Speeding up the salve Regina
  • amindthatsuits
    Posts: 886
    This came up on another list, and I don’t have an answer for it. We now returned back to the salve regina


    Some directors like to speed up the phrase after Iesum.

    Is there a reason for this I mean a more generally recognized one than just the personal preferences of the director question. In practice, I just do whatever the Director tells me. This is more just out of interest.
    My iPhone seems to be fighting me so please excuse any typos. In practice, I

    Kenneth
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,888
    I want to go home and the chant needs to end.
    Thanked by 3Abbysmum tomjaw davido
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,309
    One guess: perhaps it depends on how they are conceiving the line: if there is just a smidge of space between "tui" and "nobis" rather than a full lift/breath, then it's quite a long line and they may (consciously or subconsciously) want to keep the energy flowing (and also to keep pitches from sagging). I would, however, find it most un-tender to follow that with rushing the Os that follow thereafter - to my spirit and ear one of the loveliest set pieces of well loved chants.
  • FSSPmusic
    Posts: 377
    I'm not sure if you're referring to this Facebook discussion from last month or not, but there was no consensus regarding the rushing of that phrase, which seems to have become prevalent over the last 20 years. Here's an example:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-Rfd0P9CnE&t=37s

    The rushing is not to be heard in the recordings from Solesmes:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2eogtzV0MI
    or Fontgombault:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9cP_xinc18
    or this recording of Pope St. John Paul II:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9MBRn9drvc

    The first Facebook comment echoed what Liam says here. Others mentioned the legitimacy of various interpretations of the same chant (which wasn't the point), the rhythm of the Latin text, and imitation of what is heard elsewhere. This last seems to be the most plausible explanation. My other theory is that the people do it because the text itself is more familiar, echoing part of the Ave Maria (but different case endings). One of my choir members said that ICK canons actually teach the rushing through that phrase. To reiterate what I said elsewhere, I am bewildered and see no good interpretive reason why it would be desirable to speed up at what is arguably the textual climax of the prayer, in a phrase that is full of ictic word finals and mostly thetic, making it the fastest part of the whole chant. I don't know why people think it sounds good.

    I don't remember the rushing here at my parish before COVID, but at a time when there was no congregational singing, we got a huge influx of new people with different ideas, who weren't familiar with what had been customary here. A choir director friend across the country noticed the same tendency with newcomers to her parish in the same timeframe.
    Thanked by 3tomjaw Liam Chant_Supremacist
  • SponsaChristi
    Posts: 518
    That’s how the priests we’ve had from the FSSP sing it during Benediction and at the end of Baptisms,we we followed suit.

    Too many people drag out chant.
  • monasteryliturgistmonasteryliturgist
    Posts: 420
    I would say its usually to prevent breaking phrases. Not meant to rush but more "keep going" type of directing
    Thanked by 1davido
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,888
    Yes more seriously I agree with the point that it is thetic but to me the problem is the learning by memory when the person doing the teaching and leading the singing assembles chants as a series of notes on a a diatonic scale and nothing more is a problem (especially but not only in the Steubenville sphere). So it drags or otherwise is just off, and yet you still get points where people rush.

    Anyway I’m trying to do my part to get more musicians formally trained…
    Thanked by 1monasteryliturgist
  • monasteryliturgistmonasteryliturgist
    Posts: 420
    The problem with the Salve, is the memorization of it- and often an incorrect memorization which leads to skipping or slurring notes, notably on the "O" of O Dulcis and the Maria of "Virgo Maria" at the end, but also in other areas. Its become a very popularized hymn, which is not a bad thing, but much is lost by this type of chanting
    Thanked by 1MatthewRoth
  • AnimaVocis
    Posts: 179
    Easy fix - learn the Solemn (or Monastic) tone!
    Thanked by 3monasteryliturgist Roborgelmeister veromary
  • Chant_Supremacist
    Posts: 158
    Could anyone post a recording of what this 'sped up after Iesum' style typically sounds like? I'm having trouble imagining anything that doesn't sound ridiculous.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,309
    FSSP Music provided an example:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-Rfd0P9CnE&t=37s
    Thanked by 2Chant_Supremacist CHGiffen
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,888
    @FSSPmusic the FB link does not actually go to the discussion.

