@OMagnumMysterium

Regarding the quarter barline, you write:

I have taken serious issue with this for a long time. This contradicts the principles of effective notation. If the quarter bar does nothing, it means nothing, and is useless.

This is an interesting point. One thing to consider is that unlike Guéranger and Pothier and most of the other people working on the chant restoration, Mocquereau was a trained musician. In modern music, a barline doesn't add time but functions precisely like the quarter barline as interpreted by Mocquereau. It divides the music into discrete sections of a certain length, without having any duration of its own. It is purely organizational. By giving this function to the quarter barline, and then giving the idea of two lengths of rest (single length, longer (or double length), Mocquereau is again rationalizing the system. Why should there be three distinct lengths of rest notated, in addition to the natural mora vocis that happens at the end of every word.

A second thing to consider is what Mocquereau actually says about this, which as usual with Pothier and Mocquereau comes with a rather lengthy paper trail stretching back to the middle ages. It's in the second volume of Le nombre (another reason to learn French!), and he talks about different lengths of time that one might accord to Guido's idea of three levels of mora vocis. Mocquereau basically says that the shortest level is a temporal parallel to the small intervals one experiences when tuning an instrument or when studying a temperament. That is, there might be some amount of time that is natural to take at the small point of division, but its so small that it's not worth notating. The same idea should apply by extension to the smallest barline, since it probably adds a minute amount of time not worth measuring or writing now.

In general, then, I would say that Mocquereau's interpretation makes the chant notation something more like modern notation: all lengths of notes are indicated by the notes themselves and their additions, but the barlines (particularly the quarter barline) go back to having the same primarily organization function they have in modern music. Since the barlines in their current usage in the liturgical books are a modern editorial innovation anyway, perhaps this was a reasonable solution.

In this vast topic, a short but dense book published at Solesmes in 2022 may be of great help here. "Le Rythme du Chant Grégorien" by Dom Jacques-Marie Guilmard of Solesmes looks at the essential contributions of Dom Cardine in the practical "performance" of Gregorian Chant. It is founded on the notion of note value as suggested by the ancient adiastematic manuscripts. It is pretty good, but available only in French.

An issue that should be mentioned here is notation. Whereas these ancient manuscripts are concerned mainly with showing the rhythm of the chant, incorporating this into square notation is not that simple since the latter is mainly concerned with pitch. This is where I think a form of fluxus notation is of great practical help if one wishes to sing in a way that is more faithful to the rhythm indicated in these ancient manuscripts particularly St Gall, instead of having to read 2 music notations at the same time such as from the Graduale Triplex.

I would be very interested to know if any of the better informed proponents of semiology have written down their ideas of what the different neumes and note values are. I've read most of Dom Cardine's book on semiology, and he talks about the nuems a lot, but I didn't get any clear understanding of the relations between different lengths.

Even if you are saying that there are a variety of different note lengths beyond simple longs and shorts, you have to at least be able to organize them and explain what they are. If you believe in "natural speech rhythm", you have to be able to explain what that means, and also explain the rhythm of neumes in melismas, since speech rhythm cannot apply to an extended melisma.

If semiologists can provide a clear explanation of exactly what each of the elements in the adiestematic manuscripts mean, then we can make a notation which reflects that. Otherwise, semiology is a theoretical science, not a practical science.

Is it possible to have two lines of chant performed and notated in the various schools of thought so we can all hear the difference?

Patrick has done this before, and I'm sure he could share his very nice video again. It would be good to have a really short example, though, so I just recorded the first two words of the Ave Maria offertory mentioned above in this thread four ways. Attached are three scores (Vatican with no signs, Liber usualis, Graduale triplex). I recorded first the Vatican according to what I know of Pothier, then the Mocquereau method, then my sort of personal semiology, then proportionalist according to Patrick's method. The Mp3 is all four recordings (about twenty seconds each). For both the semiology and the mensuralist I just read from the triplex score.

I have argued elsewhere for pluralism, and what I mean is that I think actually being able to do this for any given chant would be extremely valuable for anyone who wants to understand the issues.

Dr. Weaver, you did show it to us! I've been thinking about it since. By the way, he is teaching a session on rhythm this summer at Solesmes, from the 21st to the 25th (the event is called the "Session de chant grégorien de Solesmes" and seems to be organized by the Association de Musicologie médiévale.

