Inside the Offertory: Aspects of Chronology and Transmission (review)

Forty-five years ago, Ruth Steiner published an article entitled "Some Questions about the Gregorian Offertories and Their Verses" (Journal of the American Musicological Society 19, no. 2 [Summer 1966]: 162-81). She delicately posed pointed questions about claims Willi Apel had made about offertories in his book Gregorian Chant (Blooming ton: Indiana University Press, 1954). Steiner showed how, in using Karl Ott's unreliable edition of offertories, Apel's assessment about unusual notes and melodic characteristics, as well as his dating of the verses, could not be trusted. She wrote primarily "to point out some of the hazards in using . . . editions lacking in critical apparatus" (Steiner, p. 181) but also, she emphasized, to stimulate new and more comprehensive inquires.

With the publication of Rebecca Maloy's stunning new book, Inside the Offertory: Aspects of Chronology and Transmission, we have both a critical edition and an in-depth study of the genre that will stand as a monument of chant scholarship. In asking the most relevant questions about the offertories, her thoroughness and precision allow her to posit answers that reach beyond offertories to address some of the most fundamental questions about medieval liturgical song in general.

Scholars have been fascinated by offertories in particular because of their unique characteristics. The origins of the genre are obscure, but by the time of the earliest notated manuscripts, we have, especially in the verses, some of the most magnificent chants in the whole repertory. Most chants had two or three verses that included very long melismas, extended ranges, as well as unusual melodic progressions. The verses, which were sung by soloists, began to be left out of manuscripts during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

Offertories, along with other categories of chants, have been preserved in distinct regional "dialects" that belie a common origin, but show considerable variation. The majority of surviving manuscripts copied north of the Alps transmit what is commonly called the "Gregorian" repertory, while five manuscripts with notated music from Rome from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries comprise what has been dubbed the "Old Roman" (or simply "Roman") repertory. Other chant dialects also existed, but the most fundamental questions for chant scholarship in the last sixty years or so revolve around the relationships between the Gregorian and Roman traditions, namely, where did the chant come from, and how was it transmitted to produce two such distinct yet related repertories? The offertories provide a particularly useful lens to examine these larger issues, and Maloy's extensive, painstaking research has provided a clearer picture of the possibilities, including some evocative new hypotheses.

In her first chapter, she lays out her methodology, looking first at some key historical and liturgical records (Carolingian chronicles, Ordo Romanus I, etc.). The principal evidence in exploring the early history of the offertories, aside from scattered liturgical references, is found in the texts themselves, the Gregorian and Roman sources with musical notation from roughly the tenth to the thirteenth centuries, and the sources from other dialects, principally Milanese and old-Hispanic. Three core questions she explores in the monograph are: what are the relationships between Gregorian and Roman offertories and which dialect more closely resembles the eighth-century prototype for the two dialects?; what types of musical and textual evidence can shed light on the genre's origin and chronology?; and what can we learn of the origins of solo verses?

In chapter 2 Maloy examines the offertory texts to determine origins. Her analysis reveals how complex, multilayered, and nuanced are the matrices of sources, interpretations, and hypotheses. She relies heavily on the meticulous research of Joseph Dyer and Andreas Pfisterer in this area, and her ability to summarize and synthesize the substantial research by these and other scholars is very impressive. Examining first the psalm-based "lyrics," as she refers to the texts, she finds many variants differing from the Roman psalter, but the lack of early manuscripts and the complexity of...