Graduale & Alleluia
  • Palestrina
    Posts: 364
    I’ve been musing about tasteful options for the above of late...

    Tozer, Rossini (and friends) seem to have made a mess of things by reducing the two to utter non-events. Others that have done Fauxbourdons haven’t managed to improve on things very much.

    Has anyone come across a system setting the Graduales and Alleluias (1962) that looks a bit like what follows below?
    1. The Graduale is treated responsorially (ie. repeating the first section) with fauxbourdons of high quality interspersed (possibly) with elaborate solemn psalm tones in plainchant.
    2. Alleluias preserving the proper elaborate Alleluia of the day with possibly a fauxbourdon verse.
    2a. Alleluias where the first occurrence is the original plainchant and the final repeat is polyphonic but in the same mode as the original? Better still (and no doubt this is pushing my luck), polyphonic settings of the Alleluia that use the Gregorian melodies for their cantus firmus.
    3. Possibly a set of polyphonic Graduales and Alleluias grouped according to mode which followed the plainchant practice of adjusting the melodies slightly for the underlay, such that there would be a manageable set of polyphonic settings for the liturgical year.

    Yes, I’m aware of Byrd and (to some extent) Isaac. Both would be too difficult to do from week to week for a choir of average ability. We seem to go between the extremes of ‘all in’ or ‘all out’. It would be nice to have a halfway house.
  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,704
    We have sung more than a few of the Isaac communions alternating with psalm verse and the chant setting. I wonder if the Isaac setting of the Alleluia could be sung,

    Alleluia, chant
    Alleluia, Isaac
    Psalm verse
    Alleluia, Isaac

    I am sure one of the Issac Alleluias we have sung the first one a chant... We have only sung 2 or 3... The Isaac is not as bad as it looks our amateur choir finds it increasingly easy to learn a new Isaac Proper.

    Today it was the Dedication of our Cathedral so we sang the Bruckner, Locus Iste as the Gradual, then singing the verse as set in the G.R. It seems to work and have been doing this twice a year.
    We usually celebrate the Dedication of our church as an external solemnity, and the Dedication of our Cathedral is always on the 3rd Sunday of October.
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    If you want to do anything in Falsobordone/fauxbourdon, look into the chants of [the school of] Lassus, those of Viadana, and other Renaissance composers. They are simply polyphonic settings of the Gregorian psalm-tones, but of high quality, as one would expect.

    It would be fairly simple, say, to sing the Alleluia to its proper melisma, sing the verse to a Lassus Falsobordone, and repeat the Alleluia in cantu. The Gradual could follow the same procedure: the Respond in its full chant, the verse to a Falsobordone, then the respond in cantu again.

    I do agree that Tozer is mediocre, and Rossini psalm-tones are worse.
  • Palestrina
    Posts: 364
    Some fabulous suggestions above - thank you.

    Tomjaw, I can see the Isaac working in the manner you describe... evidently docking the jubilus off the Alleluia to do the repeat as Isaac. Presumably he wrote in every mode?

    Salieri, do you know of any collections of these falsobordoni?

    Having looked around a bit, I must say how impressed I am with the ‘Codex Budensis’, tho’ I’d probably not make the psalm tones metrical as he has done.

    Some really good solutions out there...
  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,704
    @Palestrina

    The full list of Isaac can be found here, On CPDL they have links to those pieces retypset, although I note that the indexing is not consistent and some pieces are shown not to be on CPDL in one section when they are shown in another. The original part books etc. are linked at the top.

    In a months time we will sing All. De Profundis, this is the first one we learnt back in 2014. With the Isaac setting he only has effectively one Alleluia at the beginning rather than the two found in the G.R. so we have always had a cantor sing the first in chant with the choir coming in with the Isaac after the star.

    We have also sung the All. Laetatus sum, N.B. This has additional text not found in the G.R. so we finish at bar 39. and the All. Dominus Regnavit. I am sure we have always sung the/a chant Alleluia before the Isaac.

    Please note the Graduale that Isaac was writing from was not the modern say 1924 ed. and some of the texts and Temporal positions of the Propers have been changed.
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    You can look on CPDL.

    Also, the vespers as CMAA Colloquia have utilized Falsibordone: you can take a look in the various Colloquium music books on the main page here at musicasacra.

    Falsibordone are metrical and not metrical at the same time. They are usually notated with a standardized notation from the 15th century, the reciting tone is written as a Longa or a Brevis, and the mediant and termination are written in semibreves, occasionally passing notes in minims (very rarely crotchets) are added. In some modern publications the note values of the standard notation are cut in have, so Breves, semibreves, minims, crotchets, and quavers.

    The trick is to sing them as unmetrically as possible, only switching to truly measured music when needed; mainly only at terminations or mediants. Some falsibordone can be quite elaborate: cf. Allegri Miserere (a pair of falsibordone setting tonus peregrinus).
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,768
    On CPDL they have links to those pieces retypset, although I note that the indexing is not consistent and some pieces are shown not to be on CPDL in one section when they are shown in another.
    It's a volunteer effort, and we're always grateful when users take the trouble to point out specific gaps!

    Epiphany II is fixed: thanks for the message & the sharp eyes, Tomjaw!
    Thanked by 1tomjaw
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,046
    A search for "Falsobordone" on imslp brings up a bunch of stuff. I've used FB by Asola and Lasso. Here is a 5-voice Mode 1 by Lasso, performed this past Saturday. (Starts at 1:13)
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