Rhythmic signs at Santo Domingo de Silos
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,100
    Fr Lawrence Lew, OP posted about his visit to Santo Domingo de Silos. They have preserved the rhythmic signs in their celebration of the new office. Saint-Benoît du Lac has as well.

    See here.
  • CGM
    Posts: 690
    There are notated Mozarabic chants in this paper:
    https://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/uploads/FileUpload/6c/ba09b3ea02d8686c014619e9c67f43.pdf

    The source is Santo Domingo de Silos.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • FSSPmusic
    Posts: 255
    But gone is the vertical episema!
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,100
    Yes, although I wonder what they do for the propers. It matters less in the office, especially when you sing it daily, even as I just pointed out in the last week something that @Charles_Weaver mentions regularly: the downbeat is sometimes very weak, as is the case the ictus on the last note of a descending neume (either a climacus or a scandicus subbipunctis) which is also the last note on that syllaable is inserted in some office antiphons as well as in the proper (I always think of the first "eis" and "lux" in the Requiem introit). I saw an instance of that and mentioned it when rehearsing Vespers.

    But in syllabic chant, that's not such a big deal; it is trickier, however, with propers, if you don't agree on the organization (or if you wish to move it; I'd be sympathetic to reorganizing the ictus on the scandicus where the podatus is very clearly followed by a virga). Of course, when you sing daily, it may not matter much.

    In a similar vein, the Praglia antiphonal introduced (because these chants are newly edited into modern square notation from the manuscripts) the (horizontal) episema and the dot for the mora vocis, although in their weekly psalter for Lauds and Vespers, the dot is only on the upper note of the podatus. They do, however, follow early and late Mocquereau (and therefore the Solesmes practice of the 1950s revisions) in placing the dot on both puncta following a redundant cadence. It goes without saying that they don't use the ictus; however, I always chuckle at this. The Nocturnale Romanum project from France, which heavily feature restitutions (almost everything except maybe Christmas, Tenebrae, etc. known from the Liber Usualis) will not use the ictus (and even if you wanted to include it, it's a lot of work), but 33% of respondents to their survey use it! So I assume that people will pencil something in when the book is finally available (which won't be anytime soon).
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