    I don’t think Clear Creek changes tempo either.
  • FSSPmusic
    Posts: 377
    the FB link does not actually go to the discussion.
    Sorry, try this one:
    https://www.facebook.com/groups/1234348417239641/posts/1594348357906310
    If it won't open in the mobile app, try the website instead.
    Thanked by 1MatthewRoth
  • amindthatsuits
    Posts: 886
    Oh my, leave you all alone with a simple question and I come back to a book to read not the first time


    I’m not gonna make a recording, but simply say as fast as you can benedictum dry rum ventris tui. And then slow way down when you get to Nobis

    Sifting all through all this quickly, I think it comes down to some people do it, and other people don’t. I think the suggestion that it’s probably subconscious makes sense.

    Although I did have choir director who seemed to be excited about the prospect of seeing Jesus. “ the Mother always points to her Son .”

    The other suggestion, that it has to do with breathing, probably is also part of it. in any case. It doesn’t sound like it’s something which can easily be figured out or is going to change anytime soon. Thanks to all,kenneth

    I only was reminded to ask because we sang it at the national shrine yesterday, and it should not surprise anybody who’s familiar with the administration there, that we sang at the same rhythm throughout. anything “spritely. “Would probably not make it past inspection.


  • amindthatsuits
    Posts: 886
    I should add they did the Sheppard Liabera nos 1 and it certainly allowed Dr Latona to show off his skill. It was was beautiful.
  • amindthatsuits
    Posts: 886
    Because my iPhone keyboard fights me, I dictate. I
    Assure you that I do not normally type “gonna
    Thanked by 1ServiamScores
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,888
    A couple of thoughts now that I saw that post in full: There was one commenter there @FSSPmusic who only beats the anti-Solesmes drum but I can safely assure him that people are not exactly singing Solesmes style even if they might be unknowingly influenced by it.

    Another commenter writes:

    I think longer phrases can benefit from some direction. Most chanting that I hear is very rigid with very few nuances or any efforts made to sing the texts in the natural rhythm of the spoken texts. Some directors state "In Gregorian Chant, every note is equal in rhythm" and this leads to some very tiresome singing. I'm sure that poor chanting, along with mediocre organ repertoire and playing, may have fed the misguided revolt against traditional music in the Catholic Mass back when Vatican II was being pasted together.


    Of course, and I think that directors should get some training in chant, whether that be Laus in Ecclesia (and I think that we can acknowledge that if you do go the Solesmes route, this is the standard nowadays), the Colloquium, graduate courses through the CISM in California… It’s professional malpractice to just wing it. But he’s also misstating the Solesmes position, because, well, the method doesn’t work without every note being equal as a point of departure — and I think that even Dom Gajard understood this problem. The 1930 recording is about as slow and even as I can take it without things falling apart (the center does not hold…). After World War II, he had far more confidence in recording and in the monastic choir; there’s a lot of nuance and it approaches what I think is the gold standard example of the Solesmes method in recorded format (1970s Fontgombault does too, and in a different way the Triors Sunday recordings — which are nevertheless very different in feel!). I think that I’ve shared this article in French before, about the history of recordings at Solesmes. (What I need though is an accurate list of their CDs; the abbey and Decca have not made it easy to find the OG versions of each album and of each track, in French…)
    Thanked by 1FSSPmusic
  • amindthatsuits
    Posts: 886
    Well, I certainly gave everybody a chance to stretch their stuff. However, it does strike me that as someone pointed out by an and large is something that we sing from memory and the memory just becomes what it is. It could stand good direction and I’m sure on many Sundays in many parishes, it gets that. . To be honest, at the shrine, with its massive organs, going full blast for reasons I’m not sure I understand. This phrase did seem to drag a little and a little sprightliness would’ve helped it. I wrote them at one point and said that the beauty at Parish masses that end with this chant is that it rises up out of the faithful. with three or 4000 people doing i I’m sure the effect would be stunning. However, they still use the big huge organs. They did not listen to me. Imagine.
    Thanked by 1Liam
  • VoceUmana
    Posts: 4
    Ted Marier used to tell a funny story about that. He was at a French monastery working with the monks in their chant. The Abbott had asked him to fix this very spot in the Salve Regina. After some discussion with the community about it and work in the singing of it, the problem seemed solved. The next day they sang as they always had, rushing through "benedictus fructus ventris tui..." He then said that it was very difficult for an outsider to have an effect on a monastery's singing, that the work had to be done by the community's choirmaster.
    Thanked by 3FSSPmusic MatthewRoth tomjaw
  • monasteryliturgistmonasteryliturgist
    Posts: 420
    Easier said than done, sometimes an outsider is actually better in certain occasions. When its one of your own brethren, religious are often to take your counsel as "optional". When an outsider instructs, it might take time for it to set in, but it is more effective. Ive had experience with both situations in my monastery. What is the most helpful is if the outsider comes in, says all the same things that the choir director has been saying but in a new way, they leave, and then its reinforced "remember what so and so taught us..."
    Thanked by 4FSSPmusic CHGiffen MatthewRoth tomjaw
  • FSSPmusic
    Posts: 377
    What is the most helpful is if the outsider comes in, says all the same things that the choir director has been saying but in a new way
    With regard to correcting faults in the choir, a former director of mine told me something along these lines: "There are only so many things you can say, but there's an unlimited number of ways to say them." Sometimes it's helpful for the choir to hear the same thing said in someone else's vocabulary.
    Thanked by 5monasteryliturgist CHGiffen MatthewRoth tomjaw Bri
  • monasteryliturgistmonasteryliturgist
    Posts: 420
    @FSSPmusic I completely agree.
    Thanked by 2FSSPmusic tomjaw
  • amindthatsuits
    Posts: 886
    I think this coda is all true. Reinforcement and tact.

