St Gall neumes (Early German neumes)
A leaf from a Tonary, in Latin, manuscript on vellum [Germany, c.1150]
A rare example of an exceptionally rare manuscript: a Tonary, or a guide book for the conductor of a choir.

c.220 x 162mm, 2 partial columns of 14 visible lines written in dark brown ink in a Romanesque bookhand, 11 visible lines of diastematic (heightened) staffless St Gall neumes (Early German neumes), rubrics and initials in red, 16th-century Latin inscriptions in upper margin (recovered from use as a flyleaf, with reverse consequently darkened and stained and remnants of paper). Bound in grey buckram at the Quaritch bindery.

Provenance:
(1) Antiquariat J. Voerster, Stuttgart.

(2) Bernard Quaritch, acquired in 1993 by:

(3) Schøyen Collection, MS 1670.

Text:
The tonary is a liturgical book in which antiphons, responsories, and other chants of the Mass and Divine Office are classified according to the eight musical modes of Gregorian chant, to assist in memorisation (the present fragment contains text for the 5th and 6th modes: '[Quin]que prudentes intraverunt'; 'Hoc clamore tonus tibi quintus erit retinendus' and 'Sexta hora sedit super puteum'). Independent tonaries first appear in the Carolingian period but are rare, mainly because the tonary is commonly incorporated into other liturgical books, such as the antiphonal, gradual, and troper, and into collections of musical treatises. On tonaries and the eight Gregorian modes, see M. Huglo, Les Tonaires: inventaire, analyse, comparaison, 1971.

Script and music:
The script is a very clean and regularly abbreviated Romanesque hand. The St Gall neumes above the antiphons have C- and F-clefs indicated for each line. For the notation in neumes, tonaries were especially useful, as here the pitch of the melodies was indicated, which was not otherwise recognisable from the neumes alone.