Understanding Old Hispanic chant manuscripts and melodies

Context Old Hispanic chant manuscripts do not specify precise intervals or pitches. This has constrained scholarly understanding of the melodies. In grant AH/H008306/1, we began to understand Old Hispanic chant's musical language systematically, especially the cadences. We identified characteristic cadence gestures, and how they are adapted to different numbers of syllables and (sometimes) accent patterns. We also explored how melodic pacing interacts with text: there are often many notes on theologically important words, directing participants' meditations towards those words and ideas. Aims We will significantly increase the cultural impact of these research findings, through: digital exhibitions; public workshops in Madrid and Coimbra; incorporation of Old Hispanic chant data in www.cantusdatabase.org (the flagship digital archive of ecclesiastical manuscript contents); explanatory Youtube videos; and promotion of our online transcription and analysis software. We will reconnect locals who visit archives and museums in Lamego, Coimbra, Madrid, León and Valencia with this almost-forgotten aspect of their cultural heritage, as well as reaching out to tourists. An interactive digital exhibition will combine with display - in their home institutions - of some fragmentary manuscripts. The exhibition, co-produced with the five institutions, will raise consciousness of Old Hispanic liturgy, the broad outlines of its history generally, and the history of these fragments in particular. We will also introduce the general public to some of our melodic findings, through a beginners' guide to reading the notations, and a primer to help people recognise cadence shapes and appreciate how the melody paces and parses the text. Some exhibition materials will be presented in short videos, also posted on Youtube (further broadening the potential reach). All exhibition materials will be presented in English, Spanish and Portuguese. Old Hispanic material will be included in www.cantusdabatase.org for the first time. As well as academics, this is the first port of call for choirmasters and amateur chant/liturgy enthusiasts, who may be struck by the liturgical and theological distinctiveness of the Old Hispanic chants and want to explore further: we will add links to our web-based Chant Editing and Analysis Program, where they will find the digital exhibition and our transcription and analysis tools. We will use social networking and communicate with special interest groups to spread knowledge of our activities. Potential applications and benefits We will engage audiences in ways that go far beyond superficial appreciation of the beauty and antiquity of the materials. The benefits are cultural: certainly aesthetic and historical, likely giving people the joy of spotting meaningful patterns across initially incomprehensible signs, and (for some) devotional and spiritual as well. Although it is little known nowadays, the Old Hispanic liturgy is theologically and musically complex; the sophistication of the liturgies put together for individual feasts and for whole seasons bears comparison with other treasures of the medieval age. The proposed activities allow a large number of people to engage with this cultural treasure. We will develop a network of new Iberian partners, with whose institutions we will explore the possibility of similar knowledge transfer in future, on the innovative model proposed here. Our longterm aim is a three-way collaboration between our analytical software, www.cantusdatabase.org and SIMSSA (McGill University, in the opening phase of developing optical neume recognition software). The proposed project brings together the two parts of this research that are ready for public use, while continuing to develop three-way dialogue with SIMSSA.