Suñol also mentions the variant performance practice. Note the change in ictus placement.

When singing the motif as sol-mi-fa, all I can think of is this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0SuIMUoShI

Evidently Dom Mocquereau did not have the same issue.

I can't see an oriscus at these three neumes in the manuscripts, at least not the one used by Anton Stingl. See his rendering of Gaudeamus.

In 2022 Stingl also published a study of the oriscus: Der Oriscus. Eine Neume mit Signalfunktion. From the book description: ‘It investigates the thesis that the oriscus has a rhythmic signaling function for the following melody’ (emphasis mine).

Matthew, the first bit of Le nombre is probably the best. There are some eloquent things about the nature of rhythm that retain some value; plus M is a good writer. For me it ranks up there with Zuckerkandl and a few others for really getting to the heart of musical rhythm. Volume 2 is a good read and is mostly devoted to M’s accent theory of language. The second half of volume 1 is devoted to neume study and has pretty much all been superseded by subsequent research by Cardine, etc.. It’s still interesting to read from the point of view of those of us working within that Fontgombault performance tradition; I think there’s plenty for a parish musician to chew on. But it’s best consumed in combination with Cardine!

I mean… it’s obvious isn’t it: you don’t expect to hear a note that isn’t even penciled in. They just know to sing it.

Conversely what Saulnier doesn’t mention, but what Anthony Ruff has elsewhere is that Solesmes took the new monastic antiphonal and added the signs of the old, just without a pencil. (Saint-Benoît-du-Lac in Canada did take a pencil.)

Also, Saulnier isn’t talking about melodic “restitution” (of which I’m pretty suspicious not least because the Germans… well how’s that Catholicism thing working out), not in the way that we do today. It’s also not about the ideal and reality of chant as such, it’s about the monastic choir and how this is lived — despite Saulnier probably having more in common academically with restitutionists, they tend to forget about monastic life, never mind parish life, and while the Solesmes congregation has long had a tradition of a schola doing an experimental thing, you can’t change overnight. The proof of this is not removing the signs from reprints.

I’m not exactly saying anything about Solesmes (or Fontgombault). I’m just noting what Saulnier observes and that there’s a recording of it.

But I also don’t think that it’s a normal thing to do; we don’t do it in modern music either. Most don’t! Indeed you even mentioned that you write in the notes — totally unlike Solesmes.

Yeah, but then look at the reality. They aren’t necessarily different types of people — Anthony Ruff once took a crack at the classical Solesmes people like myself because “all of the cathedrals and conservatories” in Europe moved on, to Cardine or beyond. Which may or may not actually be true, but again, how’s that working out?

Once one recognizes that the Solesmes style for all its merits is rife with rhythmical assumption

But all methods are. Dr. Weaver mentions often that academic transcriptions with stemless eighth notes make an assumption despite claims to neutrality.

and that it even contains transcription/interpretation errors as to some of the notes themselves

Mostly but not always inherited from Dom Pothier and the Vatican Edition. Mocquereau to his credit would have used a separate oriscus sign and the bicvirga if not the strophicus; the monastic antiphonal of 1934 used the first two, and so do the Matins offices prepared by Mocquereau. But even Dom David, Pothier’s secretary, fell under this influence. A few weeks ago, at Vespers, we had Serve nequam (one of the very few Magnificat antiphons in mode VI; in fact very few of the commons or propers have antiphons of that mode). The first note of “ne” gets lengthened even in David’s explanation of the Vatican rhythm, not identical to Pothier’s but close enough that David filtered it through his abbot’s teaching.

And even so, I don't agree that in modern ensemble and solo music people don't make minor changes to a composition as they see fit.

Which is not what I said. It’s a completely oral tradition — but even so, people especially today prefer correct scores. I don’t know if that’s a virtue or vice. But if we change a note we had better be transposing the piece… indeed I can’t say that I’ve ever changed just one note in singing or when I was in band. And so to hear this from Solesmes when you know the introit already, when you then see that it’s purely oral… it is indeed remarkable. Even more so when you hear it in the context of a CD where performance practice may or may not reflect what the abbey does on a day to day basis.

Saulnier also also doesn’t mention that a) the Vatican Edition has these unwrittens assumptions, including at a torculus before a bar that may or may not have an episema as well in the Solesmes editions (but all of them are lengthened, which is partially why Cardine disciples including at Solesmes itself sing longer in general) and b) the Solesmes style’s use of things intelligible to musicians or explained in every edition and elsewhere in more or less plain language reduce the places where these assumptions are unwritten and primarily transmitted orally, in instruction or even just by singing.

As to perfect fidelity… I mean, just listen to almost a century’s worth of recordings from Solesmes and its daughter houses. I’m not sure that it passes the sniff test of professional musicians — which is why I have a hard time with the English and Italian style of singing chant as exemplified by Westminster Cathedral.

Well it's not really that.

There's a lot of ground retreaded here…in almost exactly the same way, i.e. "oh, well Solesmes did this, or didn't, but ha, look at those fools who have all of these assumptions which were bad and wrong, founded on impure scholarship and with poor methodology, why would anyone be so silly as to continue to sing that way?'

