Ad Te levavi on Chiesa - The Chant Café
  • Jacques PerrièreJacques Perrière
    Posts: 139
    After reading this article on The Chant Café "Ad Te levavi on Chiesa" I comment here because I cannot comment on their blog anymore (apparently you have to login now...).

    This article on Chiesa has been around a few blogs and people incense it... There are two articles:
    Announcement: http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1350670?eng=y (29th Nov 2013)
    First article: http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1350645?eng=y (30th Nov 2013)

    OK, there is some good talk about chant. You learn some stuff. But then:

    - 1st surprise: the two images extracted from the Graduale Triplex are incomplete. The promise of « they will have before their eyes: - the complete musical score » is then not fulfilled. And the images are black and white... Hey! Are we on the 19th century or what? The Triplex has neumes in red, one would like to watch a picture in color to see the neumes in red... Or maybe it is a copyright thing: cannot publish the piece in full or in color? But in that case one does not announce one will publish everything.

    - Then you come to listen to the video which shows a picture of the melody... but the picture of the melody is incomplete and does not scroll. You know there are plenty of videos on YouTube where the Gregorian staff scrolls with the sound, right? Anyway, you listen and you realize melodies are different from the Triplex (and of course from 1961 Graduale). And from what is displayed.

    Example of the Introit Ad te levavi:
    - syllable "le" of word levavi has three notes FGA instead of GA,
    - the "que" of neque starts on B when one should stay on C,
    - first part of the verse ends on C-B on mihi,
    - second part of the verse: et semitas tuas : all wrong.

    Example of the Graduale Universi:
    - additional note at "te" of qui te exspectant,
    - at the verse on the long melism of Domine the cantor simply forgets the B flat at the end and sings B natural, ugh!
    - semitas tuas: he forgets to descend to C and stays on D,
    - they sing again the antiphon in the end, why not, makes it longer...

    So many mistakes! I thought they were singing from some restored melodies but I cannot find the origin... They are not even from the recent Graduale Novum of German extraction.

    The videos in big format:
    http://video.espresso.repubblica.it/embed/tutti-i-video/ad-te-levavi/1322
    http://video.espresso.repubblica.it/embed/tutti-i-video/universi-qui-te-esxpectat/1328

    At the end of the "Chiesa" article there are links to view their discography, in case you want to buy their CDs... Right, now I think I get it: marketing advertisement.

    Don't get me wrong: these guys have good voices but they have a "particular" way of singing Gregorian chant:
    - you don't hear the liquescents,
    - it's heavy, they drag, they lengthen and lengthen the notes, it's like la commedia dell'ââârte; well, I suppose coming from Italian...
    - and they make big pauses on quarter bars, breaking the dynamic; with some many singers, cannot they breathe at different places and go through quarter bars?

    I think this is their YouTube channel:
    http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuug5_SOszYpYvYTRKh_5IA/videos

    Conclusion: be aware when listening to the melodies that they might not be what they announce to be.


  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    Hmm, well, God bless them for trying, and I wish them great success, but I'll stick with my Schola Bellarmina CD's of The Liturgical Year and the monks of Fontgambault.

    I guess among chant aficionados having your favorite schola is almost like having a favorite football team. : )
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,509
    I hope it goes without saying that any post on the Café may be commented on there, positively or negatively, in a constructive manner.

  • RobertRobert
    Posts: 343
    I don't know whether you're being facetious Jacques, but this choir is certainly singing from restored melodies, not making mistakes. At least in the case of Ad te levavi, what they are singing is identical to what's in the Graduale Novum.

    I agree that the juxtaposition of the music and the image of the Vaticana (Triplex) is confusing. Perhaps this would make more sense:

    http://youtu.be/s4T87qvVr34
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,216
    By the way, comments on the Café require a login now (through Intensedebate or WordPress) because I imposed that rule to reduce the amount of spam that is published.

    Spammers find it especially easy to post ad comments on blogs with no access control.

    So I encourage people to log in and participate.
  • Jacques PerrièreJacques Perrière
    Posts: 139
    @Robert:
    This is what the Introit Ad te levavi looks like in the Graduale Novum:
    http://www.gregorianbooks.com/img/book/GN/gn003.png
  • Jacques PerrièreJacques Perrière
    Posts: 139
    Also from the Graduale Novum, the Graduale Universi:
    http://www.gregorianbooks.com/img/book/GN/gn004.png

    and the Introit Populus Sion:
    http://www.gregorianbooks.com/img/book/GN/gn007.png
    which they sing in the next article:
    http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1350652?eng=y
    The Gradual Novum starts this Introit on a fifth and the choir starts on a fourth, don't they?
  • RobertRobert
    Posts: 343
    OK, Jacques, maybe not identical, but in regards to the points you raised, what they sing agrees with the Novum and not the Vatican 1908.

