The Carolingian Names or "Byzantine" Intonations For The 8 Tones
In Carolingian times each of the eight sections was opened by an intonation formula using the names like "Noannoeane" for the authentic and "Noeagis" or "Noeais" for the plagal tones. In the living traditions of Orthodox chant, these formulas are called "enechemata" and used by a protopsaltes to communicate the basis tone for the ison-singers (a kind of bordun) as well as the first note of the chant for the other singers.
Aurelian of Réôme asked in his theoretical tonary "Musica disciplina" a Greek about the meaning of the syllables used in Latin tonaries:
| “ | Caeterum nomina, quae ipsis inscribuntur tonis, ut est in primo tono Nonaneane, et in secundo Noeane, et caetera quaeque, moveri solet animus, quid in se contineant significationis? Etenim quemdam interrogavi graecum, in latina quid interpretarentur lingua? respondit, se nihil interpretari, sed esse apud eos laetantis adverbia: quantoque maior est vocis concentus, eo plures inscribuntur syllabae: ut in authento proto, qui principium est, sex inseruntur syllabae, videlicet hae Noeane Nonannoeane; in authentu deuteri: in authentu triti, quoniam minoris sunt metri, quinque tantummodo eis inscribuntur syllabae, ut est Noioeane. In plagis autem eorum consimilis est litteratura, scilicet Noeane, sive secundum quosdam Noeacis. Memoratus denique adiunxit graecus, huiusmodi, inquiens, nostra in lingua videntur habere consimilitudinem, qualem arantes sive angarias minantes exprimere solent, excepto quod haec laetantis tantummodo sit vox, nihilque aliud exprimentis, estque tonorum in se continens modulationem. | ” |
My mind was usually moved by the names, which were inscribed for the tones, as "Nonaneane" for the protus, and "Noeane" for the deuterus. Did they have any significance? So I asked a Greek, how these could be translated into Latin. He answered that they did not mean anything, but they were rather expressions of joy. And the greater the harmony of the voice, the more syllables were inscribed to the tone: as in the "Autenthus protus" which was the first, they used six syllables as "Noeane" or "Nonannoeane"; for "autentus tritus", which was smaller in measure, five syllables as "Noioeane" were inscribed. In plagal tones the letters were similar to "Noeane", as "Noeacis" according to them. When I asked him, if there might be something similar in our language, the Greek added, that I should rather think of something expressed by charioteers or ploughing peasants, when their voice had nothing else than this joy. The same contained the modulation of the tones during their intonation.
The practice of using abstract syllables for the intonation, as it was the common for the use of enechemata among Byzantine psaltes, was obviously not familiar to Aurelian of Réôme. It was probably imported by a Byzantine legacy, when they introduced the Greek Octoechos by a series of procession antiphons used for the feast of Epiphany. Although the Latin names were not identical, there is some resemblance between the intonation formula of the echos plagios tetartos νὲ ἅγιε and the Latin name "Noeagis", used as a general name for all four plagal tones. But there are some more obvious cases as particular names like "Aianeoeane" (enechema of the Mesos Tetartos) or "Aannes" (enechema of the echos varys) which can be found in very few tonaries between Liège, Paris, Fleury, Chartres, and Lyon. Two of these tonaries have treatises and use a lot of Greek terms taken from Ancient Greek theory.
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