Maybe that's not what you're saying, but that is indeed what people have more or less said to me, without actually trying to understand that a) everyone makes assumptions, some written, others not b) that Solesmes under Mocquereau tried to take out many of the unwritten assumptions and make them explicit c) that he had a useful rhythmic theory that is no less true, and certainly no more false, than any other attempt to universalize rhythm (I think that it's important for people to realize that his underlying foundation is rhythm, because you can have rhythm without pitch but not vice-versa, which he explicitly says in Le Nombre).

and as to the assumptions of non-Solesmes singers who also don't use the Vatican edition (I include the Praglia religious who use their antiphonal with dots and episemas, but not the written ictus as Solesmes singers) : the really unarguable point, which is why their alleged neutrality on liturgical questions is not neutral, is that they would impose another revolution if they had their way, albeit one with less unity, because there are competing editions of non-Solesmes, non-Vatican chant. We had one in 1908; I'm hard-pressed to say that we should have allowed the early-modern editions to remain in usage, but I understand why the Germanophones had hard feelings. But the Solesmes editions in particular triumphed. That's what chant meant to most people (certainly in the Anglosphere and in the Francophone world), and it's still often the first introduction to chant today.

Vatican II called for a further restoration of the melodies, for which Solesmes was not at all prepared to complete in short order, so no matter the order (1962 or earlier, the 1974 gradual and now the new Solesmes antiphonals, the OCM and OCO from the Vatican…) the easiest way to chant is to pick up the books with the melodies as they existed in the 1960s or with only slight alterations if talking about the new office. Solesmes hasn't even taken out the signs from reprints of the gradual or the Gregorian Missal. They sing with them in mind in the new office. The use of the Triplex isn't universal in their congregation and in France as far as I can tell; whether it will actually remain in the choir of the abbey is not settled. They even altered the Liber Hymnarius to walk back on Cardine's way of singing, but of course, with the removal of rhythmic signs in the most recent edition, they leave no guideposts.

In any event, what happens if we impose another chant revolution? Why is the question more settled once this critical edition is established? Maybe it's true that textual critical editions are settled without much controversy, but I don't see why this critical edition would have rights to be the end-all be-all that would not only bury Mocquereau forever (no matter what one thinks of the fact that his neumatic study has been largely superseded) but would freeze the melodies in amber if yet a third revolution were to be avoided.

he had a useful rhythmic theory that is no less true, and certainly no more false, than any other attempt to universalize rhythm

This is where I must disagree, on the strongest terms. If there is to be a universal rhythmic theory, I'd take Augustine over Mocquereau, any day of the week. I understand the use of the Solesmes method to an extent, in that it's the hand we've been dealt to start off with, but making the claim that Mocquereau's rhythmic theories are just as good as anyone else's is highly objectionable.

I like and generally make use of the binary/ternary framework. I developed something like it independently (of course not nearly to the same level) because I found it frequently made sense of the ordinary and proper material. Chant hymns and even sequences can be a different story. I find some of them distinctly mensural/modally rhythmic or at least lending themselves readily to those interpretations.

This recent response highlights an area of different approach well. I don't see a need to articulate a comprehensive rhythmic theory that subsequently governs interpretation in a systematic way. I am comfortable with some local "anarchy" and experimentation. I like to see people trying things, developing styles, and sharing them, in the context of overall reverence for our sacred music tradition, I think it's indisputably productive actually, and that the last thing we should want is a kind of hyper strict musical imperialism from Solesmes or elsewhere.

I have gotten a reputation of being anti-Mocquereauvian, even staunchly so, despite
--using and teaching the Solesmes method week in and week out and
--possibly being the only choirmaster really doing so in my diocese, which is replete with cantors and scholas who think they're following either the Solesmes method/style or the Vatican edition but who don't, for example, observe the bar lines correctly or consistently, and
--having posted an article in defense of Mocquereau.

In this thread, I see a tension between theory and its application, with some talking past each other. Breaking rhythm down to compound binary and ternary beats is sound enough and can be applied to any and all music, once one grasps that even an anacrusis forms a binary compound beat with the silent ictus before it, or that successive stressed syllables in recitative combine to form synthetic groupings. Here are some of the problems I see:
--the presumption that ternary compound beats exist in chants with a fundamentally binary rhythm, which further assumes that
--it is the short note values that combine to form compound beats rather than the long values
--the anachronistic and incorrect application of characteristics of classical Latin to medieval Latin
--the nuance theory, which has also been retained by the Cardinian semiologists, i.e., the interpretation of long notes as variable agogic nuances rather than doubling of the short note value

Those are the theoretical problems. The practical problems are more pervasive:
--vertical episema ictus marks frequently don't correspond to correct beat placement according to the oldest extant sources
--the principle of placing the ictus at the beginning of a doubled or tripled note also doesn't necessary coincide with beat placement in the oldest manuscripts
--the Mocquereauvian chironomy, while effective at achieving in the desired results with a schola that knows how to count according to the Solesmes method, has no basis in medieval conducting gesture

Now, we could group the long notes into compound binary and ternary beats, but there would be something equally artificial or anachronistic about that.

