«Facta sunt prosas novas»: un excursus sul repertorio sequenziale a partire dall’analisi metrico-musicologica di una prosa nova tratta dal Messale BnF ms. lat. 1333

Abstract

From a didascalia preserved in a troper of the Limousin liturgical area that reflects a «new» repertoire of proses, the present article traces the stages of the birth and evolution of the sequential genre. The liturgical area involved includes the Occitan and Catalan lands between the 11th and 12th centuries and, in particular, the Benedictine monasteries reformed according to the dictates of Cluny. The well-known liturgical-musical witnesses, protagonists of this excursus, will be reconsidered in the light of a prosa nova, unknown so far, contained in the ms. lat. 1333 BnF, a codex consisting of two missals, one of monastic origin and the other episcopal. The attribution to the Catalan monastery of Sant Pere de Camprodon, confirmed by clues contained in the agenda of the rituals, reveals the liturgical and musical contacts between the besaluensi and Languedocian monasteries, linked by the Cluniac reform. The metric-melodic analysis of this prose, which follows a faithful textual and musical transcription, opens new vistas and points of reflection on the origins, evolution, exchanges and influences between the trope and troubadour repertoires in an area that can no longer be ascribed only to the surroundings of the monastery of Saint Martial of Limoges. This geographic area, the focal point of both the production of tropes and that of the troubadours, is rather expanding well beyond the Occitan regions and, crossing the Pyrenees, includes the monastic centres and cathedrals that belonged to the prestigious medieval Catalan counties.