Talk:Aurelian of Réôme

Corrected plenty of errors

I am sorry, but this article needed an entire revision concerning its content:

• Aurelian did mention the names of the octave species (dorian etc.), although he had a very odd concept of these species and he used additional names which are not known from other treatises.
• He used the common term "tonus," and "autentus protus, plagis" etc.
• He used intonation syllables, but he did not invent them, otherwise he would not have asked a Greek about their meaning. So it was a Byzantine import, probably by legacies who frequented the Carolingian court during the crisis of iconoclasm.
• The 12 were less mentioned here as tones than as voices which simply means pitches. Aurelian looked for an analogy to the zodiac signs which was a common scheme in Greek and Arabo-Persian music therapy. Nevertheless, some ideas of the former authors are quite original and quite inspiring.

Nevertheless, please read the treatise carefully, preferably in the original language, before writing about it. Platonykiss (talk) 01:53, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Fine, thank you. I used the 1980 Grove article when I wrote this article eight years ago.

What does this mean: "A current matter of controversy is in as much the Musica disciplina belonged to the tradition of the mathematical science music, and in as much it contributed within the Carolingian Renaissance simply as a chant manual called "tonary," which supported the oral transmission of Carolingian reform chant."? Antandrus (talk) 02:38, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

I tried to change as little as possible, as far as you would like to talk about the fact that the Carolingian Renaissance was eclectic and innovative at the same time. It was indeed rather innovative, because everything was changed according to practical needs, so I would rather emphasize the pragmatic concept to write a chant manual.

On the one hand, there was a question to organize a new chant repertoire (different from the local Gallican tradition) according to the eight modes in order to distribute and to learn them (in that period still without notation). For further details I recommend the article tonary. On the other hand, Ancient Greek music theory was simplified, but also used to describe characteristics of the eight modes. But the "new chant" in question already existed at Rome, and it was not composed according to this theory, so the main purpose of all theoretical tonaries was to find an unambigious and clear modal classification of a given chant. Thus, tonaries like Aurelian's treatise also modified its melodies.

This is quite different to Greek treatises, where mathematical science treatises and chant manuals have never been mixed. Concerning the Byzantine reception I recommend the article Hagiopolitan Octoechos, because there is not only a transfer between the Carolingian and the Byzantine Empire, but also a church synode, during which Pope Adrian I accepted a Byzantine eight mode reform for the Western traditions as well.

If you like to rewrite the sentence, you have my assistance.

Concerning Jane Bellingham's article, it is still in the current version of the New Grove (I inserted the precise and stable link). It seems that there are some things which you got wrong, or you simply wrote others which are definitely not taken from her article. I recommend also Powers' and Wiering's article about medieval mode, which is very helpful to regard Aurelian's contribution in a historical context.

Her emphasize that Aurelian was the first is a little bit pointless, because other important treatises are dated about the same time and it is quite a rough datation. The earliest Carolingian author who wrote about Rome and Constantinople as well, was Amalar of Metz, and Paul the Deacon (c.730-99?) wrote already about the first reform at Metz under the reign of Pepin the Short. So we are definitely in a later period of the Carolingian era. Platonykiss (talk) 12:38, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

My "corrections", as far as the content is concerned, are finished. I tried to keep this article as it is, but I changed the text where it failed its subject and added plenty of material, and I restructured it and moved some paragraphs so that the text is not always switching between the tonary and other subjects of music theory. The reader can now follow the text in the facsimile and its editions. It is still useful to quote some passages (preferably in original language and English translation) and to refer to certain chapters, while the content is described. Please note, that I am not a native speaker of English, so for a review of the language, the consequent tense and its interpunction I will be very grateful. Platonykiss (talk) 22:30, 25 September 2013 (UTC)