I can attest to this method; am I misremembering, or did Mocquereau or Pothier never sing the same chants one after the other? I can find some of their 1904 demonstrations in Rome (by searching "Dom Pothier Dom Mocquereau 1904" on Youtube), but there, they're singing a series of chants (and I note that there, e.g. in the Assumption introit, Dom Pothier's treatment of the note before quilisma is considerably weaker than what we expect even from Dom Pothier and not Mocquereau; in any case, it's a wonderful demonstration particularly of the Golden Rule in application, where the mora vocis is applied judiciously in between words and therefore at bar lines, but the word is never interrupted for a breath).

As a slight aside, there's a very interesting comment from Fr Z, who is apparently a Cardine disciple and like Mocquereau is a musician.

And as to the traditions, I'm now in the weeds within the traditions. Having thought about it some more, I would argue that recordings are limited but valuable. Even taking into account the technology and the ease of recording an album now, perhaps some of the singing is adjusted for that context, and the degree to which it was adjusted in the past is impossible to know, but I don't have a time machine to go back myself to 1904 or to 1930 (I believe that it's around this point that Solesmes starts issuing LPs under Dom Gajard) and so on. Listening to Mocquereau's "Saceredotes Dei" shows some of the nuance that I associate with Fontgombault, whereas Santo Domingo de Silos sings Gloria XI in a straight way that I consider very beautiful. It is a more literal reading of the neumes and of the signs. I need to get my hands on the CD from Triors which has Mass XI to compare.

OMM, it's good that Dr. Weaver is teaching a class on manuscripts. It's not so good that you'll have to wait to take the rhythm class, but if it comes up again with the CISM at the seminary in Menlo Park, California, do it. (Well, you would probably like the manuscript class too.)

A little bit more about "speech rhythm" in melismas. One thing that has occurred to a lot of writers since at least Dom Pothier is that the rhythmic organization of the melismas is probably a lot like the organization of the syllabic chants. There is some relationship between the neumes and the rhetoric of putting a sentence together. This is the same idea as in Notker's practice of turning melodies into texted sequences.

In the case of this first melisma with the MMVs, you might imagine each pitch getting a syllable, like in the attached file. Here I tried at least most of the time to follow Pothier/Mocquereau's principle of the tonic accent, although I didn't come up with anything particularly nice. So you sort of shape the words accordingly, and you space them out from each other and group them in a way that seems sensible. The last step would be to go back to the melisma, and sing it with basically the same shape, except instead of words you get individual neumes.

That's the idea, anyway. Notker's sequences are remarkable because he always observes word breaks between individual neume signs but still manages to come up with really intelligible poetry in process.

I took it upon myself to put Dr. Weaver's example above into a video for easy examination. Thank you Dr. Weaver for your time and effort. Let me know if this is correct.

http://www.myopus.com/preview/chantComparison.mp4

Personally I favor the first (vatican edition). It is stark and simple and would seem easiest for a schola (with minimal time) to remain together.

OMM, thank you for posting this. I'm sure Patrick will have much to say, but I just want to make a few comments. For one thing, L has an entirely different melody, which is quite uncommon, but it makes the comparison a little less useful here. Second, all the the manuscripts after that actually have all the melisma on "su-" of "suis." The way they space this is that the melisma just goes up and to the right, while only the tractulus belongs on "-is." Also, I don't know how you are choosing your pitches, but it also makes it a little more difficult to compare. For this kind of work, I think I would prefer to take the pitches from the Vatican and see how the neumes fit.

But the most important thing, which I would encourage you to continue, is that you are onto a really great idea when you try to do the reverse transcription at the end, even though I think you don't do it in the way the manuscripts would suggest. I think this is probably an excellent way to make sure you understand semiology: if these certain notes were long, how would you transcribe it? There are lots of such exercises in that Rampi book I mentioned earlier. There's probably no better way to get a firm grasp on the SG and Laon neumes. I think you don't need nearly so many episemata in your SG, for instance. Anyway, keep at it!

Yes, Laon does give a completely different melody, and although I'm sure it's not an extremely common occurrence, I happened to stumble upon it accidentally rather than specifically seeking out such differences. So I think it demonstrates the lack of a single unified tradition.

Now I see what you mean about the tractulus on "-is". I was rather confused by that before.

