Sister Mary Joachim Holtaus, O.S.B. 
Beneventan Notation in the 
Vatican Manuscripts 

Ann Arbor: University Microfilms (UM order no. 
62-6065), 1962. (230p., pos. film $3.15; University 
of Southern California diss.) 

Rembert C. Weakland, O. S. B. 

To anyone working in the field of Gregorian chant the need for spe-
cialized studies in the various notations is apparent. For the pioneer 
chant scholars of the last century, the important manuscripts were 
those in the chironomic notation and especially those written in St. 
Gall notation. Their interest in the later diastematic notation was 
limited, since they used these manuscripts only as a control for the 
melodic readings of the earlier manuscripts. Today we are more aware 
of the need to look into the precise problems of these later manuscripts, 
especially during the crucial period of transition from chironomic to 
diastematic notation. Sister Joachim's dissertation deals with a Bene-
ventan manuscript from precisely that delicate period. 

Beneventan notation was from its inception somewhat diastematic 
in character but like the Beneventan script was a unique, localized 
style. The first study of the musical sources of the notation was made 
by H.M. Bannister in his monumental study, Monumenti vaticani di 
paleografia musicale latina, 2 vol., Leipzig, 1913. A more exhaustive 
study appeared in Volume 15 of the Pa/eographie musicale under the 
title "Etude sur la notation beneventaine," pp. 7l-16l. Since the date 
of publication of that Volume in 1935, little has been added to our 
knowledge. 

In the first two of the six chapters of her dissertation, Sister Joachim 
traces the history of Beneventan script, relying in large measure on 
E.A. Loew's now famous study, The Beneventan Script, Oxford, 1914. 
Chapters 3 and 4 ("Evolution of Beneventan Notation: A Study" and 
"Manuscripts with Beneventan notation found in the Vatican Li-
brary," respectively) are for the most part a resume of the two works 
on notation cited above. She has listed here, however, not only the 
Vatican library number for each manuscript but the film number of 
the St. Louis microfilm collection of the Vatican manuscripts. In the 
fourth chapter she examines 46 of 51 Vatican manuscripts with Bene-
ventan notation and makes special reference to 26 manuscripts from 
which facsimiles are reproduced in an appendix. These reproductions 

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are, unfortunately, not too clear. The excessive quotes from the two 
secondary sources cited earlier are perhaps the chief weakness in the 
study. It has caused the author to slip into some strange citations: 
Lucques for Lucca (p. 4), Lipsia for Leipzig (p. 21), Bibliotheque Na-
tionale de Florence (p. 31, footnote 34), and so on. 

Chapter 5 is devoted to an examination of 18 plates from the 
manuscript Vat. lat. 6082, a missale plenum from the 12th century. 
An index to this Gradual is found in Appendix A and the plates in 
Appendix B. The study is not a comprehensive analysis of each of 
the neumes and the various forms each neume takes in the manuscript 
bu t a select reference to some of the melodic differences between the 
Beneventan version on the plate and the Vatican Gradual. Occasional 
neumes of interest are pointed out. No attempt was made to compare 
this manuscript with the two Beneventan Graduals already published 
and indexed in Volumes 14 and 15 of the Pa/eographie musicale. Such 
a comparison, both with regard to contents and musical notation, 
would have added much to the dissertation. 

Many of the plates in the Appendix are of interest in that they also 
contain examples of those manuscripts written in central Italy with 
non-Beneventan text but with a musical notation borrowed from the 
Beneventan. The importance of these manuscripts indicates a fertile 
area for subsequent studies. 

REMBERT G. WEAKLAND, O.S.B. is coadjutor archabbot of St. Vincent Archabbey 
and chancellor of St. Vincent College. 

[manuel Willheim 
Johann Adolph Scheibe: German 
musical thought in transition 

Ann Arbor: University Microfilms (UM order no. 
63-5159), 1963. (299p., pas. film $4.10; University 
of Illinois diss.) 

Konrad Wolff 

When composers double as writers, or vice versa, they usually create 
complications for posterity. Johann Friedrich Reichardt, for instance, 
is known to students of music history as one of the founders of the 
German lied and to students of literary history as the principal target 

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