These critiques notwithstanding, I still find the Solesmes method useful, although I'm not even slightly inclined to read Le Nombre from cover to cover! As I remind my guys from time to time—or sometimes they remind me: It's all made up anyway!

Now, I will admit in full disclosure that I have neither read Le Nombre

At a bare minimum you need to read Dr. Weaver’s dissertation in addition to his Watershed blog posts.

Professor Weaver,

I am skeptical of the idea that Augustine is talking about poetry only. Having read Augustine, it seems to me that he is laying out principles that he understands to apply to music as a whole. I don't remember him ever making any sort of distinction between "now we're talking about music which is written in meter" and "now we're talking about music which is written without meter". If you could clearly demonstrate where in De Musica Augustine makes the distinction, or says that the principles he lays out are not universal, then I would have to amend my claims. But from a simple reading of it, he seems to lay out a universal musical rhythmic theory, which operates on the same principles as poetry, thus allowing him to bring in the poetry as examples to demonstrate what he means. To me Augustine doesn't seem cryptic at all, and he doesn't beat around the bush either. He's very thorough and straightforward.

I say this (only half) jokingly, but are you suggesting that Augustine's six books "on music" are actually just about poetry, and musical rhythm isn't really discussed or explained?

My understanding of the difference between poetry and prose (in light of reading Augustine) is as follows:

Prose is made up of feet of equal time (with consistent time to arsis and thesis) combined together in whatever order one likes. A modern equivalent would be a through-composed choral piece in 4:4. I understand Augustine to give the principle of "equal length feet, with consistent arsis and thesis" as the bare minimum for any sort of "pleasing" music.

Poetry is when rather than being arranged freely, the feet of equal length are combined in set patterns. These patterns (which have there own rules for number of feet and whatnot) then form larger units, which are likewise arranged together. Although not an exact analogy, modern metered hymns are closer to this, in that the text conforms to a certain meter, and the rhythm is repeated over several verses. But Augustine's poetry is a bit different.

Respectfully Professor, I don't want to put my current projects on hold to immediately read your entire dissertation as Matthew recommends, but it has been on my list of "to read eventually" since it was first released. I will also add the first chunk of Le Nombre, as you recommend. Ironically, Augustine's "six books" on rhythm combine to a lower page count than your one dissertation (at least the translation I have).

But I do think requiring a few hundred pages of reading as a pre-requisite to disagree with Dom Mocquereau is a bit harsh. Oh well.

@OMM, you are correct that Augustine is talking about ideas that he believes apply to music, namely that music is made of proportions (both harmonic and rhythmic). When I say that Augustine's books on music are not about musical rhythm as we understand it now, I'm not dismissing him but rather suggesting that his views on rhythm, which we might take to stand in for all classical rhythmic theory, is not adequate to describe the variety of rhythmic experience we find in music now. So I would answer your half-joking question affirmatively: I do not think Augustine really explores musical rhythm as I understand it in his books.

Now, plenty of people have tried to apply classical rhythmics (especially Aristoxenus, more than Augustine) to the music of Beethoven and the like. The high water mark of such things was in the nineteenth century, in fact, in the writings of Rudolf Westphal and François-Auguste Gevaert. I basically think this is a dead-end for teaching rhythm to musicians or people in general who want to study Beethoven's music, but it's interesting to read about. Mocquereau was well versed in this entire discussion of ancient meter in modern music. Briefly, why is Augustine not a good source for theorizing about musical rhythm in Beethoven, etc.? Because musical rhythm as we have it now is deeply enmeshed with things like melody, harmony, phrase rhythm, accent, instrumentation, musical form, conventions of eighteenth-century dance, conventions of common-practice music, etc., which are all things on which Augustine has nothing to say.

Anyway, in the beginning of Book 3, Augustine makes his distinction between number (rhythm not organized into metrical patterns) and meter/verse. He doesn't say a whole lot about number and moves quickly onto the other things. Mocquereau considered Gregorian rhythm to be a matter of "number" in the sense: there is no regularly recurring pattern of feet in the Gregorian propers. To put it more generally, though, the texts of the Gregorian propers are in prose and not verse. The text is not organized into measures at all.

In the context of investing this prose music, which seemed unmeasured and which had long been sung as "plainchant," Mocquereau reached the conclusion (rightly or wrongly) that Gregorian chant must be organized according to some other principle, which he decided was the accent/rhetorical structure of the text, as depicted in the pitch structures of the melodies. He supplies quite a bit of evidence and argumentation for this (historical argumentation, musical examples, treatises of grammarians), which one is free to accept or reject. He's also in line with a longer Solesmes belief in pitch-height (tonic) accent that is still alive today. He took this further than most other writers.

I would not say that you have to have read Mocquereau's book in order to criticize his rhythmic theories of chant; one can make critiques from any number of points of view, and reading Augustine to learn about rhythm is commendable. At any rate, I do hope you read the first chunk of Mocquereau's book in order to learn what he has to say about musical rhythm, quite apart from the performance practice of chant. As I said before, I think it's pretty insightful and is one of the better treatments of the subject from around the turn of the twentieth century.