Trope (music)
Encyclopedia
A trope or tropus may be a variety of different things in medieval
and modern
music.
The term trope derives from the Greek
τρόπος (tropos), "a turn, a change" (Liddell and Scott 1889), related to the root of the verb τρέπειν (trepein), "to turn, to direct, to alter, to change" (Anon. 2009). The Latinised form of the word is tropus.
In music, a trope is adding an additional section, or trope to a plainchant or section of plainchant, thus making it appropriate to a particular occasion or festival
.
Three types of addition are found in music manuscripts:
(1) new melismas without text (mostly unlabelled or called "trope" in manuscripts)
(2) addition of a new text to a pre-existing melisma (more often called prosula, prosa, verba or versus')
(3) new verse or verses, consisting of both text and music (mostly called trope, but also laudes or versus in manuscripts) (Planchart 2001). The new verses can appear preceding or following the original material, or in between phrases.
In the Medieval era
, troping was an important compositional technique where local composers could add their own voice to the body of liturgical music. These added ideas are valuable tools to examine compositional trends in the Middle Ages, and help modern scholars determine the point of origin of the pieces, as they typically mention regional historical figures (St. Saturnin of Toulouse, for example would appear in tropes composed in Southern France). Musical collections of tropes are called tropers.
Tropes were a particular feature of the music and texts of the Sarum Use (the use of Salisbury, the standard liturgical use of England until the Reformation), although they occurred widely in the Latin church. Deus creator omnium, was widely used in the Sarum Use and is in the form of a troped Kyrie.
Deus creator omnium tu theos ymon nostri pie eleyson.
Tibi laudes coniubilantes regum rex Christe oramus te eleyson.
Laus virtus pax et imperium cui est semper sine fine eleyson.
Christe rex unice Patris almi nate coeterne eleyson.
Qui perditum hominem salvasti de morte reddens vite eleyson.
Ne pereant pascue oves tue Jesu pastor bone eleyson.
Consolator Spiritus supplices ymas te exoramus eleyson.
Virtus nostra Domine atque salus nostra in eternum eleyson.
Summe Deus et une vite dona nobis tribue misertus nostrique tu digneris eleyson.
O God, creator of all things, most benevolent God: have mercy upon us.
To you, Christ, King of Kings, we pray and rejoice together: have mercy.
Praise, strength, peace and power are given to him always and without end: have mercy.
Christ, king coeternal and only-begotten of the father: have mercy.
Who saved lost man from death and restored him to life: have mercy.
Jesus, good shepherd, let not your sheep perish: have mercy.
Holy Spirit, the Comforter, we implore you to pray for us: have mercy.
Lord God our strength and salvation in eternity: have mercy.
Great and ever-living God, you have had pity on us. Grant your gifts to those whom you deem worthy: have mercy.
The standard Latin-rite ninefold Kyrie is the backbone of this trope. Although the supplicatory format ('eleyson'/'have mercy') has been retained, the Kyrie in this troped format adopts a distinctly Trinitarian cast with a tercet address to the Holy Spirit which is not present in the standard Kyrie. Deus creator omnium is thus a fine example of the literary and doctrinal sophistication of some of the tropes used in the Latin rite and its derived uses in the mediæval period.
and serial
music, a trope is an unordered collection of different pitches, most often of cardinality six (now usually called an unordered hexachord
, of which there are two complementary
ones in twelve-tone equal temperament
)(Whittall 2008, 273). Tropes in this sense were devised and named by Josef Matthias Hauer
in connection with his own twelve-tone technique
, developed simultaneously with but overshadowed by Arnold Schoenberg
's (Sengstschmid 1980).
Hauer discovered the 44 tropes, pairs of complementary hexachords, in 1921 allowing him to classify any of the 479,001,600 twelve-tone melodies into one of forty-four types and this may have assisted in Hauer's music becoming entirely twelve-tone by the 1920s (Whittall 2008, 24).
However, "The series of Hauer's tropes is composed solely of whole tones
. As it turns out, Hauer was a pupil of Gurdjieff! And Gurdjieff' music, titled 'Black Magic,' is composed solely of whole tones
" (Dewhitt 2010, 145).
Medieval music
Medieval music is Western music written during the Middle Ages. This era begins with the fall of the Roman Empire and ends sometime in the early fifteenth century...
and modern
Modern music
Modern music may refer to:* 20th-century music* 20th-century classical music* 21st-century classical music* Contemporary classical music* Modernism * Modern rock* Popular music...
music.
