Chant Style: CD Palestrina - Missa Viri Galilaei
  • GavinGavin
    Posts: 2,799
    Maybe should go in "Recordings", but I really want an answer. I have this CD, http://www.amazon.com/Palestrina-Missa-Viri-Galilaei/dp/B0011BA9GM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1248208279&sr=8-1 which has the Missa Viri Galilaei, the motet which was parodied, the Mass propers in chant, and a Magnificat setting. My question: what in the world is the schola doing for this chant? It's very slow and the notes are in many phrases (or whole antiphons) radically different from any other sort of chanting I've heard. Any information I can get on this style of chanting will be ravenously consumed.
  • Jeffrey MorseJeffrey Morse
    Posts: 202
    My guess would be, though I have not heard this recording, that the tactus of the Chant, if it is slow is perhaps trying to imitate the speed used in the renaissance, which was indeed much slower than we would take it today. As for the actual melodies, these too might have been taken from Renaissance books which would not necessarily match our modern melodies as restored by Solesmes. In regards tempo, one can get a good idea of the tactus of Renaissance Chant in looking and playing through the keyboard works of Tallis and other Renaissance composers based on the Chant.
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    JM is right. Could you give us the choir, label and number of this CD. I do not have it, but would like to. (I am not inclined to type out all the http.... ad infinitum that you have given above.)
  • GavinGavin
    Posts: 2,799
    I forgot to mention that there are samples of the chant on Amazon's website. Apologies, I didn't realize that posting without a hyperlink was difficult for others.
  • Jeffrey MorseJeffrey Morse
    Posts: 202
    Ahhh! Marcel Peres and Ensemble Organum are singing the Chant. While the tactus is indeed slower, the vocal ornaments seem to be what one would expect about 600 years earlier, though it is true I had a hard time listening to the samples. This doesn't surprise me as I remember a wild recording of his of Cistercian Chant sung as if it were 8th century Chant, and not the 12th century Chant of the Cistercians! I have generally found that while the recordings of Ensemble Organum can be quite enjoyable to listen to, their performance practice never seems to have much scholarship behind it.
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