Recent Acquisitions in Music 

St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 381

 Facsimile copy of the Versiculary, Hymnal, Tropary and Sequentiary from the monastery of St. Gall, written and provided with neumes around 930, possibly by a monk named Salomon. The small-sized, undecorated manuscript contains the St. Gallen repertoire of the chants sung in the monastery and works by the monks Notker Balbulus, Tuotilo, Ratpert, Waltram and Ekkehart I. Counts among the foremost monuments worldwide in the history of early medieval music.

Call Number: SPEC . COLL. M2 .S87 1996

 The purchase of this title was made possible by Frances Chernofsky Tanenbaum, Class of 1940.

St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 484

Important musical manuscript in very small format containing the repertory of tropes, Ordinary chants and sequences in use around 930/940 in the monastery of St. Gall. With discrete texts and compositions by numerous St. Gallen monks (Notker Balbulus, Tuotilo, Ratpert, Notker Physicus, Waltram and others). The manuscript was intended for the cantor who indicated the melody to the other singers.

Call Number: SPEC . COLL. M2 .S87 1996

The purchase of this title was made possible by Frances Chernofsky Tanenbaum, Class of 1940.

Hildegard von Bingen, the “Riesencodex”

From the Hessische Landesbibliothek, Wiesbaden. Like the Dendermonde source from the same period (c.1175), the Riesencodex—“giant codex”—was copied at the Rupertsberg scriptorium. Written in an exquisite German 'hufnagel" script, the MS transmits her “songs” in the form of a liturgical cycle of antiphons, responsories, sequences, hymns, a Kyrie and Alleluia. A unique witness in cultural history–the copying of the manuscript was supervised by Hildegard herself.

 The codex contains: the visionary trilogy (Scivias, Liber vitae meritorum, Liber divinorum operum); the complete musical works (Symphonia, Ordo virtutum); a collection of Hildegard’s letters (Epistolarium); the linguistic writings (Lingua ignota, Litterae ignotae); a fragmentary collection of homilies (Expositiones evangeliorum); her biography (Vita Hildegardis) by the monks Gottfried and Theoderich; the letter to the prelates of Mainz (Ad praelatos Moguntinenses). Additionally, it has the short “letter of the Villarense monks after Hildegard’s death”, which is a theological questionnaire. (Villarense indicating the Cistercian abbey of Villers/Brabant).

Call Number: SPEC . COLL. M2112.H44 S9 1998

The purchase of this volume was made possible by Frances Chernofsky Tanenbaum, Class of 1940.

Listen: O vos angeli

Engelberg Stiftbibliothek Codex 314

One of the most important late-medieval liturgical manuscripts from Switzerland.

The codex is a composite source — copied over an extended period of time and by different scribes — containing monophony & polyphony, including early examples of German sacred song, an Easter play, tropes, sequences and motets.

Call Number: SPEC . COLL. M1999 .E55 1986A

The purchase of this volume was made possible by Frances Chernofsky Tanenbaum, Class of 1940.