1.6 — Alma uera ac praeclara

NotazioneDatazionesec. X ineunte
TipoSankt Gallen
NoteText and neume scribe as for Ante saecula et mundi, Gratuletur omnis and Adam in saeculo on the same folio (fol. 207r/v): for a brief description, see the entry for Ante saecula et mundi. Fewer significative letters were used for this text than for the melodically concordant Gratuletur omnis that precedes Alma vera on fol. 207r. The textual correction from et to ac in the first line of Alma vera has not been signaled in transcription in order to preserve the spacing of the neumes.
The neumes for Gratuletur omnis and Alma vera in the Naples manuscript are virtually identical, albeit that more significative letters and signs of lengthening were added to Gratuletur. One point of substantial difference occurs at the ninth and tenth syllables in the first line, where the notation for Alma vera indicates pes-virga (2a-1a) instead of the virga-pes combination used at this point in Gratuletur and in both notations at the repeat in line three. This departure may be due to the monosyllablic opening to the half-line in Alma vera.
Proximity to the other melodies for Gratuletur given in the book entry rests both on the similar overall melodic structure (A, B, A'), and on the similar melodic profile for the first halves of both the A lines. A similar melodic contour may also be traced for the first half of the B lines, although the neumed versions are noticeably more ornate at this point.
TrascrizioneTrascrizioni
diplomatiche		 Almavera-Napoli
Trascrizione
alfanumerica		1d, 1a, 1a, 2a, 1a, 1a, 1a, 1b, 2a, 1a, 1b, 2b, 2a, 1a, 1b | 2a, 1a, 2b, 2b, 2a, 1a, 3c, 1d, 1a, 1b, 2b, 1b, 1a, 1b, 1b | 1b, 1a, 1a, 2a, 1a, "2b", "2b", 1b, 1a, 2a, "2b", "2b", 1b, 1a
Tavole
di confronto		 XGratuletur
MelodiaThe neumes for the first and third lines are similar, although significant differences occur towards the end of the line. The overall melodic pattern may thus be summarized as: A, B, A'. The only indications of lengthening occur at the seventh and final syllable of line two.
Trasmissione
The fact that an almost identical melodic profile was recorded for both Gratuletur omnis and Alma vera in Napoli IV. G. 68, and that a melodic profile with certain similarities is recorded in later medieval manuscripts for Gratuletur omnis, might suggest that the melody for Alma vera was a contrafactum. Since the melody is only shared between these two texts as notated at St. Gall, the contrafactum might also be considered specific to St. Gall. Although this is an attractive hypothesis, the case might equally be made that the melody was associated with Alma vera before its association with Gratuletur but was simply not recorded. A third and more flexible interpretation is that the melodic profile recorded for both Gratuletur omnis and Alma vera was associated with a particular verse form rather than a particular verse text. This suggestion has the virtue of leaving open the question of prior association and according more closely with the range of relations that obtains between early medieval notations for both the same text (e.g. Ad caeli clara) and texts of the same verse form (e.g. Tertio in flore/ Fuit Domini).