EX. 2-7A Three Frankish hymnsEX. 2-7B Pange lingua gloriosiEX. 2-7C Veni creator spiritusTROPES
Sequences and hymns were complete compositions in their own right—freestanding songs, so to speak,
on a par (but contrasting in style) with the psalmodic chants of the inherited Roman chant. Another large
category of Frankish compositions consisted of chants that did not stand alone but were attached in
various ways and for various reasons to other—usually older, canonical—chants. One of the commonest
ways of attaching new musical settings to older ones was by casting the new one as a preface, to amplify
and interpret the old one for the benefit of contemporary worshipers. Although the practice, like most
Frankish musical innovations, can be dated to the ninth century, it was cultivated most intensely beginning
in the tenth, reflecting (if only indirectly) the spiritual and creative ideals of the so-called Cluniac reform
of monastic life.