Crocker, Richard. “The Troping Hypothesis.” Musical Quarterly 52(1969):183–203.
Falconer, Keith Andrew. Some Early Tropes to the Gloria. Diss. Princeton University, 1989.
Husmann, Heinrich. Tropen- und Sequenzenhandschriften: Répertoire International des Sources
Musicales. Munich: Henle, 1964, See. B, Vol. 5, pt. 1.
TROPES, PROPER
. Beginning in the 9th century, several Proper chants for the Mass (Introits, Alleluias,
Offertories, Communions) were commonly ornamented with supplemental texted
compositions in centers both east and west of the Rhine; great responsories for Matins
also were provided with tropes, only much more rarely. These later additions to Proper
Gregorian chants, both the texts and the music, are known today as Proper tropes, and in
medieval manuscripts as tropi. Proper tropes served several functions: they expanded the
chants to which they were attached, thus allowing more time for ceremonial action and
communal reflection; they commented upon both the original chants and the particular
parts of the liturgy to which they belonged; they helped establish the significance of
individual feasts and seasons of the church year; and they further defined the offices of
the clergy. Like the first sequences, tropes were created by the Franks, on both sides of
the Rhine, and early examples may preserve elements of the varied Gallican liturgical
traditions that were suppressed throughout the second half of the 8th century. Tropes and
sequences were never standardized, and each source reflects the liturgical taste and
religious ideals not only of the geographical region in which it originated but of an
individual monastic community or church. The repertoire of each source is somehow
unique, even though it may resemble those of other sources from the same region,
containing many of the same pieces.
Each genre of Proper tropes is distinctive, having been created to ornament a
particular kind of chant and to explain its liturgical function. The most extensive
repertoire of Proper tropes comprises those for the Introit, the first Proper chant of the
liturgy. Introit tropes consist of either individual lines, which often comprise sets or
groups of lines interpolated into a particular chant. Thus, the Introits of highly ranked
feasts would characteristically be sung with an introductory trope, perhaps the longest of
all individual lines; the Introit antiphons were subdivided in conventional ways as well,
and yet other trope lines would preface each of the divisions. Both the psalm verses for
this chant as well as the doxology might also have an introductory trope. Further, each
time the Introit antiphon was repeated, a new set of tropes might well be sung. In the
example below, taken from a 13th-century Gradual from Chartres cathedral, the text of
the Introit, taken from Isaiah 9:6, is written in capitals and the trope texts in lower case.
Gaudeamus hodie quia deus descendit de celis et
propter nos in terris
[PUER NATUS EST NOBIS]
Quem prophete diu vaticinati sunt
[ET FILIUS DATUS EST NOBIS]
Hunc a patre iam novimus esse missum in mundum
The Encyclopedia 1759