to
light. Moreover, assuming a Byzantine model,
it is more than enigmatical why WTiters of proses
often adhered so conscientiously to the melod}' of the
Alleluia proper and to the first notes of its con-
cluding a; assuming that the verses w-ere written
to fit foreign melodies, we are at a loss to explam
why a part is not foreign. Perhaps the difficulty
may be explained if we assume that Gregory the
Great found a long Alleluia, presumably derived from
the Greeks, and gave it the short form preserved in
the choir-books of the West. We know that he
shortened many parts of the Sacramentarj'. If
this surmise be true, the long jubili may have con-
tinued to exist in some places alongside of the shorter
ones, and may have served later as the basis of the
sequence text. AMiile this attempt at a solution of
the great riddle has much in its favour, it is still
only an attempt.
III. Melody and Title of the Melody. — From what has been said it will be seen that there are two classes of sequence melodies: (1) those which ori- ginally formed the Alleluia-jubilus. These are the melodies to which a sequence text was later composed; (2j those which originated simultaneously with the text, both being composed by the same person, or tho.se which were composed by a musician for a texi. written by a prosator. Not everj' sequence has its own melody; often several sequences were written to one and the same melody, and, if this were very popular, many sequences were written to it. Hence many sequences have the same plan and the same melody. In such sequences the obvious thing was to identify the melody by some distinctive word; this word was and is called the title of the melody. About 300 titles of sequences of the first and transitional period are found in the old MSS.; this does not imply that only 300 old melodies are known, for many melodies have come down to us without title.
It was natural that the title should be chosen from the initial word of the original sequence, to the melody
of which later sequences were adapted; as examples
we may cite such titles as "Almiphona", "Creator
poll", "Digna cultu", "Exsultet elegantis", "Ful-
gens praeclara", etc.
It was also natural, if indeed not even more appro- priate, to provide as the title of a sequence melody the beginning of the Alleluia-verse whose Alleluia- jubilus gave the melody for the sequence. Hence we explain such titles as "Ostende", "Lsetatus sum", "Excita", "Veni Domine", "Dominus regnavit", "Dies sanctificatus", "Multifarie", and several others. Thus the Alleluia-versicle of the Gradual for the first Sunday in Advent is "Ostende nobis Domine misericordiam tuam etc."; for the second Sunday, "Laetatus sum in Ms etc."; for the third, "Excita Domine potentiam tuam etc.", and so on. In the further development of the Sequence, as the list of titles increased, as the sense of the connexion of the Sequence with the Alleluia and its versicle gradually disappeared, and as for some reason or other the de- sire for novelt}' arose, titles were adopted which seem to us rather far-fetched. Important words from the beginning or middle of a sequence were taken as titles. In the sequence "Quid tu virgo mater ploras" (Anal, hymn., LIII, n. 239), the words "virgo" and "ploras" gave the title "Virgo plorans"; from "Hanc concordi famulatu" (Anal, hymn., LIII., n. 215) was taken the title "Concordia"; in the sequence "Virginis venerandae" (Anal, hymn., LIII, n. 246), the second strophe commences "Filise matris", whence was taken the title "Fiha matris"; the sequence "Summi triumphum regis" (Anal, hymn., LIII, n. 67) belongs to the alleluia-versicle, "Dominus in Sina in sancto ascendens in altum captivam duxit captivitatem", and the conspicuous words "captivam . . . captivitatem" produced the title "Captiva"; the same is the case with other titles, e. g. "Aincena", "Mater", "Maris stella", "Planctus cygni", etc. Several titles are evidently formed on the principle of analogy; from the begin- ning of the sequences "LjTa pulchra regem" (Anal, hymn., LIII, n. 52) and "Nostra tuba nunc tua" (ibid. n. 14), titles (namely "LjTa" and "Nostra tuba") which indicated musical instruments were in- troduced; analogous to these are such titles as "Bucca", "Cithara", "Fidicula", "Fistula", "Or- gana", "Tuba", "TjTnpanum". Perhaps "Sym- phonia" is founded on the analogy of "Concordia", and the title "Chorus" related to it. Of somewhat less obvious origin, although they indicate the actual or supposed origin of the melody, are such titles as "Graeca", "Romana", "Metensis", "Occidentana". Far-fetched and now scarcely expUcable are the titles "Cignea", "Frigdola", "Planctus sterilia", "Duo tres", "Hypodiaconissa", "Vitelha", etc. If the conjecture be accurate that the title of a melody is simpler and more natural the nearer it is to its origin, then the titles, taken in connexion with other facts, provide the means of explaining the question as to the original home of the various sequences. France preferably chose titles from the Incipit of the Sequence or AUeluia- verse ; St. Gall and Germany on the contrary' never chose titles from the Incipit of the Sequence, but used many unusual titles which to us have little or no meaning.
IV. History of the Sequence. — Formerly the origin of the Sequence was always sought at St. Gall, and Notker Balbulus was universally accredited as its inventor. The basis for this supposition was furnished by the so-called "Prooemium of Notker", in which Notker tells us that it was the "Antiphona- rium " of a monk of Jumieges (in which "aliqui versus ad sequentias erant modulati"), which had suggested to him to place the words of a text under the melodim hyngissim/i of the Alleluia-jubilus in such a way that each word of the text corresponded to a note of the melody. But does this prove that Notker was the
