How to chant the official plainsong settings of the revised translation
  • WJA
    Posts: 237
    My schola is working on the official plainsong settings of the revised Gloria and Credo (Credo I) translations, in preparation for the implementation of the revised translation this fall. We're using the square-note setting from here.

    This setting lacks the dotted notes, vertical episemas, and the like found in the older chant settings to indicate which notes should be held longer than others. (I take it this represents one school of thought about how chant should be notated.) So, lacking any better plan, we decided to just sing through the Gloria and Credo a couple of times and to do what seemed "natural" given the text. (Or schola's motto is, "I don't know...fly casual.")

    For the most part, it seemed obvious that we should stretch the note before the double-bar and sometimes before lesser breath marks. But in many other cases, especially where the textual accent fell not on the last note before the breath mark, but on the penultimate note, it was not clear to us whether we should stretch both or just the last. So, for instance, taking the Tone IV Gloria:

    Glory to God in the HIGHest. || and peace on earth to people of good will. ||

    It seemed clear to us that "good" doesn't get stretched, but "will" does.

    But it wasn't clear to us whether we should stretch both "HIGH" and "est" or just "est." The same confusion reigned for other phrases, e.g., "we give you thanks for your great GLO-ry," "O God, almighty FA-ther."

    I told my singers I would seek guidance from more learned musicians, hence, this post.
  • incantuincantu
    Posts: 989
    If you're going to follow the earliest notated traditions, the strong syllable generally receives length. It is so assumed that singers will know to slow the ends of phrases that short symbols are often used to indicate long notes. English, however, is different than Latin. You may want to read ICEL's Introduction to the new chants for information on notation and performance practice.
  • lmassery
    Posts: 422
    I appreciate the hidden Star Wars reference, WJA. I wondered about the lack of detail as well. I'm just going to speak the text with them a lot until they get the stress, and sing it that way.
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    "slow the ends of phrases" and otherwise maintain a speech rhythm - I think cover most all of it.

    I too wish for rhythmic markings, but I've been surprised at how well they work without them.
  • JDE
    Posts: 588
    They worked well when we sang them together at the Colloquium, but that was a pretty unusual congregation. We had in common a fairly developed understanding of chant. I am not worried, but will not be surprised if my congregation decide to wallow in learned helplessness rather than learn the new chants. If they want to sing, they can sing it with us; if not, they are free to scowl, glare, shuffle their feet, etc. etc.

    Oh, wait . . . they already do that. At least the ones who, for whatever unholy reason, don't like to sing.

    So no problem, right?
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,978
    Too funny, JDE!

    It seems to me that ICEL and the bishops had chant in mind, but not Gregorian or any kind of Solemnes interpretation. I sensed that they wanted us to adapt the chant to English - easier said than done- so no markings given. My congregation will likely put all the rhythmic markings in the same places where they have sung them for years.
  • JDE
    Posts: 588
    Thank you, CharlesW!

    For the record, I should add that if we (our scholae and choirs) sing robustly and reverently enough, The People Will Sing. Or they won't. But if they don't, let it not happen because we failed to present a good model.
  • WJA
    Posts: 237
    I sensed that they wanted us to adapt the chant to English - easier said than done- so no markings given.


    I'm not sure that the lack of markings is limited to English. A year or so ago, I posted a request here for information about some chant or another that is used at priest ordinations. Paul Ford scanned and posted the relevant pages from the Latin ritual books, and I recall thinking that it was odd there were no dotted notes. Then I read something somewhere that made me think this was now the preferred way of doing things in Vatican editions as opposed to the older Solesmes editions. I have no idea whether that is true, but my point is, this business of not using dotted notes doesn't seem to be limited to English plainsong.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,978
    Interesting.
  • Heath
    Posts: 966
    Here's a relevant link from a couple months ago:

    Link
  • awruff
    Posts: 94
    Official Vatican chant editions or altar missals have never had dots or episemata or any other Solesmes rhythmic signs. The Vatican Graduale Romanum came out in 1907. In 1908, after some toing and frowing, Solesmes got permission to add their rhythmic signs to the official editions, and their Graduale Romanum came out. Ever since (until the 1972 reform of order of chants), there have always been Vatican editions (no rhythmic signs) and Solesmes editions (with rhythmic signs). Most people didn't know that, because about 99.9 % sang from Solesmes editions.

    ICEL chant simply follows the convention of the offical Latin edition of the Missale Romanum - no rhythmic signs.

    awr
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,978
    Even more interesting! Thank you for the information.
  • Heath
    Posts: 966
    So Fr. Ruff, what do you advise that we in the trenches do, regarding rhythm? My fear is that each congregation will have their own rhythmic interpretations and the universal nature (well, at least national) of these chants will flop when we get together for diocesan and other inter-parish masses.
  • awruff
    Posts: 94
    Heath,

    I share the exact same concern. I wish there were an answer, but I don't have it.

