Tonus Peregrinus: The History of a Psalm-tone and its use in Polyphonic Music (review)

In his preface to Tonus Peregrinus: The History of a Psalm Tone and Its Use in Polyphonic Music, Mattias Lundberg recognizes the distinctive, and challenging, approach that he undertakes in this volume: "The chronological ambit [of this monograph] exceeds 1,000 years, taking in around 100 works but only a single melody (or, better, family of melodies). I realize, of course, that a typical music monograph would have exactly the reverse proportions: if not a single year, then at least a single shorter historical period, around 100 works and over 1,000 melodic items" (p. vii). Lundberg's Tonus Peregrinus traces the history of polyphonic settings of the ninth psalm tone, the tonus peregrinus, over more than 1,000 years and throughout Western Europe, with a particular focus on compositional procedures employed in setting it.

As Lundberg explains, the tonus peregrinus existed in several variants delineated primarily by geographic region. But in all its permutations, the tonus peregrinus—or "wandering tone"—is distinguished by the fact that its reciting tone changes from one half-verse to the next. Of particular import for Lundberg's study is the ways in which this distinctive psalm tone presented compositional challenges for the composer both melodically and harmonically as well as structurally. Lundberg does an admirable job of identifying and analyzing a large body of works over a wide chronological period: consider the challenge, for example, of analyzing the same melody set polyphonically within the modal system of the fifteenth century, the emerging major/minor tonal system of the seventeenth century, and the same tonal system as established in the eighteenth century (Lundberg helpfully references several tonus peregrinus settings in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but does not analyze them). He states in chapter 1 that the book is "centered on the analysis of compositional procedures" (p. 2), and he dedicates most of the volume to description of individual compositions. He treats a wide variety of compositional voices, all charging themselves with the same task, a polyphonic setting of the ninth psalm tone.

In discussing polyphonic settings of the tonus peregrinus, Lundberg naturally discusses as well several key liturgical texts in the Western Christian tradition, particularly Psalm 113 (Vulgate numbering; Psalms 114 and 115 in most other versions and translations) and the Magnificat (the Song of Mary, Luke 1:46-55), as well as several other psalms and canticles. While focusing on compositional techniques, Lundberg provides valuable reference to how pieces fit within the liturgy of the Christian church, especially the Vespers service, and how liturgical usage of the tonus peregrinus changed over time and in different geographic regions and different Christian traditions. For example, it appeared most often to the text of Psalm 113 in the pre-Reformation period and in later settings for the Roman Catholic Church, but was most closely associated with the Magnificat in the German Lutheran tradition and with the Benedicite and other canticles in England.

Tonus Peregrinus: The History of a Psalm Tone and Its Use in Polyphonic Music is a reworking of Lundberg's doctoral dissertation, "The Tonus Peregrinus in the Polyphony of the Western Church" (Ph.D. diss., University of Liverpool, 2007), and in many ways still, unfortunately, comes across as a dissertation. This problem is evident from the very first chapter, in which Lundberg lays out his research methodology and process in such a way that seems important for a dissertation but not for a monograph. And Lundberg does not include in the monograph an introduction or opening chapter to frame his study and argue for its significance; Lundberg's research goal seems to have been to discover and describe all polyphonic settings of the tonus peregrinus, but his larger purpose for the volume remains unclear. Furthermore, both text and footnotes contain an overwhelming number of rabbit trails, with far too much information included that is not directly pertinent to...