[gothic-l] Ostrogothic or Visigothic Music

[sunburst]

Hails!

In response to an inquiry concerning Gothic music, I am reproducing a part
of one of my unfinished writings here:

Only a small amount of information concerning the music of the Goths
exists.
Jordanes tells us of the Gothic priests who played harps and sang songs to
their gods.  In the Getica it is also mentioned that "in earliest times they
sang
of the deeds of their ancestors in strains of song accompanied by the
cithara; chanting of
Eterpamara, Hanala, Fritigern, Vidigoia and others whose fame among them is
great..."
(V-43).  The cithara is a wooden lyre (OE hearpe), meaning that Jordanes is
likely
referring to a Gothic form of Germanic lyre/harp, no doubt similar to the
one found in the
Sutton Hoo grave in England, as well as a number of others.  Wolfram states
that “the Danubian
Goths...opened battle by intoning songs in praise of their ancestors”.  This
Gothic practice of singing songs of gods and heroes to the harp is exactly
in line with
what we know of north and west Germanic scopcræft.

The melody of Gothic music may be more recoverable than that of any other
Germanic tribe.  Spanish manuscripts preserve Visigothic melodies, some
which are reported to be from as
early as the 6th century.  The melodies for the death laments of the
Visigothic king
Chindasvinthus (641-52) and queen Reciberga (c. 657) are preserved.  Another
song
known to the Visigoths was the Song of the Sibyl, which was originally in
Greek, and
from the 6th century.

After conversion, the Visigoths had their own liturgy, also known as the
Mozarabic liturgy, which was probably originally developed in the Eastern
Empire.  A
main characteristic of the non-Roman liturgies is the incorporation of
traditional
elements of folk melody, and such was certainly the case with the Visigothic
liturgy.
While a good number of these melodies were recorded, the notation style is
difficult to
interpret, and only 21 of the melodies have been deciphered.  Some of the
melodies can
easily be identified as being from traditional folk music.

******

I have now written about half of the poems in Germanic Alliterative Verse
that I will need in order to produce a CD of traditional music featuring the
Gothic language.  In that project, I will be making use of some of the
original Visigothic melodies.  I can't really effectively describe how they
sound; you will have to hear them for yourself.

Albareiks



You are a member of the Gothic-L list.  To unsubscribe, send a blank email to <gothic-l-unsubscribe at egroups.com>.
Homepage: http://www.stormloader.com/carver/gothicl/index.html

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/