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More than thirty years ago, Jacques Handschin drew general attention to certain striking melismas in Ambrosian chant. He identified these as tropes – referring to them as ‘prototypes’ – and he noted the importance in their construction of repetitions, both exact and approximate, repetitions that involved both brief motives and lengthy passages.
[1] ‘Trope, sequence and conductus’, New Oxford History of Music 2 (1954), 128–174 Google Scholar.
[2] Published by the monks of Solesmes, in Paléographie musicale 5 (1896) and 6 (1900)Google Scholar.
[3] ‘I responsori “cum infantibus” nella liturgia ambrosiana’, Studi in onore di mons. Carlo Castiglioni (Milan 1957), 481–578 Google Scholar.
[4] NOHM 2, 131.
[5] Les tropes (Paris 1886)Google Scholar
[6] Ambrosian Chant (unpublished dissertation, Indiana University, 1955), 49, 145 Google Scholar.
[7] Folio 18v.
[8] The antiphonary of Mont-Blandin – Hesbert, René-Jean: Antiphonale Missarum Sextuplex (Rome 1935), 199aGoogle Scholar.
[9] The lack of agreement between the manuscripts suggests that the melismas were not included in the archetype of the Milanese antiphoner, that they were notated even later than the official chants, and locally.