    Kenneth
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 3,044
    I really think that people are overthinking this. To put it bluntly: so many people rush there because it feels natural to do so. The combination of text and melody just seem to foster that interpretation. The fact that so many communities unwittingly develop this habit clearly demonstrates a certain unconscious bias towards this interpretation, as these sorts of subtleties are not taught to congregations writ large. Scholas yes, congregations no.
    Thanked by 1irishtenor
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,888
    I don’t trust musical instincts of congregations though. Maybe I should be more generous and forgiving but I’m increasingly aware of people who basically help rapidly transform practice and it’s not good.
  • FSSPmusic
    Posts: 377
    so many people rush there because it feels natural to do so. The combination of text and melody just seem to foster that interpretation.
    But I think those of us who don't feel that it's natural or intuitive to rush there are the ones questioning the interpretation. As a musician, I recognize that the phrase in question isn't recitative and I desire evenness in the singing, irrespective of syllabic stress and ictus placement—and those are all the more reason not to speed up.
    Thanked by 4Liam monasteryliturgist CHGiffen MatthewRoth
  • monasteryliturgistmonasteryliturgist
    Posts: 420
    And most of the reason why the speeding happens in monasteries, is because they are things they learned outside of the monastery and brought into it. I like to call it "parish influence in the choir". For example, in the Pater Noster, the same thing tends to happen with "quotidianum hodie" and "tentationem" it becomes horrible to a latinist ear.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • FSSPmusic
    Posts: 377
    Then there is the bad habit, even in the Vatican, of adveniat as three syllables instead of the notated four.
    Thanked by 5CHGiffen monasteryliturgist tomjaw MatthewRoth ServiamScores
  • monasteryliturgistmonasteryliturgist
    Posts: 420
    exactly what im speaking about "ten-ta-tion-em", "quo-ti-dian-um" etc.
    Thanked by 3CHGiffen tomjaw ServiamScores
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,888
    I’ve heard that Benedictine novices don’t sing for at least a year in some communities, and I know that at Clear Creek, they all do the Laus in Ecclesia book, the first level, right away.