    OK, I'll say it: I would have preferred some sort of rhythmic signs in the ICEL chants so there could be at least some commonality. This was hard to justify, since MR doesn't have them. And even with rhythmic signs, I suppose there would still be variety in interpretation.

    awr
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,414
    I have never sung chant with reference to the rhythmic signs, which are entirely editorial and of use only if one is following the so-called 'Solesmes Method'.
    This method, to which these signs and their attendant icti refer,
    is now but one of a number of respectable historical curiosities in the world of chant scholarship and interpretation.
    You are certainly correct to be guided by the innate rhythm of the text without reference to editorial 'rhythmic signs'.
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,611
    However, these signs did not indicate music stresses, but rather the singing of the innate rhythm of the text in the first place, no?
  • awruff
    Posts: 94
    I tend to agree M. Jackson Osborn's statement that the Solesmes method is a historical curiosity. However, rhythmic signs are not intrinsically tied to that theory. Note that there were episemas (episemata if you prefer) in the 10th century, but no one sang according to Mocquereau equalism then! The preface to the 1983 Liber Hymnarius, with the explanation of the modified notation, foresees rhythmic signs, but based on their meaning a millennium ago, not their meaning in Mocquereau's theory. There were no ictus before Mocquereau, but there were other rhythmic signs.
    awr
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    Excellent point, father! I wish more people would understand this. The polarization here is completely unnecessary, ahistorical, and just plain silly really.

    In the 10th century, episemas helped singers and they would help today.
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,414
    I certainly acquiesce to and agree with Fr Ruff's observations; but would add the observation that the so-called 'vertical episema', in contrast to the 'horizontal episema' is a totally modern, Solesmes method era, invention. Granted, too, that though some may find rhythmic markings useful or needful, should we really want to chain the chant to a given, purely editorial, system of rhythmic markings? The point being that it is easily conceivable that cantors of the formative eras were flexible in their rhythmic rendering of chants, and that individual cantors differed artistically in the delivery of their chant rhetoric. This is very human and would be as understandable today as it undoubtedly was in whatever past century one chooses to raise a flag over.

    This is not a license for utter personal abandon in singing chant. There are, of course, fundamental criteria in chant interpretation - just as there are in improvising and ornamenting baroque organ music.
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    Yes, MJO, it is a well known fact (by Mocq and everyone else) that the vertical episema conglomerated several neumes into one. This is not in dispute in any way. The problem is that no one has yet figured out precisely how to slice and dice that which it aggregated. That's fine. the editions are extremely serviceable as is the old solesmes approach in general. If singers want to do more and add shadings and twists and turns based on older signs, that's interesting and edifying too.
  • awruff
    Posts: 94
    I agree with M. Jackson Osborn that there was flexibility in era of the earliest manuscripts, that cantors and scholas varied in how they interpreted episemas and everything else. It is always striking to me when a semiology text book or academic article offers neumes from several St. Gall manuscripts synoptically over the Latin text - and you see that the rhythmic markings are similar but not identical in the various mss. (This is partly because rhythmic signs become less precise and more scarce as time goes on.)

    I also agree with MJO that singers shouldn't be chained to editorial decisions. My hope would be that rhythmic signs in English chant - like in Latin chant - would give invaluable hints and suggestions for the artistic rendering of the chant, but that no one would come along and try to turn that into a method and system and exact set of specifications.

    We might also consider, on a purely practical level, the differences between schola chant, which can be quite nuanced and refined, and congregational chant which will always be a bit rougher. I reject mensuralism 100% - but also concde that something like mensuralism is almost inevitable, at least in some passages and to some degree - when a congregation of untrained singers sings chant. The tragedy isn't that great - if it's chant that an untrained congregation can sing, it's probably not a highly refined masterpiece anway, nor was it meant to be.

    awr
  • incantuincantu
    Posts: 989
    In the 10th century, episemas helped singers and they would help today.


    While I don't disagree with this statement, I fear that it is based on a faulty premise. To say that the episema existed in the 10th century is like saying that since "carro" can mean "car" in Italian, the automobile existed in 10th century Italy. The Solesmes episema, even when it is found in the same place as an episema in the manuscripts (more often it is not), has an entirely different meaning in spite of sharing the same name. And while it's true the episema might have helped singers, there are numerous instances where even without it, the proper rhythmic execution would have been understood.

    However, I would not have objected to rhythmic markings in the ICEL chants. Having them in the SEP, although it requires a bit of code switching, really allows us my schola to sing together at sight much more easily than when reading from the Graduale Novum. It's probably not a bad idea to use this same method with simple congregational chants. The melismatic propers of the choir, however, I find to be a different story.
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