Dear Fr. Smith,

I think that I can speak on the behalf of many here that this topic indeed "sends chills down the spine"--it can definitely make one shudder! This is not necessarily for the reason that you felt the chills down the spine--in fact, I am a supporter and practitioner of the "new" Solesmes thinking--but the reason why many here avoid this conversation, I think, is because it can be extremely polarizing, fiery and divisive. Just search for the term "semiology" above and you can get a taste of this!

In many ways it has a long history, much of which I can't say that I can fully understand, being a relatively young music director and sacred music devotee. And the more I read about it and discuss it with others the more I begin to think that there have been real distortions and misunderstandings of what the two "sides" really are. For example, I shudder at the sound of many recent recordings that claim to follow the "recent research." The reason for this is because I believe that much of what is being brought forward as "the fruit of the recent research" is a wild exaggeration of what really is supposed to be a microcosmic nuance in the rendering of the chant.

In personal correspondence with Dom Daniel Saulnier, the current head chant researcher at Solesmes (and successor of Dom Mocquereau, the founder of the "Old Solesmes Method") he has said that the most important thing that semiology has revealed is that chant is essentially the "musical declamation of a text". This is often called "sung speech". Semiology (the study of the signs--meaning the non-pitched old notations of the 10th and 11th centuries which aided the aural memory of the singer of the time) has revealed the primacy of the text in the singing of chant. This contrasts from the "Old Solesmes" method, which looks at the melody, irrespective of the text, as the primary means of analyzing a Gregorian chant. The text is surely taken into account, but, as I understand it, the placement of the ictus, the rhythmic signs, etc., are based on melodic considerations apart from the text. Saulnier and "New Solesmes" is advocating for a shift in thinking in the foundation upon which chant is sung. It is not an "equal pulse" as Mocquereau prescribes, but it is a natural "declamation of a text" which is considered above all else. Semiology gives the information that is needed to determine which notes in larger neumes are "structural" and which are merely "ornament". Much of the rest of the information in Semiology is, according to Saulnier and other leading chant scholars, nothing but "microscopic nuance", much of which is perhaps even beyond the grasp of amateur singers!

I, along with many in the "New Solesmes" school are equally scandalized by many of the awful and grossly exaggerated chant interpretations out there today! What I would hate is for people to think that experiences like the one that you had are representative of "New Solesmes". They're not! Please take a listen to some of the newer Solesmes recordings. They incorporate this different "foundation" to the singing of the chant, and are shifting slowly, it seems, from their traditional practice toward incorporating much of the more recent understanding. These recordings will be more consonant with what you are familiar with, and I hope that you would welcome such singing into your parish!

this new method being more historically accurate according to the recent scholarship.

I agree with much of what Adam has said (above), and especially that this can be a polarizing subject, but I would merely point out that (as a matter of history) the so-called "sung speech" method is not new.

However, as long as one realizes clearly what is fact and what is mere guesswork, I don't see that any harm can come.

It is not an "equal pulse" as Mocquereau prescribes, but it is a natural "declamation of a text" which is considered above all else.

I still desire to know how this applies to a chant (let's take an individual word, for instance) that has sixty notes on an unaccented syllable and but one note on the tonic accent.

Jeff--

Hello, friend.

Firstly, I will answer your question if you first show me a sixty note melisma. Exaggerations are not helpful here.

Secondly, if you would like to still have the conversation after this, I would be more than happy to take it up in private correspondence or on the phone, per your recommendation the last time we had a go at this topic.

Your friend,
Adam

Michael--

Take a look at what Cardine has to say about the "Neumatic Break", chapter 9 of Gregorian Semiology. This shows how melismas are broken up into rhythmically and dynamically important pitches that are ornamented and function just like syllables in semi-ornate chants.

Re: "why would want ONE established chant practice?"

There is indeed ONE chant practice that is being recommended and advanced by Solesmes right now, and, as Jeff O. has said recently in another thread, Rome "officially gave the editorship of the Vaticana over to Solesmes around 1918!!".

