Hi All - I'm trying to research Notker 'The Stammer', from the Abbey of St. Gall, particularly in relation to his sequences.
I have found the digital scans of the original manuscripts, and have just ordered 'The Abbey of St. Gall a Centre of Literature and Art', for some more detailed discussion of the specific context Notker was writing in, but would still like to track down or research further:
English translations of the sequences attributed to Notker. As far as I understand the range of original sequences attributed to him is still inconclusive, but am willing to accept older less reputable sources if it means I can come close to understanding the lyrics.
Secondly, I was hoping to get a more thorough understanding of sequences, how they became formalised (I know Notker was falsely attributed with inventing them, but my understanding it is now generally suggested that he popularised them), how they relate to the jubilation in their liturgical order.
Thirdly, I'm also interested in the accompanying markings on the original manuscripts. I understand them to be a form or musical direction/notation specific to that time, but are there any resources or discussions that would help me understand how they are currently understood / interpreted?
Hope there's someone out there who can help with even some of this, even if it's just suggestions of further material/books. Many thanks in advance.
The markings are indeed musical notation, called neumes. In Notker's time, the melodies to which these texts would have been sung were orally transmitted, and the neumes were a memory aid for performers. They indicate when the voice is to rise or fall in pitch, but do not indicate the pitches exactly. So the melodies were sung essentially from memory, but the neumes provided guideposts. This type of neumation is called adiastematic. So-called diastematic neumation does indicate pitch, by being used in conjunction with lines that represent pitch levels (just like the modern musical staff). Diastematic neumation was developed sometime in the 11th century, and also sometime that century some enterprising scribes began consolidating the squiggle shapes into small points or squares, placing them on the lines. Examples of notation much like this can be found in the modern-day Liber usualis and other works of the Catholic Church.
The Wikipedia article on neumes is actually pretty good. It contains a list of the common neume types and explains what they indicate. The list shows them in their square, on-staff versions, but they retain the shapes of their earlier forms, so identifying the ones in the St Gall manuscript, at least to some extent, shouldn't be too impossible. At the beginning of the first line, you have (in my interpretation) a torculus, down-up-down; possibly a porrectus, up-down-up, followed by a punctus (a single note, perhaps descending or staying constant), or (probably) an out-and-out porrectus flexus, up-down-up-down; and then a scandicus, three notes ascending. Things get a little more complicated later. There is still some question about what some of the small symbols mean.
Standard guides to reading neumes are in Carl Parrish, The Notation of Medieval Music and Willi Apel, The Notation of Polyphonic Music: 900-1600. I am inclined to speculatively recommend Thomas Forrest Kelly's Capturing Music: The Story of Notation, though I have not seen it. Kelly is a wonderful speaker, and his other writings are very readable. There is also David Hiley's Western Plainchant: A Handbook.
I understand them to be a form or musical direction/notation specific to that time, but are there any resources or discussions that would help me understand how they are currently understood / interpreted?
I am not familiar with this guy or his work. Could you post a picture of said markings to get an idea of what you would need to research?