What's a "trope"?

[Elzee]

I often hear that the ‘extra words’ inserted in the Agnus Dei (“Bread of Life”, “Morning Star”, etc.) are “tropes”.

Can someone more musically-minded than me explain what constitutes a “trope” in liturgical music? Does it mean more than ‘extra words’? (told you I wasn’t musically minded!)

Thank you!

 

[Phemie]

The dictionary says that “a trope is a phrase or verse added as an embellishment or interpolation to the sung parts of the Mass in the Middle Ages.” We could add “and in the 20th Century by composers who had the hubris to believe the parts of the Mass weren’t good enough without their improvements.”

 

[bpbasilphx]

Troped Kyries and even the Gloria and other major parts were troped.

One of the purposes of the tropes was to help in memorizing the long melismas–strings of notes all on the same syllable.

 

[Andreas_Hofer]

The short definition given above was a sufficient one in general, but I would even say that for the purposes of determining what is licit and what is not, the definition of “extra words” is really all you need to know. So “Is this text the precise text given in the approved book?” If yes, you’re okay; if no, you’re not. Of course, simply changing the existing words instead of adding others isn’t a trope, but it has the unfortunate characteristic of being plain stupid.