*edited*

(What I said before was not helpful, so I deleted it. Sorry for any lack of charity...)

...Put another way, we are free to sing chant based upon our preference, I suppose. But the reality remains that Solesmes has been given a degree of authority by the Church. Perhaps we should all consider what they have to say.

Sorry Francis... who need's to get a life? ;)

BGP: that's the one indeed!
I am grateful for the comments, esp. Adam's. This is entirely new for me, and I need some background so I could understand what it was I was introduced to yesterday! Thank you!!!!!

Adam, you'll see that I frequently post that Solesmes is a good and practical manner of singing Gregorian chant in our time. I stand by my hope that the practice of singing chant will continue to have some healthy variation to it. Francis speaks well, when he suggests that praying is the thing. I have my doubts that the French method actually recalls a medieval practice, but that's just a hunch. It is a worthy method and due great consideration as you say, but until there is an call from Rome to use it exclusively, I say let there be variety.

Okay, Jeff. I'll take your word for it on the 60 note melisma. Your point clearly is that long melismas are common in the repertoire. Agreed.

I'm really not sure that the bottom of a forum thread is the appropriate place to thoroughly answer your question, but I will anyway, and I offer a disclaimer:

This is not an effort to be tedious, as some readers will doubtless judge it. But it is part of the development of a method of chant interpretation that I am currently putting together that makes the fruits of semiology palatable for beginners.

So thank you Jeff for prompting me to think through this strain of the topic in response to your question!

To recap, here is my statement and your question:

AB: [The basis of Gregorian rhythm] is not an "equal pulse" as Mocquereau prescribes, but it is a natural "declamation of a text" which is considered above all else."

JO: "I still desire to know how this applies to a chant (let's take an individual word, for instance) that has sixty notes on an unaccented syllable and but one note on the tonic accent."

I suppose you are right in saying that melismas break the "sung speech" definition, strictly speaking. I think that this is rightfully so, though, because the purpose of the melisma is to depart for a moment from the declamation of a text into a moment of pure music that soars beyond the text in order to foster meditation, a sort of mystical transcendence of the text. But the way that the Gregorian composers crafted these melismas were with the same compositional units that were wedded to a declaimed text.

This alone should be a sufficient answer to the question, but I will go further to describe how the "sung speech" definition can be retained from the simplest syllabic chant up through the most ornate and melismatic idiom, while taking into account the melisma's deliberate transcendence (edited), so to speak, of the text. To illustrate this, it is necessary to go through a quick "semiological" narrative on chant's journey (idomatically, not historically) from purely syllabic chant, through semi-ornate chant, to the melismatic idiom. I'm going to take my own stab at Gregorian theory here since I cannot find a narrative that is already written that speaks directly to the question. The following is a distillation effort of the knowledge of chant that I have gained from studying with Fr. Columba Kelly, and from my reading of the main semiological texts:

The basic level of Gregorian composition is syllabic chant--one note per syllable. Such a melody can be strictly sung to the natural rhythm of good speech, i.e. the prayerful proclamation of a liturgical text.

The second level of Gregorian composition introduces a slight ornamentation of a basic syllabic chant with neumatic forms such as the clivis, podatus, torculus, porrectus, salicus, and so on. These neumatic elements are introduced as ornaments or slight melodic elaborations of what otherwise in strict syllabic chant would only require one pitch. Such slightly embellished melodies also can be sung with a strict speech rhythm, moving more quickly through 2 and 3 note designs, and also taking into account the rhythmic form that is received from the staffless neume designs (e.g. there are at least 3 very distinct ways, rhythmically, to sing the same 3-note torculus with the same 3 pitches, and so on).

