Unfamiliar sign in chant
  • Francis1984
    Posts: 21
    Can someone please tell me what this strange sign is in this chant? I've never seen anything like it before.image
    Mittit ad Virginem.pdf
    453K
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,768
    Do you mean the F-sharp?
  • ClergetKubiszClergetKubisz
    Posts: 1,912
    Yes it appears to be a FA sharp to me.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,500
    Keep calm and trust the old monks.
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    It appears to be a FA sharp to me, too.
    I would think about ignoring it were I performing this.
    Too, it seems to me that the version on the previous page is preferable.

    (It's nice to see someone using J.M. Neale's The Hymnal Noted!)
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,768
    Nice to know the source, thanks! To go by the non-Sarum versions on youtube the note would be a transposed TI, with fictive flats in the "His might, His Archangel" bar.
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen M. Jackson Osborn
  • ryandryand
    Posts: 1,640
    Singing through it, seems to work as a sharp. I'd keep it... 2nd bar sounds uncharacteristic of chant without it. Some parts work with either the sharp or the natural, most seem odd without the accidental. Just sing it as written.

    The attachment is the real reason I am responding to this at all...
    keep-calm-and-trust-old-monks-1.pdf
    33K
  • Francis1984
    Posts: 21
    Thanks for your responses.
    !. Yes, this is a page from John Mason Neale's The Hymnal Noted.
    2. What is a fictive flat?
    3. Even if is supposed to be a sharp sign, has anyone ever seen this symbol? I have never seen it anywhere, and I have used a lot of chant over the years from The English Hymnal to the Liber Usualis.
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    Except in facsimiles of baroque music I have not encountered this sign. The sharp in this posture is not uncommon in much early music. It is rather eccentric in chant and I would suspect that its presence is due to Neale's and Helmore's judgment that it would sound better to their ears. Neale was a master translator and an apologist for chant, but he was not what we today would consider a chant scholar. Consider the sign editorial and observe it or not according to your own sense of euphony. It does, as noted above, make fictive sense.
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,768
    'Fictive' meaning unwritten but according to theory or taste. If the chant is written a fourth higher, the F's become Ti and the F naturals have to be written as B flats. I haven't tracked down the original, but as I mentioned on youtube those notes are sung all 'raised', as if they were Ti's. MJO, do you really think they should all be flatted (if the chant is in fact transposed)?

    The form of the sharp is quite usual for early prints of polyphony, btw, and Gregorio offers it using #, the pound symbol for those rare cases it is needed in chants.
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    No. I concur with your assessment.
  • Francis1984
    Posts: 21
    Thank you everyone. Most helpful.
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