You will find the most difficult people to direct are the ones who read music! They will challenge your beating 2 when the time signature reads 4/4...though the rest of the choir is perfectly comfortable with wokring in 2.

Especially on early music...modern editions that show 2/4 or 4/4 being the time signatures are only an approximation of the original scores which were barless and floated back and forth between rhythms.

Maybe you can experiment with your group and find out which works better (and you feel more comfortable)? It seems that conductors have to modify many details according to the group and the music.

Thank you miacoyne and frogman noel jones, for your input - it all helps so much! Thank you for the excellent idea of the matches - that is really clever and very practical (and funny!), and also for the other conducting ideas and fruits of your experience. May God bless you both!

Good tip! ... I can see myself overdoing it:)

Ancilla, a really good question; as Jeff O affirms, there is no simple answer to it, however. Musicologists and conductors rightly lean towards the duple "feel" for many documented reasons.
Suggestion- find a recording of "Sicut Cervus (Pars Prima)" with a fairly unedited score in hand. Listen with intent to see if you can establish in your mind a pulse (ictus) that allows for the voice lines to enter and cadence accurately while maintaining the seemless, smooth legato.
Then without the recording, think of the tenor entrance tempo in your mind, hear it. Because a somewhat accented or stronger syllable ("cer-")is on beat "4," find out whether you need to establish your conducting pulse initially in four to help your tenors for precision, then altos and maybe even to the soprano entrance.If that seems comfortable (in 4 initially), see if you can then move to the more expressive 2 pattern (and not necessarily always vertical) in a very confident, yet "relaxed" manner, using more early eye contact with sections than hand nuances for new motivic entrances and imitative entrances among the voices.
Keep your pattern(s) always with your own physical frame clavicle to belly button, shoulder to shoulder, and as compact as necessary so that expressiveness in arsic phrases is shown more by primary hand gesture size, than second hand movements.
Then try the same with other great chestnuts.

A point about phrasing in polyphony, if only because it took me years to learn this. Singers are not used to the way polyphony works, with each section producing its own phrasing and dynamics independent of others. They will need to develop this capacity. The director needs to encourage this. It is only in homophonic sections where all singers are doing the same thing and can thereby be conducted as a unit. Otherwise they have to act independently. In practice, this means that you cannot conduct as you would in any other form of music. Indeed, it cannot be "conducted" in the conventional sense at all.

What polyphony needs from the conductor is a clear pitch, a confident posture, and a firm pulse so it can be internalized and reduced to the minimum necessary hand movements. Otherwise it is just starting and stopping.

typically, instrumental conductors will use a specific beat pattern to show the meter, heavy and weak beats, etc. but I've noticed that many choral conductors simply show the pulse by beating "circles" rather than a specific pattern. many also show the shaping of the phrase and lots of other gestures that are foriegn to most instrumental conductors. as one person above mentioned, conducting polyphony is more unique because there typically isn't that "everybody do this at the same time and come in together on 1" type of thing happening, so showing the pulse and perhaps dynamics or cues to certain voices may be as much as you can do. I tend not to conduct my own group at all because I insist that they listen to each other (and me) and internalize the chant to the point where they don't need to have some one "keep time" for them . . . for polyphonic pieces I just show simple time in small circles because often times people tend to slow things down and I want to keep for the forward momentum happening.

just my $.02

All of these points are very interesting and informative, the fruit of your experience and knowledge. I will try to take these points to the practical situation at hand. The reason I think it will be good to conduct in the first place is to have more nuances and expression, which of course, as you pointed out, happens at different times in polyphony, excepting the homophonic parts that occasionally present themselves. In our case, with mostly less experienced singers, confidence in entries and some cut-offs will be a blessing and to help with the pulse. I will indeed try to help them set their internal clocks, though and learn to listen to one another. I appreciate some conducting where the conductor helps to shape the phrase by the movement of his hands. I think this will help as they develop musically to gain confidence in their musical phrasing and generally feel more comfortable in establishing their part's independence. I will give it my best shot. Thank you all, once again!

"...[M]any choral conductors simply show the pulse by beating "circles" rather than a specific pattern..."

As I recall (and y'all know my recollections oft wonder as they wander) from some summer sessions, that's basically how Paul Salamunovich directs chant; nothing like the arsis/thesis patterns Scott taught at intensive.

You're welcome. They need a conductor, especially in polyphony. All I was saying was that that's how much they should be rehearsed. (as you know, it doesn't happen often in real life.) Also the conductor is part of the music, even if you don't vocally sing, you ARE singing internally and with your whole body. I think they need that.

Thanks, and God bless all your work too. (Hope to meet you at the Colloquium?)