The order of MSS listed is approximately chronological. Domine refugium (Pentecost XXI) would better serve your purposes, as Laon uses the same melody as St. Gall there. Note that my edition follows the melodic reading of the Graduale Novum, with occasional exceptions.
See that the Laon neumes agree with what you transcribed for Angelis suis, without the added t's and the substitution of the clivis at -gi-. Are you still struck by the lack of uniformity? In your transcription of E, you have added extra notes at the beginning of both su- and -is, where you wrote a torculus resupinus each time instead of a porrectus.

B adds an episema at the beginning of -is, where the others don't, but look how Domine refugium is written in the same source:
What's an editor to do? Well, pick one and and go with it! Charles touches on this in his latest CCW post. It's impossible to follow two contradictory readings simultaneously.

I would never venture a guess on how any chant was sung in the fifth century. We have no notated sources from that period, and I have repeatedly emphasized the importance of following the oldest extant sources. That is as close to the authentic traditional rhythm as we can get without more conjecture than I would be comfortable with. But they get us to something singable, and that's the important thing! I have no interest in creating something that never existed. We've had quite enough of that already with at least half a dozen different antimensuralist approaches from Solesmes and elsewhere in just over a century, and now apparently cycling back through them. I'm content with the oldest sources, although I will occasionally deviate from L, especially if Chartres and all of the SG MSS from the 9th–11th centuries give a different reading. Scribes make mistakes, and the scribe of Laon was no more infallible than any other.

Yes, let's hope and pray that chant will shift from being equal to being rhythmically differentiated!!! I'm glad you, too, think it can happen.

I happen to believe the restoration of chant is worth an exponential amount of energy. It is strange to me that more church musicians don't see it as a priority, but I just have to accept that for what it is. "Not in bread alone doth man live, but in every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God." What is our chant but music—art—crafted from the word of God? Yes, it is rotten and moldy to the extent that its original rhythmic vitality has deteriorated, but I'm not really interested in the rotten moldy bread, whether served in the fine china of a leather-bound Graduale or the plain clay pot of a throwaway missalette. The manna has been well preserved in the oldest sources, and it remains there for our nourishment!

I'm very curious why you say the rhythmic restoration may be possible for "a very very small percentage of musicians." Do you sincerely think nuanced lengthenings (but only one of them in this example) and irregular groupings of two and three notes
are easier to learn and sing well than straightforward quarter and eighth notes?
If so, why?

Ok, attached is a little table showing the four sources you cite of that melody, OMM. I didn't try to beautify the spacing or anything. While there are a couple of discrepancies in terms of which notes are longer etc., there is also quite a bit of agreement. This strikes me as completely normal and also to be expected. An editorial method like, say, just always choosing C when it's a solo chant and E for everything else is completely reasonable.

I don't think it's a good policy to just throw up your hands and say, there must be no rhythmic tradition here so I should do pure equalism. It's a choice, but I don't think it's the best choice. I feel strongly that scholarship, manuscript research, and looking at the sources is a very good thing for chant performers to study.

I think if he had lived longer that he would probably have favored editions such as the semiologists now use.

From the CCW post. Yes. In fact, although it’s hard to attribute the source of these things without going into the archives, we see the Holy Week chants and particularly the Antiphonale Monasticum as departing from the Vatican edition’s frameworks.

Some have gone even further. Mocquereau would have liked, IMHO, what Le Barroux did when typesetting the chant for the patronal office, proper to their house.

Maybe we can say that there are too many episemata here, and it’s a pressus here, not an oriscus — my bad! — but IIRC you see this already in Le Nombre, and yet the official AM doesn’t have this until the 2000s.

Beyond the notation, some of the practical compromises in singing characteristic of Solesmes (the fusions at the pressus for example) can be done away with; I know people who teach and sing according to the Mocquereau system while repeating the note at the pressus! (I don’t always know how I feel about this, as a singer, but so long as it’s clear, I’m fine with it.)

@MatthewRoth Perhaps the clearest example of Mocquereau thinking this way is in the study on Alleluia Ostende, which appears in PM vol. 10. Attached is a snapshot of the beginning, with his presumably idealized notation.

