"Musicologists have proved that the 'ancient chant' promulgated in the nineteenth century by the Benedictines of Solemnes [sic] was, in fact, their own invention rather than a historical reconstruction"

If that were true (it's not) my hat, along with that of every other musicologist in the world, would really be off to them!!!

I am familiar with the comment by Tinctoris, and this is usually interpreted to show the general trend (of those times) to pay more attention to the newest things. However, I am told that the music of Josquin never completely went out of style.

Anytime I read "musicologists have proved" I know I'm about to read something completely false.

Goldman (aka Spengler of the Asia Times Online) has been Associate Editor of First Things for the last six months or so, which puts his name in the second-highest position on the masthead. In just about any other context I would have laughed it off.

(he's a former LaRouchie, BTW -- he describes the LaRouche movement as a cult and has been out of it for over 20 years: http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2009/05/confessions-of-a-coward)

Well, if one were to to adhere to the idea put forth about the reference meaning the interpretation, especially in regards to the rhythm, I don't see how this can be disproved, given the ongoing debate about Solesmes not being the "final" word on chant. Of course he cannot mean from the "ground up" when he says "invention." It is really hard to know what any "centuries old" music sounded like. If Solesmes is an "invention" it can also be that it is a plausible interpretation. This is a layman's opinion based solely on experience of general music practice, not a true depth of scholarship, but can one but wonder how these pieces were performed so many centuries ago? Same for Milan and Augustus.

The author appears to have misunderstood the nature of musicology, set up an Aunt Sally and ignored the notion of development-in-continuity. Musicology isn't a science, so it rarely 'proves' anything - it's more a matter of informed interpretation. Interpretation has moved on with improved evidence and analysis and will doubtless continue to do so: perhaps one day we will even discover something of the music that so moved Augustine in Milan, over and above the generalised inference that is all we have now. None of this, however, invalidates Solesmes' gift to the Church - a version of chant rhythm that supports beauty and contemplation, sits well with liturgical texts, travels easily and is recognisably in descent from ancient practice, even if we're unsure as to the detail of that practice. In this respect, it's not dissimilar to the Western Rite itself, which has developed from elements whose complete detail is lost in the mists of time, to reflect the insights and needs of later generations.

But what is his goal? to enlighten his First Things readers? or to prejudice them against any attempt to include chant in modern worship?

I doubt the latter -- Goldman himself is an observant Jew and, oddly, he rounds off the article with a final paragraph to the effect that "anyway everything I've just said cannot be applied to Jewish worship, which is only at home with melismatic chant". That's the first serious mention of liturgical chant in the article, and pretty much the last sentence.

The article's thesis is hard to discern, but it seems to involve the premise that Western sacred music is "sacred" by virtue of intrinsic tonal and rhythmic properties, without significant reference to any liturgical purpose it may or may not have. That throwaway line about Solesmes may just be a rhetorical device designed to prepare the reader for this premise.

I'm inclined to suspect that, as opposed to having an axe to grind against Catholic chant, Goldman just isn't very familiar with it. And, not being Catholic, he's not likely to be conversant with the practical implications of the claim that chant was "invented" at Solesmes.

I only wish someone had caught the line and cut or reworked it before the issue went to press. But then, that sort of thing is Goldman's job.

I have a thirteenth century recording of the Benedictines singing chant on a clay chironomograph with a quill stylus if anyone is interested to hear it.

To second Ben's comment, there is evidence from another artistic tradition of 'material' being handed down for centuries. In Homer there is a similar phenomenon: scholars generally place the composition of the Iliad and the Odyssey to the time period 800 - 600 BC, because of references to objects which we know did not exist until then (it's a hideously complicated subject). However, the poems also refer to objects, techniques, and peoples who only existed before the Greek Dark Ages, which lasted from about 1200-800 BC. So Homer is singing of things he never saw or knew.

The question as to how this is possible in poems that are tens of thousands of lines long was given a surprisingly modern answer in the 1930's by the American scholars Milman Perry and Alfred Lord, who travelled to Yugoslavia to study the bards who sang similar songs of thousands of lines. Oral tradition is now a commonly accepted theory of how songs (or poems) can be handed down for centuries with little change.

