Abstract

The writer deals with a teaching project of guided listening for adults with little musical training. The work studied is the Alleluia "Dies sanctificatus" from the third Christmas Mass. Regarding the melody of the verse, the writer proposes a hypothetical step by step "re composition" through the use of a number of variation and ornamentation techniques. The aim is to recreate different, increasingly complex, version of the same verse. Listening to each of these versions in turn, the audience can appreciate both the quality of the ornamentation and the historical evolution in the performance of the verse. For the "jubilus", the writwr shifts to a different kind of conceptual apparatus, namely to neuro physiological and psychological theories. The latter are related to musicological features through a consideration of the "jubili" in early plainchant as echoes of glossolalia practices. This kind of approach enables the listeners to gain fresh in sights into the Alleluia "Dies sanctificatus" by seeing it within a network of cultural and musical features. At the same time, this method keeps the process of theoretic discovery under control, so that it does not become arbitrary.