    Oddly, I’ve never heard that from Francophones at least in a trad context, although maybe I’m not paying enough attention, because i + vowel is a semivowel: Not /pi.o/ but /pjo/ for _Pio_. I don’t know enough about Italian phonology to say whether they are the ones responsible for the above mistake or if it’s normie French pilgrims.
    Thanked by 1monasteryliturgist
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 3,044
    There are some battles worth fighting, and others are less so. As long as the rushing isn’t egregious, it might be worth abiding. I’ve given up on the last “hosannaaaaa in excelsis” whenever we do the simple tone of the Sanctus. Everyone always wants to hold the final “na”, and I’ve heard it at probably 10 different parishes in three dioceses now. So I’ve given up. Whenever I try to push through with the organ accompaniment, all I accomplish is momentarily getting everyone out of sync, and so, alas, this is simply the way we sing it, for better or worse. It’s a small price to pay, in the grand scheme of things, to be singing chant without complaint.
    Thanked by 2irishtenor veromary
  • FSSPmusic
    Posts: 377
    I’ve given up on the last “hosannaaaaa in excelsis” whenever we do the simple tone of the Sanctus. Everyone always wants to hold the final “na”, and I’ve heard it at probably 10 different parishes in three dioceses now.
    Unfortunately for us, who would prefer to sing as printed, Solesmes recorded it the other way more than once:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NN8gQ28biM&t=1213s
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsWKoNNYVdA&t=341s
    Thanked by 4tomjaw ServiamScores MatthewRoth monasteryliturgist
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,309
    It's probably an unconscious or semi-conscious imitation of the final syllable of "benedictus".
    Thanked by 2ServiamScores CHGiffen
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 3,044
    That’s my suspicion too, Liam.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,520
    It's the LMNOP of the chant world.

    I hear a similar but less drastic acceleration in the Pater Noster, starting at et dimitte nobis.
    Thanked by 3Liam FSSPmusic ServiamScores
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,888
    Patrick’s point reminds me. I have given up with the Agnus Dei for the Requiem Mass; we hold the punctum of the final “em” because otherwise it becomes a battle. I added this to the ICRSP score via my iPad (I accept PayPayl/Venmo contributions for an Apple Pencil Pro which would make life much easier! DM for details, just kidding, maybe). And now that’s what we’ll use for the Requiem! I don’t love singing from a binder, but making consistent adjustments to everyone’s books wasn’t going to happen.
  • FSSPmusic
    Posts: 377
    If you go back to the Solesmes and Fontgombault Salve recordings, there are quite a few notes held that aren't marked, e.g., illos tuos.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2eogtzV0MI
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9cP_xinc18

    But actual Solesmes was always a little different than textbook Solesmes anyway.
    Thanked by 1MatthewRoth
  • monasteryliturgistmonasteryliturgist
    Posts: 420
    Im so glad Im not the only one who gets their blood boiled over this... ha I think my purgatory would be having to listen to a choir sing the Sanctus de Angelis holding out the hosanna-A without a punctum...

    In the end these are things which God uses to purify us. And we have to remember not to throw the baby out with the bath water....
    Thanked by 1ServiamScores
  • monasteryliturgistmonasteryliturgist
    Posts: 420
    @FSSPmusic does Solesmes have something like a triplex for the Salve, because perhaps there is semiology that we dont know about which would indicate this interpretation?
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,888
    Well the simple Salve is kind of just its own thing because it’s not that ancient

    But yeah, they do have their own annotations in the Solesmes family — although I’m told that they sometimes sing things in a chant where there is no note but it’s consistent with how they sing the same neume elsewhere where they do mark it.
    Thanked by 3tomjaw monasteryliturgist ServiamScores
  • FSSPmusic
    Posts: 377
    This is probably the oldest version of the simple tone Salve, from the 17th century:
    https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k11663659/f193.item
    Thanked by 4Liam monasteryliturgist CHGiffen Roborgelmeister
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,309
    That would be great for someone to put in (modern standard) neume notation and source for future online reference.
  • monasteryliturgistmonasteryliturgist
    Posts: 420
    thats very interesting.
  • Felicia
    Posts: 133
    Very interesting, indeed. I suppose the different note shapes would indicate different note values, that is, the squares being half notes, and the diamonds quarter notes. At least a similar kind of notation was used in Spain at that time, except that it was written on a five-line staff. I'm not as familiar with the French practice, and would love to learn more about it.
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,560
    Later Oratorian editions make clear(er) that the notation is an approximate guide to chant as sung speech, and is understood to be nuanced. There was a discussion on the forum before, mid-summer 2020.
    [EDIT] FWIW my attempt to use 21st century gabc to give a 19th/20th century interpretation of 8th/9th century practice to something written in the 16th/17th century. https://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/uploads/FileUpload/8f/d4c97e50fc27be2d05728b2b01580c.pdf
    Thanked by 2FSSPmusic CHGiffen
Add a Comment