Daniel Goldman is very perceptive on international relations, etc.. And while I haven't read the referenced article, it proves to me that I shouldn't write about world affairs.

On the subject of Carthusian chant, readers might enjoy the passages on the subject in An Infinity of Little Hours , where one postulant thought that the monks were performing some subtle form of ancient harmonization and it turned out that they were simply massively out of tune.

Digging the hole deeper, with relish, apparently.

I've read Decadent Enchantments. It is a wonderful book, not a chronicle of a masquerade. In no way does it suggest that what Solesmes attempted what somehow a fake. It was a human effort with all attendant imperfections, no doubt, but a remarkable achievement, especially as compared with the post-Trent editions that came before. That book dramatically heightened my own respect and awe for the work of that generation. I highly recommend it to anyone.

Oh my. Not every post needs a response I suppose.

Ok, I'm in. It is a huge mistake to set Renaissance or classical music as against chant. Chant persists through history and it exists alongside other developments. This is what makes the chant distinct.

rich-enough,

That's just my point. The academics have shown that the Middle Ages had a multiplicity of chants, and in many cases we do not know quite how they sounded. It is perfectly fine for the Church to decide upon a unified approach, Solesmes' or another one, for its liturgical purpose. I did not invent the opposition of chant to the classical style: the Church did that at the turn of the 19th century. That's why most American Catholics have never heard a Mozart mass accompanying the liturgy (that tradition persisted only in southern Germany). I agree that there is no reason for such an opposition. They have different roles in liturgy (we Jews are very dependent on our chant, which of course is different from Gregorian chant). That is also the pope's view. My object was not to emphasize this opposition, but to show (with Augustine's help) how it is that goal-oriented tonal counterpoint uniquely is capable of evoking the sacred within its own terms, independently of the liturgy. A Bach chorale setting does this even if one doesn't know the words to the hymn.

One might even say that Solesmes discovered this truth and documented it most completely -- certainly more so than anyone else in history.

My 2cents:

First, I will clarify that I am not a historian, but mainly a composer/organist and director of sacred music strictly within the RC tradition. So I speak as one who has organically assumed the position of passing on the tradition of sacred music within the walls of the church since I was first included in the liturgical rites and devotions very early in my childhood taking part in choirs, playing the organ, as an altar boy, learning the prayers, etc. I grew up within the era and watched the 'synthetic' insertion of music which is most definitely foreign to the RC liturgy (folk, rock, performance). It has become clearer and clearer to me as time has progressed through these tumultuous times that there is one holy sacred music that is truly pure and conforms to the RC Rite, and that is the Gregorian Chant and polyphony as a close second.

Further, from the perspective of a composer and 'performer' of sacred music I would say this: Music is organic.

Manuscripts are an 'attempt' to document and perpetuate the intentions of the composers AND performers of a particular 'period in time'. Oral tradition counts as the other half, and sometimes counts as an even greater testimony to the transmission of that reality. GC is the patrimony of Sacred Music in the Roman Catholic Tradition. It is what has grown naturally within the walls of the church itself and over time was recognized as such by the church through its prelates and confirmed over and over again. I would also add that it has grown side by side with the organic development of the Rite itself (TLM). In my thinking, the two are inseperable. The Solesmes 'live and breathe this stuff'. In my mind, they are the "authority" on sacred music that God (more specifically through His Third Person, the Holy Spirit) promoted during the last 100 years or so. Will they continue to carry the baton for the next 100 years? No one knows, and time will only tell.

I would assert that no period in the history of chant 'crystallizes' its 'perfected state'. Each period represents a "historical incident" of its development as it continues to grow and is actualized in a particular period of time from age to age. Even our own historical accounts of what has gone on before must be taken with a grain of salt because we do not have an actual 'recording' of a chant performace (except my recent discovery of the chironomograph). The Solesmes are another (significant) link in the transmission of that which is THE AUTHENITICALLY RECOGNIZED sacred music in the Roman Catholic tradition. Schools will come and go, but the chant will remain just as the liturgy, and just as the church. It is the most natural form of music, most human, more pure in the act of worship. It requires nothing outside of itself. The person and God. It is music stripped to the bare minimum. (e.g., a newborn baby 'sings' a chant when he emerges from the womb.)

