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• 6 Instrumental Motets from the Bamberg Codex

6 Instrumental Motets from the Bamberg Codex

for 3 instruments.

The Bamberg Codex (Bamberg Staatliche Bibliothek, Ms. Lit. 115) is a beautifully-written manuscript containing mostly polytextual motets. There is no precise date for the compilation of the collection, but the repertoire contained in it is generally thought to date from around 1260-1290. A complete facsimile (minus one page) was included in Pierre Aubry´s Cent Motets du XIII siècle, Vol. 1, Paris, 1908. One section of the manuscript consists of seven apparently purely instrumental motets, five of which are based on the plainsong “In seculum”; these are all printed here, together with the “Neuma” motet. In fact there are really only three “In seculum” pieces, as there are two versions of two pieces (no. 3 is basically the same music as no. 2, but in diminution, and the same relationship exists between no. 4 and 5).
These are the only pieces in the Bamberg Codex without any texts at all. Some of them differ from the run-of-the-mill Bamberg pieces in their use of hockets (see In seculum longum, bars 2-3 etc.), but these effects are found in some texted music of the Middle Ages. However, we know so little about medieval instrumental music, that any clear distinction at this distance between vocal and instrumental polyphony is bound to be a little dubious. So we have to consider the possibility that these pieces may have been intended equally for voices and instruments. In fact no. 2/3 here appear in other sources with additional texted parts: in the Montpellier codex there is a piece consisting essentially of the Bamberg version with a texted fourth part (ja n´amerai), and another that takes the Bamberg motetus and tenor and adds a new triplum - here the motetus is texted, as well as the new part.
In this edition the original note values have been divided by eight (breve equals crotchet). In spite of this apparently drastic difference, the music still has a fairly “white” appearance; this is not intended to suggest that slow tempi are appropriate - indeed, the hockets only work with a reasonably brisk dotted-minim beat. Square brackets indicate ligatures in the original. Slurs indicate the plica, which for much of the Middle Ages seems to have been a pair of notes joined together in which the second is slurred lightly, possibly with an effect similar to the throat ornaments of Middle Eastern singers today; having said this, 13th century sources such as Bamberg often seem to use the plica just like any other two notes that might be written as a ligature.