The term trope derives from the Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
τρόπος (tropos), "a turn, a change" (Liddell and Scott 1889), related to the root of the verb τρέπειν (trepein), "to turn, to direct, to alter, to change" (Anon. 2009). The Latinised form of the word is tropus.
In music, a trope is adding an additional section, or trope to a plainchant or section of plainchant, thus making it appropriate to a particular occasion or festival
Festival
A festival or gala is an event, usually and ordinarily staged by a local community, which centers on and celebrates some unique aspect of that community and the Festival....
.
In Medieval music
From the 9th century onward, trope refers to additions of new music to pre-existing chants in use in the Western Christian Church (Planchart 2001).Three types of addition are found in music manuscripts:
(1) new melismas without text (mostly unlabelled or called "trope" in manuscripts)
(2) addition of a new text to a pre-existing melisma (more often called prosula, prosa, verba or versus')
(3) new verse or verses, consisting of both text and music (mostly called trope, but also laudes or versus in manuscripts) (Planchart 2001). The new verses can appear preceding or following the original material, or in between phrases.
In the Medieval era
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
, troping was an important compositional technique where local composers could add their own voice to the body of liturgical music. These added ideas are valuable tools to examine compositional trends in the Middle Ages, and help modern scholars determine the point of origin of the pieces, as they typically mention regional historical figures (St. Saturnin of Toulouse, for example would appear in tropes composed in Southern France). Musical collections of tropes are called tropers.
Tropes were a particular feature of the music and texts of the Sarum Use (the use of Salisbury, the standard liturgical use of England until the Reformation), although they occurred widely in the Latin church. Deus creator omnium, was widely used in the Sarum Use and is in the form of a troped Kyrie.
Deus creator omnium tu theos ymon nostri pie eleyson.
Tibi laudes coniubilantes regum rex Christe oramus te eleyson.
Laus virtus pax et imperium cui est semper sine fine eleyson.
Christe rex unice Patris almi nate coeterne eleyson.
Qui perditum hominem salvasti de morte reddens vite eleyson.
Ne pereant pascue oves tue Jesu pastor bone eleyson.
Consolator Spiritus supplices ymas te exoramus eleyson.
Virtus nostra Domine atque salus nostra in eternum eleyson.
Summe Deus et une vite dona nobis tribue misertus nostrique tu digneris eleyson.
O God, creator of all things, most benevolent God: have mercy upon us.
To you, Christ, King of Kings, we pray and rejoice together: have mercy.
Praise, strength, peace and power are given to him always and without end: have mercy.
Christ, king coeternal and only-begotten of the father: have mercy.
Who saved lost man from death and restored him to life: have mercy.
Jesus, good shepherd, let not your sheep perish: have mercy.
Holy Spirit, the Comforter, we implore you to pray for us: have mercy.
Lord God our strength and salvation in eternity: have mercy.
Great and ever-living God, you have had pity on us. Grant your gifts to those whom you deem worthy: have mercy.
The standard Latin-rite ninefold Kyrie is the backbone of this trope. Although the supplicatory format ('eleyson'/'have mercy') has been retained, the Kyrie in this troped format adopts a distinctly Trinitarian cast with a tercet address to the Holy Spirit which is not present in the standard Kyrie. Deus creator omnium is thus a fine example of the literary and doctrinal sophistication of some of the tropes used in the Latin rite and its derived uses in the mediæval period.
In 20th-century music
In certain types of atonalAtonality
Atonality in its broadest sense describes music that lacks a tonal center, or key. Atonality in this sense usually describes compositions written from about 1908 to the present day where a hierarchy of pitches focusing on a single, central tone is not used, and the notes of the chromatic scale...
and serial
Serialism
In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...
music, a trope is an unordered collection of different pitches, most often of cardinality six (now usually called an unordered hexachord
Hexachord
In music, a hexachord is a collection of six pitch classes including six-note segments of a scale or tone row. The term was adopted in the Middle Ages and adapted in the twentieth-century in Milton Babbitt's serial theory.-Middle Ages:...
, of which there are two complementary
Complement (music)
In music the term complement refers to two distinct concepts.In traditional music theory a complement is the interval which, when added to the original interval, spans an octave in total. For example, a major 3rd is the complement of a minor 6th. The complement of any interval is also known as its...
ones in twelve-tone equal temperament
Equal temperament
An equal temperament is a musical temperament, or a system of tuning, in which every pair of adjacent notes has an identical frequency ratio. As pitch is perceived roughly as the logarithm of frequency, this means that the perceived "distance" from every note to its nearest neighbor is the same for...
