The Chants of Christmas by Gloria Dei
  • miacoyne
    Posts: 1,805
    I just purchased The Chants of Christmas by Gloria Dei schola with Dr. Richard Pugsley. As I was listening to the CD, I noticed the significant differnce in their singing style from the CD with Dr. Mary Berry. (Im not talking about the different interpretations of Solemess or Cardine) There are lots of fast notes and strong high notes. It sounds almost... agitated. Of course, I'm very new in singing chants and not much knowledge of Cardine's (I found it's very hard to follow his book) Their singing is beautiful, but the style seems to be pretty different from other groups I 've heard so far. Does anyone own this CD? What's your opinion?
  • Jeffrey MorseJeffrey Morse
    Posts: 202
    The CD you mention, The Chants of Christmas was an early effort by the Community of Jesus (Gloria Dei Cantores). I think over the years the choir became more expert. The last four CD's, the life of Christ in Chant and the Transfiguration are much more mature and are perfect examples of the subtle way in which Dr Mary Berry applied the semiology. These last four CD's are among my favorites of all Chant recordings. The text seems to spring to life!
  • miacoyne
    Posts: 1,805
    I have Gregorian Semiology by Dom Cardine. I found it's very hard to follow. And it seems that it's not designed as a method book to teach. (I guess the writing follows the style of their interpreting chants. Very flourish, but not systematic.) It doesn't show you how to apply those that are described in the book. Of course I didn't finish reading it. As a chant lover and chant director I would like to learn more about it. I am already familiar with Solesmes method but I think I can enrich my schola's singing if I knew about the semiology method too. Is there any way I can learn it to teach besides from the book?
  • incantuincantu
    Posts: 989
    Semiology isn't a method, per se, but a comparative study of the paleography used in different manuscripts. If you agree, for instance, that the top note of the salicus is structural and of length, then you will naturally incorporate that into your method. When you examine the various symbols (significant letters, special neumes, episemata) that were transcribed in the the Solesmes books as an episema, that will doubtless inform your decision about how to treat the episema. After comparing typified fragments that challenge the idea of a single "Gregorian rhythm," you may come to see the concept of groups of 2 and 3 as descriptive rather than prescriptive. All of these things will become part of your group's unique and developing style.
  • Bruce E. Ford
    Posts: 429
    Jean Claire, a colleague of Eugene Cardine who served as choirmaster at Solesmes for over thirty years wrote:

    It will be worthwhile ... to take the time to remind oneself coldly of the difference between an average syllabic beat and a melismatic beat, which is exactly the difference between the time it takes to pronounce an average syllable (consonant + vowel) and the time it takes to pronounce a syllable that consists of a vowel alone. If one has an electronic technician in his group, one ought to ask him to measure that difference, that is, to give it in fractions of a second. Then one ought to try to listen for a while without smiling to any of the recordings with semiological pretensions “according to the work of Dom Cardine.”--“Dom Eugène Cardine,” Études grégoriennes, XXIII: 23 (1989). My translation.

    The recordings of Gloria Dei Cantores fall into the category to which Jean Claire refers.

    Cardine did admit, however, that semiology really only showed us which notes were comparatively more important than others, and that the degree of augmentation or diminution implied in each case was open to conjecture. So the Gloria Dei Cantores are simply augmenting and diminishing more than Cardine and Claire would have liked (or I like). They are not necessarily wrong.
  • RagueneauRagueneau
    Posts: 2,592
    "Sing the words as you would speak them" --- Haberl in Magister Choralis

    For myself, I don't agree with this notion. Singing is NOT speaking. If all we wanted was the clearest presentation of the text, we would be idiots to sing it. We would read it. For myself, I feel that there are (and should be) major differences between singing and speaking.

    But what a glorious way to decorate the words is Gregorian chant!
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,160
    Thanks, Jeff, for taking up the cudgel against this maxim ("Sing the words as you would speak them"). I think it's pernicious.

    The people around here who quote it to me don't seem able to keep a choir together on a psalm-tone, and they don't know why. What they really mean is: "Sing the words as I would speak them"!
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