MUSICAL TREASURES FROM CLUJ-NAPOCA

Abstract

The subject of this article is a musical manuscript from the 16th century that is currently found in the Batthyaneum from Alba-Iulia, Romania. We speak about the Gradual from Cluj-Napoca that despite being scanty, it offers a well-enough insight into the Transylvanian musical life of that time. We are continuously exhibiting the manuscript, driven by the desire to reintegrate the chants into the Roman-Catholic Liturgy, offering this way a great practical importance to our theoretical research. We performed a historical, palaeographical and contentual analysis and comparison with the model gradual of that time, the Bakócz Gradual. The research work was encumbered by the uncertain proprietorship of the Batthyaneum Library, still unclear until Today. In spite of these obstacles and circumstances, we aimed for a thorough analysis. We promote the theory that the Gradual from Cluj-Napoca was written to serve the Saint Michael church from Cluj. We present, however an another theory as well that considers the Gradual to be ordered for the old Roman-Catholic church from Kolozsmonostor. The article contains the transcription and a small analysis of the Saint Stephan (Stephan Regis) Alleluia from the two compared Graduals. Our article presents an important work from the 16th century’s Transylvanian church music, in comparison with a well-known gradual from Hungary, highlighting this way the high-standard quality of the Transylvanian church music of those times.