Mocqurray

[Calum Cille]

HelenR,

Maybe we could have a new board set up " liturgy matters but petty squabbles come first"

I can't be sure, but you may be implying that defending myself from Southern Comfort's repeated insults about me is a petty concern, either for myself or for the moderators or that refusing to expose myself to further insults by him for the sake of requests for discussion of "liturgy matters" by quaeritor is equally petty. I uphold your right to hold such a view if indeed that is your view, but don't expect me to warm to discussion with you if that is indeed your view. You might even like to clarify what you meant by the remarks in your post.

Nazard,

Academia can't suggest a specific rhythmic approach to any specific chant, notation of a chant or genre of chant out of a number of more or less equally academically justifiable interpretations. I know of one academic who (if I remember his drift correctly) considers that the only people who can properly produce any chant interpretations are the most highly skilled of musicologists. This is certainly so with regard to producing performing editions, and one set of academics would produce one performing editions just as valid/invalid as a performing edition produced by another set of academics.

For this reason, I think, there is no manual stating, "this is how to do it". What is actually happening is people are learning how to read the ancient notations. They are buying copies of tomes such as Solesmes' Graduale Triplex (1979) and the International Society for the Study of Gregorian Chant's Graduale Novum I (2011) which contain a staved edition of the melodies plus transcriptions of the ancient documents like Laon 239 and Einsiedeln 121 set above and below the stave. They may then check other ancient documents which have been digitised on the web for the notations there. They then decide how they're going to sing the staved version of their choice.

This is not a very practical position to be in. I was very heartened by the proportionalism I saw in the preface to Solesmes Liber Hymnarius but the following video seems to deny proportionalism in the ancient notations and I haven't yet heard any recordings by Solesmes which suggest otherwise.

http://www.youtube.com/user/titussenlai ... ALtYKyTrwo

So, to understand the argument for proportionalism at its most basic, the most modern volumes you can read on the new approach to Gregorian rhythm are Fr Jan Vollaerts' now quite outdated Rhythmic Proportions in Early Medieval Ecclesiastical Chant and Dom A Gregory Murray's similarly outdated Gregorian Chant According to the Manuscripts. The latter can be sourced online however.

http://jeandelalande.org/UPLOAD_to_LALA ... oS_142.pdf

If you're interested in reading a history of the development of theories of Gregorian chant, John Rayburn's Gregorian Chant: A History Of The Controversy Concerning Its Rhythm is a good start and can be sourced online.

http://jeandelalande.org/UPLOAD_to_LALA ... oS_145.pdf

It isn't as hard to read rhythms out of these early notations as it might seem. Check out the following webpage for a look at some basic Breton signs.

http://www.calumcille.com/griogair/9C.html

Here is the web address of my article assessing the most important historal evidence for strict proportionalism (rather than nuanced proportionalism).

http://www.calumcille.com/griogair/9.html

Here's my rather rhythmically conservative interpretation of the Pentecost introit, Spiritus Domini, to show you just how differently to Solesmes (and similarly to eastern Mediterranean chant) it is possible to interpret the ancient notation. Click on the image to expand.

Introit Spiritus domini.jpg

[Calum Cille]

That message was just getting too large. Click on the following address to download R John Blackley's article Rhythm in Western Sacred Music ....

http://www.scholaantiqua.net/pdfs/Rhyth ... welfth.pdf

Jan van Biezen's articles can be accessed at the following address. They are all in Dutch but the few musical examples may give you an idea of his quite radical approach.

http://www.janvanbiezen.nl/articles.html

Being an ardent advocate of the 1:2 ratio myself, I can't say I know my way round the websites of nuancing proportionalists. Perhaps someone else knows of something informative of those genres, which together constitute the most popular approach.

[alan29]

Thanks for those links CC. I have saved them for later reading.
Had a glance at van Beizens, article on the Latin hymns. Very interesting - we used to sing the Pentecost sequence in a lovely triple rhythm. No great theorising behind it, except that it worked incredibly well.
Have you heard the Youtube clips of what they call Old Roman Chant? I don't know if it is especially ad rem, but it is just magnificently spine-tingling
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kdka1WN1c8c

[Calum Cille]

Thanks for that link, alan29. You're spot on - beautifully sung, even when the singer is on his last gasp. A good dose of ison with some Marcel Pérès once in a while does no harm at all at all!

There is so much interesting rhythmic variety in the Latin hymns and sequences, it's so musically impoverishing in this day and age to demand an oratorical approach for everything as if centuries of chant development had never happened before Solesmes came along and covered everything with legato ... Mind you, a good dose of Solesmes once in a while does no harm either!

