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| The problem is seen in another light if we try to mark off the great epochs of Gregorian chant, and bring their characteristics to bear upon the required methodology of the research. We may take the age of formation as the first period, and here we cannot ignore the music historian's basic experience, i.e. the fact that texts and melodies were not strictly connected at that time and that the basic melodies - which were rather few in number, differentiated according to liturgical- musical genres - could be adapted to more than one text; nor was the combination of a text with a given basic melody always determined. Beside the use of sporadic literary references we can rely here on the methods developed in the research of oral musical traditions (including folk music). |
| The second epoch is characterized by the formation of great regions of tradition, i.e. by the process in which certain focal points and centres came into being as crystallizing forces. This is the time when the outlines of the great 'traditions' - to name only the Old Roman, the Ambrosian, the Gregorian and a lot of other music that has disappeared since then - took shape. The musical regions of the European plainchant may have become separated in this period in much the same way as the spheres of the pentatonic and diatonic dialects were. The ecclesiastical documents surviving from this period are already greater in number, their information is clearer. We can expect results from such musico-geographical methods, too, as the use of maps of variants (like in ethnography and linguistic dialectology). |
| The third epoch offers a wide field for the separation of local traditions, for their inner development and mutual influences. The scholar is guided here by the methods of the traditional musicology and philology and assisted by the rich source material covering the history of institutions. |
| The difficulty lies in the fact that the whole source material is almost exclusively a product of the third epoch and that this treasury preserved and integrated the heritage of the first and second periods too. Thus if we want to make a statement about any feature of the first or second epoch, we have to rely on arguments taken from the third one. We should find ourselves on a little more solid ground if we were first to consider what they reveal about their own age and use them afterwards in syllogisms for penetrating into their past. Furthermore, in every case it should be made clear what is the relationship of the designated problems, source material and methods to the appropriate epochs. |
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