For those of us blessed to sing the propers, particularly all five of them (irrespective of the missal used), on every Sunday, HDO, and day assimilated to these, you start to pick up on nuance in your own habit and from your teachers (whether in real life or where you’ve heard chant sung, live or recorded). And you may wonder at a certain point (or not) how to add nuance, how to take your musical intuition and pair it better with the text.

Inspired by many conversations with @Charles_Weaver and now the Vatican once again showing its resident semiologist at work, I took the Requiem propers and added an episema where Fontgombault adds length on its CD for the Roman rite (I think that you can legitimately say that any time the first note of a compound neume is louder than the preceding and following puncta, then it is longer…but I went only for decisively longer, at least according to what I think that I heard). I did not add tempo markings to this score, although my own fully marked-up scores on paper have indications of slowing down or speeding up, and we pretty much always speed up significantly at the verse of a gradual for example as it is.

As to the accuracy: what is apparently a scandicus subbipunctis (respupinus) is always lengthened at the top note; this is the neume that received such a treatment in the Requiem introit published in the booklet for the pope’s funeral.

I can’t say that I recommend looking for this nuance for week in, week out singing. It takes too much work, and when you have the right group of singers, you can still be on two planes: people who are really capable singers and interested in theory of chant, and then people who are in need of more help with fundamentals. It is also quite dangerous to do this with a chant that you have internalized. However, by the same token, the Requiem propers, which you will sing often enough (I hope, but also don’t, because, well, singing a lot of funerals is a lot of work and sad) may be the ones with which to do it. And they’re the propers that you may sing on your own or in a small, capable group.

I took the ICRSP score as you can see and did the work with my tablet. I would recommend the stylus (pencil, I guess, these days) that is compatible with your device to do so. It’s easier than with a finger. You can also add notes via a text box.

And yes, I am lucky that this is the least of my worries and that I have time to think about such details. It’s also obviously something that really works if you’re using the classical Solesmes method and are also into what the monks do. If you lean towards other rhythmic schools or other semiological interpretations that aren’t really what Dom Cardine laid out, then this is maybe an idea of what you can do but won’t be something to just copy directly. And you say, well, why not use either Cardine more directly or the Graduale Novum? Because the Solesmes method is beautiful and works with a schola, even if it’s not what academics want us to teach. (And melodic restoration is a bit more contentious and difficult…)