Gregorian chant and the Carolingians

In Gregorian Chant and the Carolingians, Levy seeks to change long-held perceptions about certain crucial stages of the evolution and dissemination of the old corpus of plainchantmost notably the assumption that such a large and complex repertory could have become and remained fixed for over a century while still an oral tradition.

Levy portrays the promulgation of an authoritative body of plainchant during the reign of Charlemagne by clearly differentiating between actual evidence, hypotheses, and received ideas. Levy offers explanations of such topics as the origin of Latin neumes, the shfting relationships between memory and early notations, and the puzzling differences among the first surviving neume-species from the tenth century, which have until now impeded a critical restoration of the Carolingian musical forms.