Mode D? Office hymns
  • StephenMatthew
    Posts: 102
    The new translation of the hymns for the Divine Office / Liturgy of the Hours is employing a term I find quite odd: it refers to melodies by mode, but rather than the modes being numbered, instead the modes have letter names. I thought I knew a little of chant matters, but this is perplexing. I assume it is indicating a mode with a final of D?
    What is the story on this? The chant sources I am familiar with either assume you can interpret the mode yourself, or give the mode number, giving the mode letter… that is rather alien to my experience thus far. So, what am I missing?

    Thanks
  • smvanroodesmvanroode
    Posts: 993
    Are the letters Roman numerals? Like Mode IV = Mode 4?

    In general, next to Modes I through VIII, there are a couple of other modes, like C, D and E, as well as II*, IV* and Per.
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,212
    For my part, it’s more confusing than anything to have modes that we don’t try to squeeze into the eight — the tonus peregrinus appears, what, three times in the Roman repertoire (and not much more than that elsewhere) so it can remain as an exception, but we did just fine with a transposed mode II and a transposed mode IV sharing the same psalm tone and then not assigning a mode to certain pieces.

    The musicologists disagree, but unfortunately they are not, or were not, well-placed to make the case.
    Thanked by 2Andrew_Malton tomjaw
  • smvanroodesmvanroode
    Posts: 993
    The musicologists disagree, but unfortunately they are not, or were not, well-placed to make the case.


    That’s a bold statement. Please elaborate.
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,212
    When you are not singing chant regularly in an ecclesiastical setting and with unimpeached credentials as to your orthodoxy and orthopraxy, well…

    Or if you’re not singing regularly with the monastery of your profession… I don’t even think that “that’s an ad hominem” is an appropriate response. It is simply a part of human, Catholic life as to the first, and as to the second, I would say the same, it’s just that people don’t talk about it, because it’s sort of rude to inquire about why monks aren’t living in their abbey and, in some cases, if they have left monastic life.

    But more concretely: singing psalmody with the modern antiphonal means relearning the entire system, and really, that’s just insane to me.
  • Marc Cerisier
    Posts: 534
    Are the letters Roman numerals? Like Mode IV = Mode 4?


    Yes. The modes are presented as roman numerals, and checking the index I see that modes 1–8 are used primarily with 5 melodies being listed as "D".
  • GerardH
    Posts: 445
    But more concretely: singing psalmody with the modern antiphonal means relearning the entire system, and really, that’s just insane to me.


    That’s all well and good, but if learning to sing the psalms is not worth doing, and if they can’t learn to do it, then what are we even doing?
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,212
    I don’t appreciate the snark. You wouldn’t say that in real life, and you know why my point is different — someone who has chanted from the Liber Usualis and had the tones and combinations committed to memory now has to relearn these — this even involves changing modes entirely.

    So. Yeah. I’ll withhold what I want to say, but your comment ought to be replaced with a period. What a nasty way of interacting.

    Also, if you want to complain about what I say, then do it directly, but I’ve already expressed that if you editorialize and don’t really want a response, then don’t do that in the first place (because such is the nature of a forum.)
  • Andrew_Malton
    Posts: 1,175
    Is there an open document that presents the modal system including the *ologists’ new or ancient (take your pick) tones A B C D II* & IV* ? I looked but didn't find.
  • smvanroodesmvanroode
    Posts: 993
    The extensive study of the modes in Gregorian chant has been conducted by people like the monks of Solesmes and Alberto Turco, who are not only masters in the study of chant, but live it as well in daily prayer, thanksgiving and praise. Hence my surprise to hear that they ‘are not well-placed to make the case’.

    The three archaic modes C, D and E predate the system of the eight modes of the Carolingian Octoechos, so I’ll pick ‘ancient’…

    An overview of the modes can be found in the Psalterium Monasticum (1981), pp. x-xi. A more complete overview is given in the Antiphonale Monasticum I (2005), pp. 510-517. Both are attached.
    A good introduction has been written by Luigi Agustini and Johannes Berchmans Göschl, Einführung in die Interpretation des Gregorianischen Chorals (1987). I attached pp. 13-25 from the English translation.
    A detailed discussion is given by Alberto Turco, Il canto gregoriano. Toni e modi (1987). It has been translated into English in 2002: Gregorian Chant: Tones and Modes.
    PM_x-xi.pdf
    103K
    AM_510-517.pdf
    423K
    Agostini-Gosch_13-25.pdf
    542K
    Thanked by 9tomjaw a_f_hawkins WGS CHGiffen igneus Liam Andrew_Malton DavidOLGC Nisi
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,448
    Thank you smvanroode for providing an answer to the OP's question.

    My own view as a mathematician is that all attempts to impose, even post hoc, a tidy theory on human creativity are doomed to failure.
    Thanked by 2tomjaw CHGiffen
  • smvanroodesmvanroode
    Posts: 993
    As a former physics teacher I agree that there’s no ultimate theory that will fully satisfy reality, let alone human creativity, but one can make at least an effort to improve on it.
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen Andrew_Malton
  • StephenMatthew
    Posts: 102
    So, most of my chant studies have used the Triplex as the primary source, I haven’t gotten into the Hymnarius (and don’t have it on my shelf), but I suddenly started seeing mode references outside the 8 modes (and the transpositions) and google was only giving an explanation of modern “key of D” etc rather than the mode of D. I was aware that some modal schemes go up to a 12 numbered modes (I think that is a jazz thing?).

    Anyway, thanks for the explanations. Always something new to learn.
Add a Comment