Review article
https://doi.org/10.21857/mnlqgcrj7y
Fragments about the Phenomenon of medieval Glagolitic singing
Hana Breko Kustura
orcid.org/0000-0002-3104-3682
; Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts Institute for the History of Croatian Literature, Theater and Music in Zagreb, Division for the History of Croatian Music, Zagreb, Croatia
*
* Corresponding author.
Abstract
The main goal of this paper is to present the most recent investigations of Glagolitic singing from Croatian regions. Glagolitic singing was a specific phenomenon in medieval Croatian music from the coastal area (from Istria to central Dalmatia and further to the surroundings of Dubrovnik) and its hinterland from the 9th century onwards. It included various kinds of singing by Glagolitic priests and laymen, as well as liturgical, paraliturgical, and other chants in the Church Slavonic language in its Croatian variant, based on liturgical books written in Glagolitic. The rubrics of Glagolitic liturgical manuscript books (such as the Missal of Duke Novak from 1368 and Hrvoje’s Missal from 1403/1404) contain instructions for the musical performance of individual Glagolitic chants and are therefore crucial and direct evidence of the medieval presence of Glagolitic singing in the Croatian lands. Unlike Old Slavonic, church singing, the Glagolitic singing that was transmitted exclusively by oral tradition for centuries, follows the liturgy of the Western European rite. In the Middle Ages, Glagolitic singing included church chants in the spoken vernacular. The musical aspect of this tradition is characterized by multiple layers of various influences – hints of elements of Byzantine church singing, elements of Gregorian chant and other forms of Western European liturgical singing, and some specific characteristics of secular vocal traditional music from the localities in question. In the absence of written sources, secondary sources testify only indirectly to the existence of Glagolitic singing in the Middle Ages: medieval records in chronicles, archival documents, and travelogues. The most famous such record is that of Cardinal Boson (biographer and companion of Pope Alexander III) from the Pope’s biography: on the occasion of the papal visit to Zadar in 1177, the local population and clergy welcomed him singing lauds and canticles that resonated most loudly in their Slavic language - “cum immensis laudibus et canticis altissime resonantibus in eorum sclavica lingua.” Among the few fragments and records of Glagolitic singing recorded before the 17th century, one finds an interesting notation in a codex from 1556 (HAZU Archives, IV. a 47), the provenance of which remains ambiguous to this day (Vinodol or Rijeka). It consists of two chants notated along with two octet couplets written in the Glagolitic script from the Old Croatian Passion of our Lord.
Keywords
Croatian medieval music; Glagolitic singing; Gregorian chant; Cardinal Boson; Codex HAZU Archives; IV. a 47; Glagolitic fragments; Zagreb; Stari Grad; Ljubljana; lauds; canticles
Hrčak ID:
312806
URI
Publication date:
30.12.2023.
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