1. Musicology and medieval manuscript sources
Palaeography of musical notations
This is the cornerstone of musicology, and involves not only classifying music but also studying the transmission of sung corpora over a long period of time (900-1500), and establishing a grammar for the musical interpreter. From Western Europe to the Byzantine and Oriental worlds, parallels between Latin and Greek liturgies focus on the so-called ekphonetic systems of notation and punctuation, which may have been common to these two linguistic universes at the height of the period (7th century – 11th century). From a didactic perspective, my work seeks to develop a number of parameters to understand usage and practices, with a view to establishing a genuine research methodology for manuscripts, in the dual context of written and oral cultures and the cultural practices of cantors or psalters.
In cooperation with Anastasios Zographos, researcher at the IRHT
Fragmentology
In archive centres and libraries, a substantial corpus of (unravelled) fragments of liturgical books (antiphonaries), sometimes of songbooks or literary works, allows us to reconstruct and rebuild books that have disappeared, often dating from the central or late Middle Ages, but sometimes from the early Middle Ages. This is a theme that has been expanding since the beginning of this century, revisiting the production of books and bringing to light little-known or poorly-understood centres.
2. Repertoires: study, publication, transmission
The historiae or festivals of the cult of the saints (late viiith c. – xvth c. )
The liturgical services composed for the new saint days lie at the intersection of hagiography, history and liturgy; they bring to light numerous artistic creations from monastic, canonical and cathedral schools and, for female institutions, provide new perspectives on gender issues, rebalancing a certain ‘male Middle Ages’ (G. Duby).
In collaboration with Kristin Hoefener, researcher at the Nova University of Lisbon, associate member IRHT
The « map and territory » of Gregorian chant
The differentiation of sung repertoires by a multitude of literary and melodic variants, comparable to the lexical or orthographic variances in dialects in linguistics, allows us to establish precise maps of the different strata and phases of development of the cantilena romana in Latin Europe. Following on from the work of the Solesmes school and Michel Huglo (1923-2012), this is one of my key research themes. This programme combines the differentiation of sung repertoires by literary and melodic variants and results in a cartography of the different strata and phases of development of the cantilena romana in Latin Europe. Chronology and history of the more differentiated politico-cultural spaces.
3. Historiography of plainsong
Historiography of Gregorian chant (9th-20th cent.)
A programme, as yet little studied, brings together the restoration of chant, begun by seculars and laymen, then by the Benedictines, in the 19th century, notably the Abbey of Solesmes, with medieval sources, the texts of Carolingian and early medieval renovators, to provide a more critical understanding of a restoration that has shaped our working tools – which deserve a serious epistemological revision.
In collaboration with Susana Zapke (Stadt Wien Universität)
Benedictines in the East: restoring the liturgical traditions of the Near East
In the midst of the colonial period and the revival of orientalist studies promoted by Pope Leo XIII (1894), here is one of the cultural heritages of humanity, the Syriac, Chaldean and Maronite chants, which these monks, missionaries and ethnologists saved from oblivion, at a time of revival of ancient and Byzantine music and the restoration of Gregorian chant. Dom Jeannin and Dom Parisot, monks of Marseille, Solesmes and Ligugé, have left important archives in the collections of the abbeys of Ganagobie, Ligugé, Belloc and Solesmes, as well as in the Levant, such as Charfé (Lebanon), the seat of a Syrian seminary.
In collaboration with Daniel-Odon Hurel (LEM UMR 8584/Hastec); P. Youssef Dergham (Syrian Seminary of Charfé, Lebanon), Nidaa Abu Mrad (Antonine University, Beirut).
4. Performance and the anthropology of cantorial practices
Singers at the lectern, rituals and ceremonies in cathedrals (11th c. – 14th c.)
Ordinaires, books describing the conduct of ceremonies throughout the liturgical year, became widespread with the emergence of the great cathedrals in the mid-11th century. They are often the only records of the practices of the cantors and clerics of the ecclesiastical communities, providing a perspective on liturgical practices in relation to the architectural spaces of the church building and the processions in the episcopal or monastic cities.
In partnership with Dany Sandron (Paris-Sorbonne, Centre André Chastel)
(Sorbonne-INHA) and Patrick Demouy (University of Reims)
Music theory and teaching
Tonaria, a very specific type of manuscript (or part of a manuscript), appeared from 800 until the end of the Middle Ages: They offer a remarkable theoretical framework, to be put in relation with the repertoires of the Mass, the Office, and even other repertoires of Latin poetry, liturgical or secular… And they interact with the customary books in a dialectic shared between concordances and discordances, which nourish an epistemological approach to the transmission of musical corpora (repertoires and theoretical texts).
In partnership with Shin Nishimagi (National Conservatory of Music, Tokyo)