The Advent Project: The Later Seventh-Century Creation of the Roman Mass Proper

Rating:
Summary: Gregorian Chant and Its History
Review: Serious chant scholars need not read this review, as they will already have this book on their shelves. Any academic library with more than a passing interest in Gregorian chant needs this book, too.

James McKinnon believed that it was during the late 600s when chants were assigned to particular places in the yearly cycle of masses. Furthermore, during this time many chants were composed. McKinnon terms this the "Advent Project." The book examines his position.

Of course, there is very little, if any, direct literary evidence from the 500s and 600s, so the examination proceeds by inference more than direct deduction. One line of the evidence is the use of textual adjustment in a chant. Textual adjustment may be adding phrases, omitting phrases from a Biblical text, paraphrasing Biblical passages, or repeating phrases. Chants composed during the Advent Project are more likely to make use of textual adjustment. Chants already available before the Advent Project are less likely to use textual adjustment.

Another line of evidence is the musical styles of the chants. Another is the use of a chant at more than one time in the year. A very compelling observation is the overall yearly plan of chants. By examing these and other lines of evidence, the book shows the strength and explanatory power of McKinnon's hypothesis.

One of the things that helps date the Advent Project is that there is documentation for when the Thursdays in Lent were added to yearly cycle of masses. Chants for these days are largely borrowed from other masses in the church year. Such chants are clear disruptions of patterns established by the rest of the chants of Lent.

McKinnon believes that the goals of the Advent Project are most completely realized for the chants of Advent and Christmas. He speculates that the project began with Advent and later ran out of steam, as the post-Pentecostal chants show.

A short review as this cannot possibly do justice to this work.

Although the book is a scholarly work, and although I'm not at all a chant scholar, I think I got a lot out of it. I certainly enjoyed the work of reading it. If words such as 'Lateran', 'temporal', 'sanctoral', and 'feria' are not in your vocabulary, then they will be by the time you finish this book. A glossary would have helped me. McKinnon also freely uses quotations in Latin (and occasionally other languages) without necessarily providing a translation.

The love the author has for chant shines through on nearly every page. If you like chant, you will enjoy his unabashed enthusiasm. I certainly did.

Rating:
Summary: In response to previous review
Review: The Latin used in The Advent Project is certainly of current use not only for chant scholars, but also for those concerned with medieval Christianism. You will not usually find a glossary for terms such as sanctorale, ordinal, tract, ordinary, breviary, repercussa, feria, etc., in musicological research publications, since the primary audience of the work is familiar with these, and there are a number of sources which may help readers who may not be familiar with medieval musical and religious terminology. A glossary is more appropriate for survey books about general areas in Music History.

The reviewer is right, though, in that McKinnon's work will prove useful and immensely interesting not only to scholars, but to music lovers in general who have had any interest in early Christian rites.

The fact that this book traces the history of chant back a century and a half or so, by means of creative methodology (and not inference like the previous reviewer states), makes it one of the most significant works in the field perhaps in the last century. McKinnon, who devoted his life to the study of the medieval chant tradition, has left us with a document of monumental importance, tangible results which have redefined the way we look at the history of chant, merely a year before his untimely passing.

Rating:
Summary: In response to previous review
Review: The Latin used in The Advent Project is certainly of current use not only for chant scholars, but also for those concerned with medieval Christianism. You will not usually find a glossary for terms such as sanctorale, ordinal, tract, ordinary, breviary, repercussa, feria, etc., in musicological research publications, since the primary audience of the work is familiar with these, and there are a number of sources which may help readers who may not be familiar with medieval musical and religious terminology. A glossary is more appropriate for survey books about general areas in Music History.

The reviewer is right, though, in that McKinnon's work will prove useful and immensely interesting not only to scholars, but to music lovers in general who have had any interest in early Christian rites.

The fact that this book traces the history of chant back a century and a half or so, by means of creative methodology (and not inference like the previous reviewer states), makes it one of the most significant works in the field perhaps in the last century. McKinnon, who devoted his life to the study of the medieval chant tradition, has left us with a document of monumental importance, tangible results which have redefined the way we look at the history of chant, merely a year before his untimely passing.