The latest CCW Gregorian Rhythm Wars posts have included the opinions that if Mocquereau had lived longer, "he would probably have favored editions such as the semiologists now use" (CW) and that if Cardine were alive today, "I strongly suspect he’d abandon his 'authentic rhythm' theory" (JO). Now to round things out, we need contributors to step up and hypothesize that if they were still around, Murray would surely be a Mocquereauvian and Pothier would be a mensuralist!

The 1983 Liber hymnarius states that the last note of a neume regains the normal syllabic value, i.e., the same value denoted by the horizontal episema, neumatic break, or note before or after a quilisma. According to those rules, the last note of a torculus would be long except where followed by a unison note. I would have to go back and check Cardine's Gregorian Semiology, (I don't have it handy at the moment), but I think he interpreted an ascending neumatic break after a torculus as inexpressive, since the note before the break is lower than both neighboring notes. One of the semiologists here may know better. Laon's equivalent of St. Gall's pes subpunctis is written as torculus+punctum/-a. There, the puncta are considered part of the same neume. https://gregobase.selapa.net/sources/15/15.png

OMM, I recently addressed in another thread why the ordinary cursive torculus is normally short-short-long. To flesh out the evidence a bit more, let's consider the incipit of today's tract. The torculus at -la-, also considered as a scandicus flexus with neumatic break in Cardine's tables and elsewhere, shows no sign of lengthening on its final note, but does it need one to be interpreted as long? The "pure Vatican" equalist and "classic Solesmes" people would say yes. The Cardinian "semiologists" might interpret it as long anyway, in accordance with the 1983 Liber hymnarius rules for interpretation. Compare the tracts Attende caelum, De profundis, Qui regis, and Sicut cervus, where the liquescent form is used. That liquescent scandicus flexus, =tractulus+ancus, is either four notes, LssL, or five, Lssss. There is no argument to be made in favor of reading it as Lsss, yet that is the interpretation being given to the non-liquescent form—and they're all printed as non-liquescents in the Vatican and Solesmes editions. I did come across one instance where an episema was written in St. Gall 342, for the tract Laudate Dominum, but that's exceptional.

Although this is evidence, it is not proof per se. I think the centonization formulae must have been used with rhythmic consistency when the chant was memorized and preserved orally/aurally because it seems improbable that the cantors would have committed a single formula to memory with multiple rhythmic variations for different texts. I cannot prove this anymore than I can prove that there are no ternary rhythmic groupings. This is where common sense and musical intuition factor into the work. As you remind us, it's a free country (although we have international members of the forum!) and others are free to believe that centonization formulae were recalled and transmitted with different rhythmic nuances for each chant (see the uncannily similar quotes from Van Kampen and Olbash here, at the end of the paragraph titled "An Incredible Claim"), that a few ternary groupings were mixed into chants with an otherwise binary rhythm (the paragraph titled "Being Sensible" here), or that an agogic nuance was added to certain notes of office antiphons only at the beginning of a syllable sung to two notes (here). But proof is another matter ;)

FSSPmusic

I happen to believe the restoration of chant is worth an exponential amount of energy. It is strange to me that more church musicians don't see it as a priority, but I just have to accept that for what it is. "Not in bread alone doth man live, but in every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God." What is our chant but music—art—crafted from the word of God? Yes, it is rotten and moldy to the extent that its original rhythmic vitality has deteriorated, but I'm not really interested in the rotten moldy bread, whether served in the fine china of a leather-bound Graduale or the plain clay pot of a throwaway missalette. The manna has been well preserved in the oldest sources, and it remains there for our nourishment!

@FSSPmusic

Sorry for my poor analogy.

I think I must reiterate that the level of interest in how you approach chant is commendable and admirable. Do not get me wrong. I was speaking from a pragmatic point of view from one who is a organist, composer, choirmaster, arranger, performer, etc. What it comes down to is I don't have the time or energy to become this granular in the execution of the craft of the chant at this level.

Therefore I default to the more straightforward interpretation of the chant. Personally over the years I have less and less liked the Solemnes method. As I said above I like the beauty in simplicity of the Vatican edition without any markings.

I'm very curious why you say the rhythmic restoration may be possible for "a very very small percentage of musicians." Do you sincerely think nuanced lengthenings and irregular groupings of two and three notes are easier to learn and sing well than straightforward quarter and eighth notes?

If so, why?