)(Whittall 2008, 273). Tropes in this sense were devised and named by Josef Matthias Hauer
Josef Matthias Hauer
Josef Mattias Hauer was an Austrian composer and music theorist. He is most famous for developing, independent of and a year or two before Arnold Schoenberg, a method for composing with all 12 notes of the chromatic scale.Hauer "detested all art that expressed ideas, programmes or feelings,"...
in connection with his own twelve-tone technique
Twelve-tone technique
Twelve-tone technique is a method of musical composition devised by Arnold Schoenberg...
, developed simultaneously with but overshadowed by Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
's (Sengstschmid 1980).
Hauer discovered the 44 tropes, pairs of complementary hexachords, in 1921 allowing him to classify any of the 479,001,600 twelve-tone melodies into one of forty-four types and this may have assisted in Hauer's music becoming entirely twelve-tone by the 1920s (Whittall 2008, 24).
However, "The series of Hauer's tropes is composed solely of whole tones
Major second
In Western music theory, a major second is a musical interval spanning two semitones, and encompassing two adjacent staff positions . For example, the interval from C to D is a major second, as the note D lies two semitones above C, and the two notes are notated on adjacent staff postions...
. As it turns out, Hauer was a pupil of Gurdjieff! And Gurdjieff' music, titled 'Black Magic,' is composed solely of whole tones
Whole tone scale
In music, a whole tone scale is a scale in which each note is separated from its neighbors by the interval of a whole step. There are only two complementary whole tone scales, both six-note or hexatonic scales:...
" (Dewhitt 2010, 145).
See also
- Trope (cantillation)CantillationCantillation is the ritual chanting of readings from the Hebrew Bible in synagogue services. The chants are written and notated in accordance with the special signs or marks printed in the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible to complement the letters and vowel points...
, (Yiddish טראָפ), the notation for accentuation and musical reading of the Bible in Jewish religious liturgy
Sources
- Anon. 2009.
- Dewhitt, Mitzi. 2010. The Meaning of the Musical Tree. [USA}: Xlibris Corp. ISBN 9781450030700.
- Liddell, Henry George, and Robert Scott. 1889. "τρόπος]". In An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon. Oxford. Clarendon Press. Online at Perseus. (Accessed 22 December 2009)
- Perle, George. 1991. Serial Composition and Atonality: An Introduction to the Music of Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern, sixth edition, revised. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 9780520074309.
- Planchart, Alejandro Enrique. 2001. "Trope (i)". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan.
- Sengstschmid, Johann. 1980. Zwischen Trope und Zwölftonspiel: J.M. Hauers Zwölftontechnik in ausgewählten Beispielen. Forschungsbeiträge zur Musikwissenschaft 28. Regensburg: G. Bosse. ISBN 3-7649-2219-2
- Whittall, Arnold. 2008. The Cambridge Introduction to Serialism. Cambridge Introductions to Music. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-86341-4 (hardback) ISBN 978-0-521-68200-8 (pbk).
Further reading
- Hansen, Finn Egeland. 1990. "Tropering: Et kompositionsprincip". In Festskrift Søren Sørensen: 1920 . 29. September. 1990, edited by Finn Egeland Hansen, Steen Pade, Christian Thodberg, and Arthur Ilfeldt, 185–205. Copenhagen: Fog. ISBN 87-87099-32-2
- Knapp, Janet. 1990. "Which Came First, the Chicken or the Egg?: Some Reflections on the Relationship between Conductus and Trope". In Essays in Musicology: A Tribute to Alvin Johnson, edited by Lewis LockwoodLewis LockwoodLewis H. Lockwood is an American musicologist.He taught at Princeton University from 1958 to 1980, and at Harvard University from 1980 to 2002. He is currently a Distinguished Senior Scholar at Boston University and the Fanny Peabody Research Professor of Music, Emeritus, at Harvard...
and Edward Roesner. [Philadelphia?]: American Musicological Society. ISBN 1-878528-00-9 - Sedivy, Dominik. 2006. "Tropentechnik. Ihre Anwendung und ihre Möglichkeiten". PhD diss. Vienna. University of Vienna.
- Summers, William John. 2007. "To Trope or Not to Trope?: or, How Was That English Gloria Performed?" In Music in Medieval Europe: Studies in Honour of Bryan Gillingham, edited by Terence Bailey and Alma Santosuosso. Aldershot, England; Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishers. ISBN 0-7546-5239-4 ISBN 978-0-7546-5239-7