[Calum Cille]

Youtube never fails to surprise me. I've come across a video showing an excerpt from the Nivers gradual, which is the kind of thing that was happening in France before Solesmes embraced the romantic era in all its oratoricality and went in search of the oldest versions of the chants.

A Silesian chant schola are singing a rather flowery representation but the clip just shows how well pre-Solesmes Gregorian chant could work, no matter how far the editors of the music had dragged it away from its original form.

Square notes are long, diamonds are short.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m1khEptwqk

[nazard]

Thank you all for your study suggestions, I can see that I will be busy for quite a while.

[alan29]

Two thoughts about those clips
One - how oriental they sound (squiggles and augmented intervals,) and how reminiscent of Hebridean psalm singing in the way that some singers decorate, but not others.
Two - how very difficult it would be to get folks to sing non-Solesmes regularly compared to equal lengths.
Three (sorry)- how amazingly diverse our liturgy has always been despite some folks hankering back to a "uniform" past.
Four - (oops) - how refreshingly masculine , muscular even, it sounds in contrast to so much of what we have been singing for the last century. I am sure there must be a PhD to do with the feminisation of liturgical music in the 20th century.

[Calum Cille]

... how oriental they sound (squiggles and augmented intervals,) and how reminiscent of Hebridean psalm singing in the way that some singers decorate, but not others.

It's all the fault of folk like Marcel Pérès and Lykoúrgos Aggelópoulos or however he spells his name.

... how very difficult it would be to get folks to sing non-Solesmes regularly compared to equal lengths.

Do you think they could manage my set of Spiritus Domini posted yesterday? Sorry, I've revised it since - see here.

http://www.calumcille.com/griogair/9F.html

My folks learnt everything by ear and had nooooooooo problem whatsoever, but then I apply a beat for choral singing, appealing to St Augustine for his blessing.

De Trinitate, book IV
Caution should be observed above all that the chant is performed with diligent equality; otherwise, if this be absent, it is deprived of its essential character and defrauded of its legitimate perfection. Without this (equality) the choir is set in confusion by the discordant ensemble; neither can anyone join in harmoniously with others nor sing artistically by himself. In equity manifestly has God the creator appointed all beauty to consist, nor less that which the ear than that which the eye perceives; for he has ordered all things in measure, weight and number.

... how amazingly diverse our liturgy has always been despite some folks hankering back to a "uniform" past.

A "uniform" past Including, as one of its musical trends, equalism replete with Elias' Salomo's optional tricta, which perhaps has been forgotten under a tyranny of neumatic breaks.

... how refreshingly masculine, muscular even, it sounds in contrast to so much of what we have been singing for the last century. I am sure there must be a PhD to do with the feminisation of liturgical music in the 20th century.

The feminisation of the liturgy itself (replete with "thoughts for the day" from our Lady over a period of people's whole lifetimes) has certainly not occurred without note as far as traditional Catholics are concerned but, strangely, some of those are inclined to produce some very effeminate singing themselves, which I'm sure the Solesmes effect has had a hand in encouraging. Certainly, as far as singing is concerned, there is faint justification for it in the traditional Christian of the eastern Mediterranean, which is robustly masculine even at its most emotionally expressive.

If you can cope with the Greek of Galatians 4:4-6, here's some incredible modern Greek liturgical solo singing from a famous Athenian protopsáltis in action some years back. Part of one of my Gaelic hymns relates to some of the concepts in vv 4-5 and Theódoros Vasilikós really brings attention to every ounce of meaning in these words from this epistle. Every word is crystal clear. When I heard this old performance, it was like hearing the text for the first time. When he reaches the words 'no longer a slave but a son, and if a son ...', it really shows the effectiveness of this kind of singing, which gives you time to drink in the depth of the words. Listen and learn, all ye mumblers and favourers of unsung scripture.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpedBOHKEsg

Phooh. Back down to earth.

[John Ainslie]

Interesting - though it does help to have a Greek New Testament to follow the words and thus appreciate them as a Greek or Greek-speaker would.

As for musical form, it is in parts - especially that huios melisma encompassing a range of a twelfth - nearer an aria than a recitative. It reminds me that Graduals in the Roman liturgy were originally entrusted to a solo cantor. But of course that raises the problem of admiring the singer rather his text, as St Jerome had cause to complain.

[Calum Cille]

But of course that raises the problem of admiring the singer rather his text, as St Jerome had cause to complain.

A problem mentioned a bit more often than the no less dangerous problem of disliking the singing rather than focussing on the text! Or admiring the musical composition rather than focussing on the text. Or disliking the musical composition rather than focussing on the text ...