    - the "que" of neque starts on B when one should stay on C,
    - first part of the verse ends on C-B on mihi,
    - second part of the verse: et semitas tuas : all wrong.[sic]


    With regards to your first point:
    - syllable "le" of word levavi has three notes FGA instead of GA,


    perhaps they are not enunciating enough (although this choir enunciates more than most), or perhaps it's the quality of the recording that's causing you to hear this - but what I hear is GA on that syllable. The F is the second note of the pes on "te."

    Bottom line, these are deliberate choices, not mistakes.
  • RobertRobert
    Posts: 343
    Here is Alberto Turco's restitution of Populus Sion from his Liber Gradualis, which is closer to what Fulvio Rampi's choir is singing than what the Novum has:

    http://youtu.be/a6pG-MllMPM

  • Jacques PerrièreJacques Perrière
    Posts: 139
    OK, Jacques, maybe not identical

    Ah! Thank you for this "You are right" :-) We're getting somewhere.

    And yes sure, they sing from the Graduale Novum. No problem with that. Even if they sometimes change one note here or there...
    __________________________
    I just don't like how they present the whole thing: displaying a picture from the Triplex and actually singing from the Graduale Novum. There is a big difference between both books! Plus it's cheating. They use the fancy "Triplex" packaging to sell something else.
    And I am saying "sell" because there are links pointing to their discography and shopping Website. And it appears just right now with Christmas coming, people buying presents and all... Coincidence? I don't think so.
    image
    (I've put this photo because the baby is so funny)
  • Jacques PerrièreJacques Perrière
    Posts: 139
    Looking at your video http://youtu.be/a6pG-MllMPM ...
    OK OK there is a book called Liber Gradualis... searching Google... Found a page:
    http://www.centrogregoriano.it/liberGradualis.htm
    http://www.centrogregoriano.it/default.htm
    Translation:
    http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=it&tl=en&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http://www.centrogregoriano.it/liberGradualis.htm&act=url
    http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=it&tl=en&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http://www.centrogregoriano.it/default.htm&act=url

    Alright this is another initiative of "restored" melodies. Why not. Like Graduale Novum, Gregor and Taube, etc. But it makes me wonder: the Vatican edition was already a "restored" edition by Dom Pothier and Dom Mocquereau. And they too worked on manuscripts (for 3 or 4 decades). So these today people, what have they found in the manuscripts that the old Solesmes monks did not see? In the end who would decide that they have produced better (or worse) melodies?

    Anyway, having heard a few so-called "restored" melodies I haven't heard a better/nicer version. But that's personal.
  • Jacques PerrièreJacques Perrière
    Posts: 139
    @Robert: OK OK let's talk about the same thing here.
    First of all you are showing me a melody on the video: is it from the Graduale Novum? Because it is not what I see from my 2011 Graduale Novum:
    http://www.gregorianbooks.com/img/book/GN/gn003.png
    Can you spot the differences?
    Maybe you or they have a different Graduale Novum than mine but I would like to see it. How many Graduale Novum have they published?
    So you are right when you say they sing the melody from the video you showed me, but it is not from my Graduale Novum.

    Oh and I've seen another "restored" melody, from this French speaking Website:
    http://www.addominum.ch/Membres/gregorien.html
    PDF : http://www.addominum.ch/Membres/Gregorien/1Avent/1-1AdTeLevavi.pdf
    and the melody is also different from the two above.

    In the end we have 4 melodies: one from the original Vatican edition which was reused in the Triplex and 3 restored. We can still hear as many restored melodies as we can, until we find out that the Vatican ones were and are beautiful. But that's a personal opinion (and the Church's approval in 1908).

    ________________
    Here is the second batch of propers for the 2nd Sunday of Advent:
    http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1350652?eng=y
    After 5 seconds you hear this B natural instead of B flat... ugh! (or is it a C?...)
    So... "restored" melody, yeah, maybe, but beautiful? Humm....

    Oh, by the way, don't forget to buy their CDs, the link is at the bottom of the page. After all it is Christmas soon, presents and all...

    The videos of their channel have pretty much all appeared last month, one month before Christmas... Videos which have a link to their Website, where you can find their discography...
    http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuug5_SOszYpYvYTRKh_5IA/videos

    ___________________________
    Yeah I think the Chiesa article is some clever advertising to make you buy their CDs. With a fancy "Triplex" packaging, petit mensonge. Fair enough. Nothing wrong at selling CDs. And it's their Website, they do whatever they want. But I was not born yesterday. :-)

    In France when you have such an article in the paper press it is always flagged "publi-information" somewhere. Publi = publicité = advertising.

    I'm just here to inform, "in a constructive manner". :-)
    See ya.
  • dad29
    Posts: 2,232
    Yes, their vocal rendition is rather.....idiomatic.
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