prime-limits in pre-Gregorian chant (was: updated definition: "just intonation")

> From: klaus schmirler <KSchmir@z.zgs.de>
> To: <tuning@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Sunday, January 27, 2002 4:21 PM
> Subject: Re: [tuning] Re: updated definition: "just intonation"
>
>
> BTW: Are you thinking of the renaissance or thereabouts when
> 5-limit music was actually heard of in a liturgical context?
> I wouldn't know that I would argue differently, but anyway I
> was thinking of monophonic chants and the codification of
> part of the repertoire (across Europe) by Gregory I. And the
> possiblity that other parts of the repertoire were
> extinguished and that this didn't happen in the Byzantian
> empire.

Good stuff, Klaus! I'm interested in this too, especially
the role Charlemagne apparently played in trying to homogenize
the chant as it existed in the Frankish empire. The bits
I've read about the rustic "vulgarities" in the chant in
local Frankish churches during that time are tantalizing.
Based on my studies of the _musica enchiriadis_, I think
that chant may have had a 5-limit basis, perhaps even 7.

It was Charlemagne's goal to eliminate this vagaries, so
I wonder what the rustic chant was really like, and I've
often thought that Byzantine chant probably holds part of
the answer, but I've never looked into it seriously.

-monz

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