I'm into it.

I fall under the "some friends" portion of this recording. :D

Well, it's been an interesting experience to sing it with a choir--I puzzled with interpreting it on my own before rehearsal, to a large extent gave up, set it before my choir, and found that it really interprets itself.

The first thing you notice is that, to a much greater extent than is possible with the restored repertoire, given the often very deliberate mis-accentuations on the part of early mediaeval Frankish monks, the text accent drives the music forward. For better or worse the melodies have had their "barbarisms" lovingly removed to render this possible for "average" choirs.

The mensuralism by 1896 (and I'm certainly not blind to the influence of Solesmes on this) had been restricted to elongating text accents, and the nota semibrevis, the really short one, was used only on descending passages.

The second thing you notice is that the accompaniments do a lot to make these seem much more like mini-motets than just "the chants," and I think we can underestimate the importance of this for the pew-dweller. These are so characteristic that, when I showed this recording to quite a learned and renowned choral conductor, his first question was, "who is the composer?" (he was surprised by the answer!), which is nothing you would ever ask about a piece of post-Solesmes chant.

I think a block of melismatic Latin monody sung at a consistent dynamic to the accompaniment of a flute and string 8' sounds much like any other piece of Latin monody sung in the same way to the unmusical. It's beautiful, but a stylistic beauty, rather than textual, and very little that is readily accessible to the people in the pews colours the Easter propers differently than the chants for Passion Sunday.

Bear in mind that this music would have been heard in a parish setting before the common (or permissible!) use of hand missals, so the primary way in which the character of the feast would be communicated to the faithful would have been through a musical interpretation appropriate to the text.

These chants are open to making use, as here, of the full capabilities of both choir and organ, and in the finished recording, you will experience three sung propers and a Credo, each of which has a strikingly different colour and tone.

I am not sure what you mean by saying that there is nothing Gregorian about these chants, though! I'd be more inclined to think of them as related to the mediaeval chant tradition in the same way that simplified Chinese is related to traditional. They certainly are composed in the Gregorian modes, and are, in fact, simpler versions of the "authentic" melodies, and follow the same curves, their rhythm is the descendant of what, even if it wasn't the pristine ideal, was certainly the commonest way to interpret plainsong for hundreds of years.

But, I think, most importantly, this music *is* what Gregorian Chant meant for centuries. Primers for it trace its ancestry through neumes, through the Guidonian hand, and down to their own day; they simply view the post-Tridentine reforms as a part of the process of musical development for this style.

Thanks much for the early recordings by the Doms. I had heard them before, but they provide a very interesting contrast. That was really the trade-off, in most places where chant was done. And I can't really think that I would have been happy with the trade on more than an academic level.

YES!! This is a project I've dreamed of doing for several years now. Do you have a complete repertoire list? Do you have any publishing/distribution lined up?

Wilkens was really one of the "good guys". Are you considering recordings of "Black List" music as well?

Is there anything I can do to help? (I'm in NE Ohio.)

I don't know if this book here would be useful, but this is what I used when my choir sang 'Laudate'

Performed an experiment of sorts tonight:

We always sing the season Marian antiphon after the evening Mass, normally I play straight from the pages of Adoremus Hymnal (tonight, Salve Regina, the accompaniment is by Ted Marier) exactly as written, taking liberties of course for my own peculiarities (i.e. repurcussion of strophae, etc.), oblivious to what the people are doing, trying to force them to sing in "free rhythm". Tonight I decided to listen to them more and follow their lead. What I discovered is that there are certain mensuralist tendencies within my congregation. I find this fascinating since we are a mixed bag of people of Polish, French, German, and Irish descent, and several people straight from French-Canada. Granted, many of these people are not versed in chant, and yet the ordinary movements that we do are done in a very good "Solesmes" style, with my semiological oddities, without a trace of mensuralism.

It leads me to think that many of these people learned this chant (Salve Regina) as children from people who learned it as children, etc. who have never really shaken off certain tendencies. I notices this especially at certain cadential points with the formula La-Sol-Sol or Re-Do-Do, where the penultimate note was cut short: A good example is right at the beginning: misericordiae, where the accented syllable 'cor' is slightly lengthened, and the syllable 'di' shortened, given a rhythm of dotted-crotchet, quaver, minim. This recurred again at 'O pia'.

I am curious if anyone else has encountered this phenomenon in their congregations?

Have you looked at this, from U. of Dayton?
"Theory and praxis of melodeon-playing : containing over 300 preludes, etc. in all keys, and the accompaniment to the responses of Mass and Vespers, Preface, Pater Noster, the Psalmodes, Adsperges, Vidi aquam, O salutaris, Tantum ergo, Veni creator / by
Singenberger, J. (John), 1848-1924
New York : F. Pustet, 1896
224 p. : music ; 30 cm"

Salieri: certain cadential points with the formula La-Sol-Sol or Re-Do-Do, where the penultimate note was cut short

Yes.

gg aa bb gggg | aa bb aa gg eeee dddd | gg aa bb aaa g gggg

Heard during a weekday Mass
despite use at all three weekend Masses from Easter Vigil thru Corpus Christi.

Sometimes we have zero idea what is happening when we are not on the bench.

I used a 19th century rhythmic reading of chant (also culled from accompaniment volumes) for a concert performance of the Obrecht Salve Regina with Euouae. I found the contemporary chant practice of Obrecht just plain ugly, the Solesmes reading anachronistic, and the medieval practice... well, it just didn't fit. This solution seemed to work better for my taste, even though it was mixing practices from two different time periods.

Where can I read about the chant practice of Obrechts time and the medieval practice? Is the medieval chant practice similar to the practice of the Dominican order?