Well, it is interesting and not "illegal" but is it really, ummm, what's the word?, kosher, to rewrite chant in ways that we like?

It's not so much that I purposefully rewrote it as I sang those few wrongs notes the first few times I tried to chant it. When I heard an mp3 of it, I was surprised it sounded different.

I agree with not changing chant melodies. But how about some differnt melodies between different chant books? I remember seeing slightly different melodies of Kyrie XI in Parish Chant book and Gregorian Missal? (I don't have the books with me now.) Did the monks make changes?

"Well, it is interesting and not "illegal" but is it really, ummm, what's the word?, kosher, to rewrite chant in ways that we like?"

Come on, it's neums, not the words of Sacred Scripture! I will have to sing through the variations, but I really like the concept. Chant should not be a museum piece - I highly doubt it was seen as such throughout most of the period it was written, so why should we do so now?

I'm reminded of how on Sunday the organist at my EF sang the Kyrie XI with the cantored parts as improvisation/variation, a technique he often uses. It was fantastic, as it gave interest to the even repetitions. So I would caution that any variation SHOULDN'T be made in familiar parts meant to be sung by the congregation. But surely there is no reason one cannot make the schola or cantor's role more interesting through some scholarly variation!

Makes sense to me, too. I wonder how many young singers would jump at the opportunity to improvise jubili or even entire Graduals. In the tradition, of course, but it would be interesting to see what well-trained young singers in the tradition would come up with.

The issue reminds me of the ubiquitous ba-a-ner-er variation of our National Anthem and the imaginative renditions of the same anthem by both amateur and professional soloists. Such variations are not illegal*, immoral or even fattening. Still, other than for a soloist, why be concerned with them? For a choir or congregation, they would just be confusing.

* although maybe illegal. I understand there is an officially legislated key to be used for the National Anthem - maybe there's an official tune too.

Yes, I should mention that this guy knows his stuff well enough. I wouldn't try to improvise anything without a thorough training. That's the two components of it - do it well, and don't do it when people expect the usual!

The problem with what Cross Reference presents, IF it were done on a regular basis, is that some people in his parish or schola will know it one way and then be confused to go to another parish and hear the other. I think that's the value of the CMAA's approach - that one can walk in to any schola and decently join in on the chant.

I think it will do more harm than good if we start singing variations of Gregorian chants. I already heard enough of musicians singing chants in 4/4 time with every note harmonized, I guess you can consider it a variation. Maybe I'm a worrier, but I hear a soprano singing a chant with ornaments in bel canto style. It will be worse than listening to a contemporary music for me. People will be really confused, and the chant might loose it's beauty, because people might hear more variations than the original music. I know many musicians like to improvise and do it differently, but when it comes to Sacred music, I think we have to think twice.

There are some interesting trains of thought touched on here, particularly by Gavin. Without actually advocating one or another approach to chant performance at mass, I suggest that there is a much richer heritage of chant performance than is currently appreciated or given its due by many who teach chant in the Church today. The 'Solesmes Method' is far from the last word in chant scholarship and, though the results of its application are undoubtedly of laudable artistry and beauty, it is properly understood as but one of many historical approaches, preferable to some, but without claim to representing chant as it was sung in its formative periods. I stand with Fr Columba Kelley of St Meinrad's Archabbey in thinking that counting groups of two & three and being hidebound by symbols which do not appear in the Carolingian manuscripts is to perpetuate an approach which does not, in fact, have theoretical justification. We cannot know how chant was performed in its formative periods - how the language glided off the tongue, how the chant was 'played with' by those who sang it - but, I think, we can infer with reason that chant as we normally sing it today compares to chant of very early times as Couperin played without ornaments or notes inegales, & cet, would compare to an historically informed performance. I suspect that the interpretations of Marcel Perez and the Ensemble Organum may be closer to what early singers sang than anything we might want to offer at the average mass (though, perhaps, at an 'unaverage' one) today. The Byzantine influence and the improvisatory aesthetic were, if we read correctly the meagre performance accounts that we have, quite real and alive. Then, there was the Renaissance, the Baroque... with some justification discredited as degenerate; but, there may be times when we might be edified by the experience of such chant, say, in the context of chant in alternation with choral or organ music of those periods... even at mass. None of this is to debunk Solesmes, but to put it into context. Even in many European monasteries there is, shall we say, disdain for French rhythmic theories; and, we would find their chant equally pleasing.
Having said all this, it can be, as someone suggested above, very pleasing to be able to walk into any schola and know how the chant will be done - to fit right in because it is the same everywhere (is this not, in itself, a rather 'Carolingian' idea?).
Still when we become hidebound we have lost the bit of improvisatory creativity that makes of anything a truly living and fertile tradition. There must always be a feel for the ludic. Though, as when 'improvising' with Couperin, one must know what one is doing.
Jackson - Our Lady of Walsingham, Houston

