I have just sat here sight-singing a pre-Solesmes (whether or not it is an authentic Medicean edition) antiphon or two.

It is easy to ignore this material as simply "pre-Solemes" and perhaps also as a "corruption" of chant, but perhaps it does have some continuing relevance (I don't know for sure)...

One thing that I note is the relationship between melodic and textual accent.

I guess my question here is... To what extent can we learn from the Medicean editions when we are writing vernacular plainsong?

Please do not take this in ANY way to be an attack on the wonderful work of Solemes: it is not. I love my Liber and am so grateful to Solesmes for restoring chant to its pristine, medieval beauty. It is as much a part of our artistic patrimony as the stunning windows of Notre Dame, Paris. This is simply me thinking aloud about the problem of vernacular plainsong and stylistic models. To date, I have only really considered the high church Anglican movement in my research, but now I am starting to wonder about the Medicean editions and their usefulness. Do you think that we can find a good in the comparative evil (for want of a better word) in the modification of chant editions after Trent?