Celtic Chant - Musical Characteristics

Musical Characteristics

The Irish monks famously established monasteries throughout Europe. As a result, Celtic chant was influenced by Spanish, Gallic, Roman, and Eastern traits. However, it shows the greatest liturgical similarity with Gallican chant.

Celtic chant was largely supplanted before being notated, and no musical specimen of Celtic chant prior to Roman influence survived, but possible traces of Celtic chant remain. One chant typical of those that may reflect Celtic style is Ibunt sancti, whose use was attested in Ireland. The original text shows such typical Celtic elements as alliteration and a couplet structure. The surviving melody, from a French manuscript, has an ABA structure, in which the opening phrase is repeated at the end of the melody, and the whole melody is repeated for the second half of the couplet. Neither the ABA structure nor the repeated melody for the couplet are typical of the Roman chant traditions, except in Sequences, which themselves trace back to Notker of St Gall's and Tuotilo's tropes at the Irish-founded Abbey of St. Gall.