When one only has 20 minutes per set of Propers to rehearse, unless all the members of the schola are familiar with a particular school of thought, it becomes cumbersome to execute all the material without getting lost in the weeds. The schola I sing with now all practice the Solemnes method. I don't see them rethinking the note values, however, they are becoming less rigid in the 'all notes are the same value' approach, and are starting to think more musically.

Charles_Weaver February 11 Thanks
Posts: 31
@francis

...but also the way the rhythm differs from so much of our mundane musical tasks.

Teaching children by passing on this study of the chant is also passing on the patrimony of the Roman Church. I often find that kids respond well to the little bits of Solesmes/Mocquereau tradition that I pass down to them. I imagine that would be true if I were in a schola geared toward semiology or mensuralism too.

I commend you on your efforts! Could you post some recordings of the children?

Anyway, that's why I think it's worthy of our study and attention, regardless of which method you follow, even in the present ecclesial climate.

Yes, the difficulties of the moldy bread (which is really the contemporary music that has invaded the liturgy) take over the place of even doing any chant at all, so it becomes a struggle even to do the simplest forms.

OMagnumMysterium February 11 Thanks
Posts: 153
Yes, Francis, I agree with you, at least for the most part.

I suppose as long as one is trying to sing beautifully for God, the exact method doesn't really matter. Just make sure whatever you choose isn't going to cause unnecessary confusion and frustration for your singers. By which I mean, be consistent with your principles so your singers know what to expect.

Yes... this is the position I have had to maintain for years with the various scholas under my direction.

It's a free country, so Mr. Williams is certainly entitled to spend the "exponential amount of energy" on his new edition, and I pray God will bless his efforts. I still reject the idea of "The Authentic Traditional Rhythm", but I respect his work as being one side of the dice, and frequently consult his website for things such as offertory verses.

Yes. I totally agree. I laud those who can do this work of semiology and I admit it makes me a bit sad inside that I do not have the time or the platform to do so myself.

Thank you all for your expertise.

@charlessa

That is very beautifully said and well put. I share the same sentiments. I think the whole world is going to go far beyond what I would term a rude awakening in the coming year

Although Anthony Ruff, no fan of Dom Mocquereau’s signs, has observed that Solesmes observes them in an oral tradition and the choirmaster of Saint-Benoît-du-Lac added them to the modern antiphonal by hand… and Solesmes then revised the preface to the Liber Hymnarius, but, some would argue, since they want to do away with the signs, they’ve taken away the clues.

In a comment, a reader mentions the Praglia antiphonal, which does make use of rhythmic signs. Interesting, and apparently there is a Benedictine monastery of nuns in Rome that uses this book, in addition to the monasteries that produced it. So there you are.

The "quarter bar" and the ligatures maybe could be used to separate the neumatic elements of the long melisma instead of grouping section of phrases. Or the long melisma could be represented by a ligature and the beaming of the eighth and sixteenth notes would separate the neumatic elements.

I can easily add stropha, oriscus and quilisma

Check out the pdf and tell what you think.
I could do something like this for the entire gradual.

OMagnumMysterium, given your preference for a traditional square-note notation that could express both pitch and rhythm, are you familiar with the Graduale Renovatum project?
www.GradualeRenovatum.com

I am familiar with the Graduale Renovatum. It seems obvious to me though that the Graduale Renovatum does not show strict proportional rhythm. I suppose there are two questions here, that of what the "authentic" rhythm and melody is, and how it is most effectively notated. I'm really only considering the second question at the moment. Following the sort of pluralism which Dr. Weaver often advocates for, I would be interested to improve the notation of all schools of rhythm, just to be able to have an easier time of singing each of them if nothing else.

For proportional rhythm, I have not found any notation I have seen completely satisfying as being both elegant and effective. But I readily admit I may not be the best judge, both due to my perfectionism, and my bias towards the types of notation I am most used to and enjoy singing and looking at.

If you have a collection of recordings, Mr. Nickel, I would be interested to listen to some while following along with your editions to get a better idea of what you're really aiming at. Our schola director follows a roughly semiological approach while singing from the Liber (formerly he used the Triplex). It used to frustrate me, but I've gotten used to it over the years, and I've started to appreciate the expressiveness of certain parts of his method.

I don't mean to speak for Royce, but I'm pretty sure his edition is intended to convey mainstream semiology, such as Göschl's:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mStjSU36Ceo