Here's to the brave soul who can use the word 'ludic' correctly in a sentence with a straight face. I suspect our Mr. Osborn may be a bit of a sequipedalian --


not that there's anything wrong with that,

As for what evokes a more "pentitential" feel to the variation I mis-sung, I have to admit I'm not a "student of music", and I'm not able to talk about major or minor and modal melodies. :)

That said (and if my explanation sounds like utter garbage, I apologize), the original chant uses the note B on two (sets of) occasions: in the climacus D-C-B-G (second set of Kyries, on the "e"), and then immediately thereafter in the clivis B-A. It is this second usage that strikes my ear as odd. The move from G to B to A seems less natural than from G to A and back to G (as in my variation).

That climacus and the climacus in the first set of "Kyrie"s (F-E-C) and the "Christe" (G-F-E-C) skip a note (A in D-C-B-G, D in G-F-E-C), and after this descent it seems more natural to me to visit that skipped note rather then rise above it; this has the result of the clivis that follows ending on the same note that the climacus did (which again sounds better to my ear).

The final difference is the clivus F-D (on the first "e" of "eleison") which becomes F-E in my variation. This has two purposes. First, it creates a parallel between the earlier F-E-C climacus (in the first "Kyrie" and the "Christe") with the ending F-E of "e" and the C of "le" in "e-le-i-son". Second, this F-E-C is a fourth below the previously explained C-B-G climacus, and it seems proper to me to keep those two sets of notes in parallel which were parallel before I changed things! ;)

Furthermore, the sound of the note B in this setting strikes me as particularly mournful or sorrowful. (Do I know why? No.) For that reason, it seems to sound better when it is reached only in a descending manner (as in the climacus).

That's my explanation. Does it hold water? Is it utterly uneducated?

I have no problem singing the chant as it is written, I just wanted to share an "organic" variation. (The preceding explanation -- with the exception of the B just sounding more penitential -- did not exist when I made the errors, but it has become clear to me upon examination of the original and my variation.)

I don't think I would have a performance problem with the adjusted melodies. My only worry would be some one slipping this melody into a publication replacing the original. What "title" could this Kyrie be given to distinguish it? It would probably entail dropping the traditional incipit just to avoid confusion.

Another path might be to find a book with these alterations already in it, i.e. a legitimate, historic variation that was passed over during the Gregorian codification. An example of a Proper melodic variation is the "Requiem aeternam" Introit. Compare its melody to the Ingresa in the Ambrosian Rite. It is very similar. (Sorry, I don't have files to post showing the difference.) The basic shape of the melody is very similar, but the variety of neums' lengths, and how they fall on the syllable is very interesting. To an untrained ear, these would be the same piece of music, even if performed back to back. I discovered this when I was at Our Lady of Walsingham. I wanted to put the Rite I text (Anglican Missal) to the Gregorian melody. It almost worked, but was just a bit uncomfortable. When I found the Ambrosian version, it was truly and epiphany! The Tudor-style English flowed very nicely!

This is all to say that we shouldn't limit ourselves to just two editions of the Graduale Romanum if we really want to have a better understanding of chant, and more variety in performance practices - even in the current Liturgy.

A bit of a mouth-full, though!

I'm still willing to bet that the variation exists in some very old Graduale or Kyriale.

I believe the example is an alteration of notes, rather than a musical variation. One more thing occurred to me over the weekend: do these particular melodic changes (the original claim was a change in the "feel" of the chant) put the melody into a different mode? If so, then keep the incipit as is, and simply change the mode at the beginning of the 1st staff.