The third level introduces more elaboration and a new layer of ornamentation on top of the previous two levels (which are nothing but an expressive musical declamation of a text). In this level a rich vocabulary in the musical language of Gregorian chant is developed. What were, in the previous levels, the essential pitches of a text declamation now become the "structural pitches" around which an ornament blossoms. These short strings of ornamentation either lean toward or burst forth from an important melodically and rhythmically structural pitch. There are usually 1 or 2, but sometimes 3 or more "structural" pitches per syllable on this level of Gregorian composition, and with the added ornamentation a syllable can have 5 to 10, or maybe more pitches. The rhythmic integrity of sung speech is retained though, since the ornament notes are sung lightly and quickly, leading to or springing from the important structural pitch or pitches of a word. (The information for determining "structural pitches" is found in the staffless notations of the Graduale Triplex.)

The final level is the melismatic level. As was said before, the purpose of the melisma is to go beyond words--a moment of "pure music". What is discovered, though, is that the same musical grammar of the second and third levels of Gregorian composition is employed and cohesive units of melody are strung together just as they are when they are sung on a series of syllables. These units are broken up by "expressive" divisions of a melisma. These divisions are are clearly indicated in the staffless manuscripts by means of the "Neumatic Break" (Gregorian Semiology, ch. 9). A thorough reading of these manuscripts reveals rhythmically and melodically "structural" pitches that are ornamented according to the same conventions of Gregorian composition levels 2 and 3. Theoretically, such composition could go on endlessly--well beyond a 60 note melisma--and still have musical and rhythmic integrity. Again, the purpose of a melisma is to go beyond words, but the musical grammar of Gregorian chant (that of sung speech) remains and is used in a variety of ways to aid meditation.

Here is an example of the "Haec dies" Gradual, condensed to its structural pitches:

(source: Fr. Columba Kelly's chant manual)

Note that in the melisma on "quo-" of the first "quoniam" a 21 note melisma is reduced to 6 structure pitches. Singing just the structure pitches of this melody could convincingly pass as a Level 2 or 3 chant in its own right! This demonstrates how the more elaborate conventions of ornamentation have evolved from the simpler forms of chant. One thing that I find interesting in this example is that the structure pitches of "-nus" in "Dominus" form a torculus. If a torculus in itself is a simple ornamentation of a single pitch of a syllabic chant, then the Haec dies actually ornaments an ornament! This seems very reminiscent of the historical development of liturgical rites where at times symbolic expression can be built upon symbolic expression... but I digress.

There will be much more reflection like this and many more chant method materials in the up-and-coming Sacred Music Project "Chant Blog". Stay tuned!

I am very disappointed in myself, because (I'm sure you remember) I had already said I wasn't going to post anymore on this subject, because I'm not sure this is the best place/method for this exchange.

However, I did want to respond to this:

Firstly, I will answer your question if you first show me a sixty note melisma. Exaggerations are not helpful here.

What I did was, I opened up my Liber Usualis, grabbed some random examples, and HERE THEY ARE

With examples like these (as I've stated elsewhere) I simply cannot believe that Gregorian composers set out to honor the tonic accent in the same way as the Baroque and Renaissance composers chose to. The Gregorian composers had a much more sophisticated way of doing this, and honoring the melodic flow IN NO WAY takes away from honoring the text, in this gorgeous, sophisticated Medieval method of Gregorian composition.

As some final thoughts:

1. Historically speaking, the classification of some melodies into melismatic, syllabic, etc. cannot be considered a recent development.

2. The most recent scholarship (e.g. Harold Powers writing on modality in the New Grove), [to say nothing of "old school" authors like Apel or, indeed, certain medieval authors], strongly assert that the whole notion of the eight Gregorian modes (oktoëchos) being applied to the repertory we now call Gregorian, ESPECIALLY to chants that didn't need classification of maneriae for practical reasons (Antiphons, for instance) was a system somewhat arbitrarily FORCED on a pre-existing set of melodies.

To put it another way, hundreds of years after the Gregorian repertoire was composed, the modal system was imposed on these melodies as an afterthought, at least according to recent scholarship. Many times, it was impossible to make the melodies "fit" into this new notion of eight Gregorian modes (and, as a result, you end up with some transposed chants, others being altered to make them fit, and some that still cannot be correctly classified).

