Cantat Dicat Respondeat Directions and Performers

Chapter IV Cantat dicat respondeat Directions and Performers

Dicere and Cantare : The Directions of the Play ntheSt Gall Passion Play, as in other religious plays, the chant directions use a variety of performance verbs: cantare , dicere , clamare , respondere , and others. A detailed understanding of this terminology is obviously crucial to a full appreciation of the play; yet Pflanz does not concern himself with the meanings of performance verbs, beyond assuming at times that dicere could indicate spoken rather than sung delivery.1 In recent decades, though, increasing schol- arly attention has been paid to directions. The most detailed study of the German plays is that of Ulrich Mehler, whose main conclusions are as follows. In medieval liturgical books, the verbs dicere and cantare ,their cognates ( canere , dicere cantando , etc.) and their vernacular equi- valents ( sagen , sprechen , singen , etc.) do not represent the mod- ern say (meaning perform in a normal speaking voice ; Sprechvor- trag )and sing ( perform in a singing voice ; Gesangsvortrag ), as often assumed.2 In the first place, hardly any of the earlier medieval

1 Hermann Manfred Pflanz, Die lateinischen Textgrundlagen des St. Galler Pas- sionsspieles in der mittelalterlichen Liturgie, Frankfurt [etc.], 1977, passim,e.g.p. 97, assuming 83, Consumatum est , is spoken. 2 E.g. Walther Lipphardt, Liturgische Dramen des Mittelalters , in Friedrich Blume (ed.), Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 16 vols., Kassel, 1949-79, vol. VIII, cols 1012-44, esp. 1028 and other scholars, cited by Ulrich Mehler, Dicere und cantare : Zur musikalischen Terminologie und Aufführungspraxis des mittelalterlichen geistlichen Dramas in Deutschland, Regensburg, 1981 (Kölner Bei- träge zur Musikforschung, 120), p. 2, note 1, and 10, note 12. The St Gall Passion Play liturgy was actually performed in an everyday speaking voice. The an- tiphons, responsories, hymns, introits, graduals, and so on were melo- dic, often elaborately so. The prayers, blessings, acclamations and scriptural readings were not said but almost invariably chanted to tones , recitative formulae of greater or lesser complexity.3 Later musical terminology called this recitative material accentus , distin- guishing it from the melodious chant termed concentus .4 For scriptural texts there were various psalm tones, lection tones for readings at the office, tones for epistle and gospel at mass, and most importantly for drama, the special Passion tone for the declamation of the Pas- sion gospel during Holy Week. Dicere simply does not indicate spoken delivery. A study of medieval liturgical rubrics, where both dicere and cantare are applied to liturgical items, suggests that they denote not two different kinds, but rather two different aspects, of performance. Dicere is the more ideal term, referring to the overall performance of a liturgical item, whereas cantare is the more practical or tech- nical word, referring specifically to its musical articulation.5 The same terminology is found in the corpus of liturgical drama and in non-liturgical Latin plays.6 But as Mehler also shows, sensibilities and practices changed. In the early medieval period, accentus was not understood as melody or music as such: these terms were reserved for the melodically more complex concentus , the responsories, graduals and the like

3 Ibid., p. 39, citing also K.G. Fellerer, Kirchenmusikalische Vorschriften im Mit- telalter , Kirchenmusikalisches Jahrbuch 40 (1956), pp. 1-11. 4 Mehler, Dicere und cantare , p. 253. 5 Ibid., pp. 69-70, esp. p. 70: dicere = Die Ausführung des Gregorianischen Ge- sanges als Ausdruck des liturgischen Wortes und aller mit ihm verbundenen (in- neren Gnaden-) Wirkungen ; cantare = Die Ausführung des Chorals als Me- lodie . 6 Ibid., pp. 98-132 (liturgical plays); pp. 136-42 (Benediktbeurer Emmausspiel, Be- nediktbeurer Weihnachtsspiel).