Academia (at least since I have been involved with it in my own lifetime) has become so obsessed with (pure to the era) capturing the 'right' or 'authentic' performance of eras gone by (and this is true for many of them (purists): chant, rennaisance, baroque, classical, etc.), that it has become preocuppied (and in some ways) distracted from the heart and spirit of the very practice itself in the act of dissecting. It tends to put itself 'above' in its intellectual pursuit in such a way that it proclaims itself the authority and the judge of what was and what should be now and continue into the future. I think that is a dangerous (and foolish) position to assume on its own.

And for Mr. Goldman: My take on the classical styles (religious music, but not necessarily sacred) : it is 'just outside' of what would be considered truly liturgical music. I compose some of this music myself. And even though I am a dyed in the wool Catholic, I would be the first to tell you that it would be 'too much' for a Roman Catholic liturgy. Is there an absolute clear line of delineation? Not this side of heaven as you can see by the confusion about what belongs and what doesn't, but I prefer to lean toward what is absolutely clear.

and it is hard to imagine the American Church acquiring the resources to provide the sort of Church orchestral music that is common in Benedict's part of Germany.

I would further offer you some of my scores e.g., [http://www.romancatholicsacredmusic.com/seehear/sanctusFugueEmin/] as a Catholic American (however not a Heretical Catholic American (see here: http://www.ewtn.com/library/ISSUES/AMERICAN.TXT) attempt at doing something in the German tradition. [NOTE: This is one of ten movements of one of my works which Maestro Rosenbaum has offered to perform in Carnegie Hall with the Brooklyn Phil... would you be interested to help me fund the event?]. The church calls it religious music. It has a proper place in the upbuilding and edification of the church however, outside the liturgy. It embodies a height of intellect that can be (and should be) all enveloping. For instance, almost every week I play a chorale prelude (Bach, Buxtehude, etc.) before the liturgy and once in a while during communion. In these types of musics, I feel that the 'emphasis of focus' gravitates toward the music itself, and away from the liturgical action. It creates a kind of "rapturous ecstacy" (a trance or trance-like state in which an individual transcends normal consciousness.) in the beauty of the music itself. These are fine subtleties that I find very few musicians comprehend, utilize to the proper advantage, and do not exist on the same level as liturgical worship, codified in the terms latria, dulia and hyperdulia. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latria) It is on this one point, alone, I feel confusion reigns when it comes to appropriate music for the Holy Sacrifice. We have far too many "performers" of religious music (and that would include Mozart all the way down to the SLJ) than truly sacred music which only comes from the heart that 'worships in spirit and in truth'. That, my friends, IMHO will only ever be found in the chant.

In the past three years (came into the Church in 2007), every time that I have heard renaissance (palestrina, byrd, victoria, etc) , baroque (bach, charpentier, etc) or classical (haydn, mozart, etc at a Mass (in San Francisco, Winston Salem, Knoxville, Washington DC, & Sacramento) it has ALWAYS been accompanied by gregorian chant. My experience is limited for sure; however, whatever the situation in other places and times, here and now in the USA it seems that chant provides the basso continuo for classical music in general, in a manner of speaking.

the inventor of the idea that all chant can be analytically understood in mico-units of 2s and 3s - a very compelling and helpful and even brilliant idea, an idea you can contemplate even if you don't use the ictus.

I've read the essay a couple of times now and by "why uniquely" I meant to ask: Why do you think that only music composed since the Renaissance has the property of goal-oriented tonality? Everything I know about chant and tonality suggests that goal-oriented tonality was first established, in the Western musical literature that's available to us, in chant -- and then taken up with more complexity in the Renaissance and beyond. Or do you think that music can only have this property if it is polyphonic?

The schola I sang with used the Solesmes method, but surely the musical essentials are still discernible underneath the 2s and 3s and particular interpretation of neumes. Whereas the article in First Things seemed to say: (a) the Solesmes revival was a bit of a sham; therefore (b) we can't say anything useful about chant because it was lost in the Middle Ages. Even if the first statement is true the second doesn't follow.

tdunbar's comment is also illuminating because it suggests that where Western sacred music is approached seriously, one will hear all three strains in real live liturgical settings: chant, Renaissance, and classical. There's no rigorous argument to be made here but this experience is evocative and is just what one would expect to find if chant is objectively the foundation for the other two strains.

