Clear Creek (Fontgombault) accompaniment instructions and key
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,367
    As our regular users know by now, I am interested in chant sung following the Mocquereau method as filtered through the Schola Saint-Grégoire with its Laus in Ecclesia manual, the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, and of course the French Benedictines who are associates of these groups.

    We needed some things not found in abbé Portier's Liber Cantualis Comitante Organo and the companion volumes to the gradual, including the Sequence Stabat Mater. Fr. Bachmann gave me some of what I needed, for which I'm most grateful, including an answer key and instructions. The instructions are based on the antiphon Hodie of August 15, as found in the Antiphonale Monasticum, so there would only be slight adjustments if using the Roman version.

    You may notice that some of the signs are a little hard to read; my take is that you have to use your best judgement and that occasional howlers might happen, but if you transcribe as I did, you should try to pick the best thing, or whatever is easiest or sensible, all things being equal. In transcribing, I adjusted the chord change to always place it on an ictic note, where I thought it was inserted ambiguously with respect to the note, and I sometimes adjusted the chord if I thought that it was not quite right to my ears.

    Now I just need to learn how to choose the chords and when to change them, either to a different variation with the same bass or to an entirely new chord…which means finally visiting the abbey, probably. I'd like to rework our psalm accompaniments (and the antiphons and hymns, but that's way more work). We have had a lot of success improving on things that the congregation knows well, in switching to the Liber Cantualis Comitante Organo for the Asperges (I whipped up the doxology with Musescore Studio) and the simple tone of the Salve Regina; I am ever more committed to this style of accompaniment (I know, the LCCO is not exactly what is used in the abbeys, because abbé Portier will occasionally move one voice on an eighth note, but it's otherwise one of the better examples of the Solesmes-Fontgombault tradition IMHO).

    @Charles_Weaver would also be interested, so I'll just tag him preemptively.
    clear_creek_accompaniment_instructions.pdf
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    clear_creek_accompaniment_key.pdf
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    stabat_mater_fontgombault.pdf
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    Thanked by 2Charles_Weaver CHGiffen
  • Charles_Weaver
    Posts: 76
    Matthew, this is fantastic. I have a lot of my own ideas about how to play chords like this; mostly I am just thinking with my left hand and doing chironomy with the right, having listened to lots of Fontgombault and sort of developed an unwritten/unspoken sense of the harmonic/modal language. I would especially like to know if Fr. Bachmann has a whole book notated this way. I would love to have a look at that, with a view to coming up with some general principles that could be written up and published somewhere. Especially with how the chord changes relate to hexachords and other theoretical constructs. Of course the placement with respect to the ictus is also very interesting.

    Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention!
    Thanked by 2OMagnumMysterium CHGiffen
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,367
    Yes.

    I should add that the gradual is like this. Ditto the antiphonal. I don't know what is lacking, however, in their own books (are there things which they never use and so no one notated an accompaniment? why occasionally solfège names but letters — a holdover from Fontgombault? in any case it's very intelligble and can only ever mean one thing when you see the key signature).
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,367
    I also transcribed the offertory Recordare, also used on July 16 and perhaps on a couple of other feasts in local propers, as it was fully visible in the material sent from the abbey. (Sorry, I got the pages out of order on the copy machine when scanning; it's fixed now.)

    I first heard this offertory accompanied on an ICRSP CD a few years ago and was blown away. In the French trad world, it's a common piece for Benediction; the monks of Le Barroux also use it in this way. You can see in the above that you have Re sharp in lieu of writing six sharp signs. So does that mean something?

    Naturally, the next question is registration… we know what should be in manuals and, if you have them for the whole schola/choir, pedals, but for example, the Saint Benedict CD from Fontgombault has what I find to be a richer, more powerful accompaniment that is still in the same style that never overpowers the melody. And I'm listening in my car mostly, so if I can pick up the difference there, it seems to be real!
    offertoire_recordare_fontgombault.pdf
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    clear_creek_accompaniment_instructions.pdf
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  • Charles_Weaver
    Posts: 76
    The first thing I am struck by is how close these end up looking to the LCCO in style. The funny thing is that in my mind the Fontgombault accompaniment style is so much more austere. Often I play only two notes in the left hand and conduct with the right. Or perhaps one note in the pedals and two in the left hand. And this seems to mesh well with the proto-continuo notation shown directly in the book, which is quite ingenious. But when you actually transcribe it, you realize that it's very much the same family as LCCO, with perhaps fewer chord changes. It just looks so much more complicated on the page than it is in practice. Anyway, thank you so much for sharing these. I've always wondered what (if any) notation was used in these houses.
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,367
    Yes; as it happens, I knew that they used the LCCO, because of an old thread here, for things that are in there (although they don't change out the antiphonal for that for example). Time to make a visit to see about getting copies of some things that are not in there or to learn the system, namely several of the ordinaries.

    I assume that the monks have the gradual but only use it as a supplement to the notated 1961, in the trad houses, which by the way the Recordare indicates their own interpretation of neumes. One would have to find a good email (or write the old-fashioned way) to learn about the practice in the houses that use Latin for the NO and have accompanied chant of the propers; I take for granted that you can always easily ask Solesmes about its own practice.
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