La estructura del himno ambrosiano y su relación con las funciones tonales de la escala musical

Abstract

The use of the religious hymn in the West, as a form of ideological control against the advance of the heterodoxies, was finally established by Ambrosius, bishop of Milan, combining the material of the previous hymn with the needs of catechism that the age imposed upon him. The Milanese episcopus succeeded in devising a poetic, strophic and rhythmical model of easy reception that operated as both an instrument of conversion and doctrinal training and the regulator of liturgical prayers. The Ambrosian hymn was not, however, the first that adjusted to the fundamentals of the Nicean belief in the struggle against different forms of heresy, especially the Arrianism; but it was the first innovative design in musical and rhythmical aspects. Its popularity, based in its cantabilis modus, was strengthened by the novelty of its composition, in which frequent correspondences between metre and stress, which made a more rapid memorization possible, may be noticed. This paper will show the structural innovations of the Ambrosian hymnody as regards rhythm, which revolve around the arbitrary repetition of number eight; also the number eight contains thematic-emotive functions, comparable with the tonal functions of the musical scale and, specially, the Ionian mode that has come to this day as major natural scale