Tonar

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Fragment of the oldest preserved tonar from Saint-Riquier

A Tonar , even Tonarium , Tonarius or Tonale , the keys to ( modes parent) compilation of Gregorian chants , as since the early Middle Ages was common.

The history of Tonars as a chorale - didactic work begins in the 9th century and ends in the late Middle Ages . Tonars are important tools for researching the dubious tonality of individual melodies and are used to develop a chorale theory .

Important authors are Regino von Prüm , Hartker von St. Gallen , Odo von Cluny and Berno von Reichenau .

Function and form

Tonars were particularly important as part of the written transcription from the parish chancellor , although they already completely changed the oral song transcription of the Franconian cantors before the musical notation was systematically used in fully notated hymn books. Since the Carolingian reform, the reorganization after the Oktoechos supported the memorization of the song. The exact order referred to the elements of the "Tetrachord des Finale" (D – E – F – G), which were called “Protus, Deuterus, Tritus” and “Tetrardus”. Each of them served as finalis of two Toni - the “authentic” (ascending to the higher octave) and the “plagal” (descending to the lower fourth). The eight tones were arranged in these pairs: "Autentus protus, Plagi Proti, Autentus Deuterus" etc. Since Hucbald von Saint-Amand, the eight tones have simply been numbered in this order: tone I-VIII. Aquitaine Cantors usually used both names for each section.

The different shapes of a tone

Tonars can differ significantly in length and shape:

  • As a treatise, they usually describe the octave, the fifth and fourth types of each tone, but also their modal properties such as microtonal shifts or the change to a different melodic framework.
  • It can also be an abbreviated form or a breviary showing only the sacramentary (for mass chants ) or antiphonary (for the official chant of the vigils and hours) after the liturgical year. The tone of the antiphonic vocal genres is indicated by later rubrics such as "ATe" for "Autentus Tetrardus" (see the Graduale-Sacramentaries of Corbie and Saint-Denis) or the Roman ordinal numbers I-VIII according to Hucbald's system, as it was in the early one Troper-Sequentiary of St. Géraud in Aurillac ( F-Pn lat. 1084) and the abbreviated antiphonary of St. Martial (F-Pn lat. 1085).
  • The most common form was the shortest that had no theoretical explanation. Since the late 9th century, each section began with an intonation formula and the psalmody of fashion, the pitches of which are represented by letters or later by diastematic neumens . Subsections followed the various genres of singing given as examples of the tone depicted. Antiphonal refrains in psalm recitation ( antiphons such as introits and communiones), which are usually represented starting with their text, have been sorted according to different closings used in the psalmody, the so-called "differentiae".
  • A very rare form of Tony is a fully notated one that sorts each vocal genre (not just the antiphonal with psalmody as introit and communio of the correct mass) according to its tone. A very famous example is the complete tonar for the mass song of Abbot William of Volpiano, written for his Abbey of St. Benignus of Dijon ( F-MOf H.159).

literature

Web links

Commons : Tonar  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Atkinson, Charles M. (Charles Mercer), 1941-: The critical nexus: tone-system, mode, and notation in early medieval music . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2009, ISBN 978-0-19-972238-9 .