Because of this fact (in my mind, at least) it could be very dangerous to start basing interpretations of ancient chants on a modal system that came hundreds of years after the chants were written. Had the reverse been true, I think it would make more sense. But as Michael points out above, everyone is free to do what he or she wishes.

3. Regarding melismas being an overflow of the heart, that is true, but sometimes the Gregorian composers chose to employ them, and sometimes they did not, usually based on the TYPE of chant. I believe Dr. Marht recently wrote an article explaining this, where he takes numerous Gregorian settings of JUSTUS UT PALMA FLOREBIT.

4. Regarding this whole issue, some interesting reading might be Apel talking about Ferretti's assertion that the tonic accent is always set off in syllabic and melismatic chants, as well as the arguments of Pothier and Mocquereau against Haberl's constant and continual dictum of Gregorian interpretation, viz. "sing the words as you would speak them."

both of you have gone down a rabbit hole long ago.

Jeff,

I suppose "discovering" can often be "rediscovering", with the significance depending on the context. Cardine made a legitimate discovery in the "neumatic break" that those before him weren't able to consider, which is important because, when taken into account, it can have a very substantial effect on a persons interpretation of a chant. The way that chant is sung is not an irrelevant concern, or something that is discussed "down a rabbithole" in wonderland, as you know.

But I've grown a bit tired and think I am just about done debating issues of historical musicology with you Jeff. *listen to the sigh of relief from readers of this forum* ;)

Feel free to email me if you would like to discuss any issues anymore, but I have to say that I would rather, at this point, accept that we participate in two different schools of thought and let's go about our work. You will teach your singers about the placement of the ictus, Mocquereau's rhythmic signs, and about the equal basic pulse while I teach mine about how to look to the text as the primary source of interpretation and the neumatic break. The only problem is that when my singers sing with yours there may be a few problems! But I guess that is just the way it is going to have to be for now. The reality is that when most people hear my schola and when they hear yours they will only hear "chant", and that is the more important concern right now isn't it?

Welcome Dan!

Going to the source wouldn't be a bad place to begin--"Gregorian Semiology", by Eugene Cardine, tr. Fowells is pretty easy to find. But do keep in mind with this that it can be a bit heavy and doesn't necessarily give one the tools to put the information given into practice immediately.

There are many articles out there about the foundations of the paradigm shift, but I'm at a loss to recommend some at the moment. My own website, sacredmusicproject.com, is currently being revamped and a "chant blog" will soon be set into motion where you will surely be able to find some good information on the subject. Stay tuned!

Peace,
Adam

BY THE WAY, ADAM, THIS CONVERSATION WENT EXACTLY HOW I KNEW IT WOULD.

SO YOU CAN CONGRATULATE ME ON HOW SMART I AM !!!!

:-D

:-)

For me it is quite dubious whether we can find the ideal and perfect interpretation of Gregorian chant (simultaneously historically sound / artistically excellent / full of meaning). The so-called new approaches seem to me quite often rather well established in the past and interesting by some fine innovative details, but not by completely different path of interpretation.

But of course I agree that we can analyze and try these ideas to perform really beautiful chant. We should look for the best approach to chant.

However there are some fundamental questions for me - Gregorian chant is a prayer and we pray with Gregorian chant in liturgy. Can we experiment on prayer? Can we analyze part of divine liturgy as purely human art? Where we should establish limits of scientific method in praying by chanting? What should we think about the authority of the Church over Gregorian chant practice? Is it possible to destroy the main, spiritual level of Gregorian chant by overemphasis put on technical aspects?

Do you know the way to harmonize religious and artistic dimension of Gregorian chant?

Adam, what is this "chant manual" of which you write? Is it something used in Fr. Kelly's workshops?

Yes it is. It is not published currently but it is very similar to the second half of his book "Gregorian Chant Intonations and the Role of Rhetoric". I'm working with him on getting more of this content on the web, though, so look for the Sacred Music Project "Chant Blog" to appear in the coming weeks!

Do not have a problem with the science of chant at all. Have problem when ONE science proclaims itself the ultimate truth, best or most authentic way.