And wouldn't the composers of the early Renaissance have been in direct continuity with medieval chant? Or is it to be supposed that they composed entirely afresh, drawing solely on Antiquity for their musical ideas?

Just FYI (to anyone who is just coming into this forum) anyone who thinks Solesmes invented their published chant melodies needs to spend some time reading Finn Hansen's transcription of Montpellier H. 159 (the so-called "Faculty of Medicine" MSS).

If you do this, you will see that Solesmes is about 1,000 years too late to make up those melodies.

I plan to read the essay, but cant help wondering,
why tonal counterpoint, as opposed to modal?
It's been too long, perhaps, but I seem to recall in 'Gradus ad Parnassus' that composers until Beethoven studied modal counterpoint, and that Palestrina (on whose work the Fux text is based) composed within that framework.

The statement about Solesmes doesn't totally shock me, I've heard it before. And, like Richard R., I'm still waiting for musicologists to say something about who gets it right. I hope critics of Solesmes can be grateful for the massive amounts of work- pioneer musicologocal work, at that- provided by the monks of Solesmes.

Of course Solesmnes did not create its version of chant ex nihilo. Out of a large number of quite different (and difficut to interpret) styles of chant, they synthesized what they thought must be an ur-chant of which the actual material supposedly were later variations. The method was similar to what philologists used to reconstruct the (conjectural) primary Indo-European language. What Solesmnes disseminated is derived in some fashion from actual chant, or at least a reasonable guess as to how that chant sounded. That much I learned from Leo Treitler at City University Graduate Center in the 1980s, before Bergeron's excellent book appeared.

Patrick Joseph, "false" is possible (although highly improbable given the mass of evidence), but not calumnious, as my view is the consensus among musicologists (there always will be dissenters). That is an inflammatory word and ill becomes you or this discussion.

MA, tonal as opposed to modal because tonality provides for harmonic as well as linear goals, so that goal-oriented motion can be prolonged over far longer time spans. Modal music (except for pseudo-modal usages, e.g. "Phrygian" in the very tonal Brahms 4th or the Heiliger Dankgesang of the Beethoven Op. 132) almost always is found in short forms. Tonality as practiced by Bach and after actually subsumes the modes. The Gradus is an abstract exercise rather than actual music.

Hi, Adam.

The adiastematic ("in campo aperto") MSS contain some markings that pertain to rhythm & dynamics, but (sadly) a lot of it is contradictory and inconsistent. Adiastematic notation doesn't give us any clues in regard to what notes (tones) they were singing.

What I was addressing was the notion (put forth above) that Solesmes editions were "their own invention rather than a historical reconstruction."

I find it hard to believe the author only had rhythmic theories in mind. Indeed, if this were the case, there would be nothing novel about the article. Mocquereau himself (much to the dismay of his critics) never claimed that he was reconstructing the exact rhythm of particular monasteries in the middle ages. Why publish an article stating what folks have known for 100 years?

paul,

Solesmes was a "re-foundation" -- Prosper Gueranger, the founding abbot, was not originally a monk or even a religious, but a secular priest who received permission to found a Benedictine community in the abandoned monastery that is now the abbey of Saint-Pierre de Solesmes. There's no question of his particular community preserving anything for centuries because his particular community didn't exist before the early 1800s -- and since there's no such thing as a unified "Benedictine Order", one can only speak of Benedictine monks in terms of particular communities.

At any rate the accusation of Romanticism finds fertile ground in the historical account of the re-founding of Solesmes, although I suspect the reality is a bit more complex than "starry-eyed idealists re-create faux Middle Ages".

On the other hand there are particular monastic communities and liturgical traditions that have existed in uninterrupted continuity since the Middle Ages -- the Carthusians and Dominicans, with their respective rites, come first to mind. These existed long before Solesmes and continue to exist today. I'm interested to learn more about how their chant books and traditions fit into the "man behind the curtain" theory.

Re Dominican Liturgy, see: http://dominican-liturgy.blogspot.com/ where Fr Augustine Thompson and others have posted a wealth of material.