As one can resonate with sympathy those equations, francis, they'll stop being maxims the day the first aliens make contact and we have the first extraterrestrial dialogue, which prithee I hope will be existentially positive.
Besides, I'm rather pleased that English is the 21st century lingua franca for a great portion of the world, as I have little opportunity to practice my 8 years of German!
You should read some of David Sedaris' little homilies on English in foreign lands.

While I appreciate the SEP and use them during Lent and for Communio, I, too, agree that Gregorian chant should be sung in Latin. The fluidity of the text just doesn't "work" in English. I am currently teaching my little children's choir about all the pure vowel sounds and they are picking it up well. Some of their English words now sound "off".

You know what I think is interesting about all of this? If we have a chant repertoire in Latin, and it works best that way because they were written with the Latin language in mind, why hasn't someone composed new chants in English? If this has happened, then it is just ignorance on my part, because I haven't heard of any new chants since the old Gregorian (Ambrosian, Orthodox, etc, as well) ones. One can make the chant fit the language, whatever that language may be. This, too has been done for centuries in music.

The way I look at it, the language is just the language. Some will lambaste me for saying that, but English is no less special in the world than Latin, just that Latin is the sacred language of the Church, just like Arabic is the sacred language of the Muslims. Therefore, we hold Latin in a higher regard than English, because it connects us to something higher than ourselves. When Latin was still in the world and widely spoken, it was just another language, like Breton, Frankish, or Gaulish, or some other Celtic language. The fact that it is sacred to us is our doing and that of the Church. That being said, it does not diminish its prominence in the Church as our sacred language, for it is one of the languages that Christ spoke when He was on this earth.

Cf Bartlett, Cf Weber, Cf Esguerra, Cf Oost-Zinner

cf. Fr. Columba Kelly, OSB

To my ear, English adaptations of Gregorian chant need to be done extremely cautiously. One cannot be slavish to the Gregorian orginals, and at the same time, one can also adapt too much and create basically a brand new composition. This is an art that cannot be learned very quickly. The hardest things I have done were English adaptations of DuMont's Royal Mass and 6th Mode Mass, and a now superceded 'Old ICEL' version of the Vidi Aquam.

This is one of the areas that makes the Plainchand Gradual, though admirably done, (I have a copy of the four volumes and do use them on occasion) on the whole a bit weak. There are often long melismas on odd words like 'is' or 'the', or sometimes on unaccented syllables. Many of these can be made better by inserting an extra punctum, or by breaking up, say, a torculus into a pes and a punctum, to make the melisma fall on the important word or an accented syllables.

The slavishness of many adaptations is what prompts many people to scoff at English Chant and turn away from it. When it is well done (e.g. Weber and Kelly) I find them to be very pleasant to sing, when they are too slavish they feel unnatural and are extremely unrewarding in both singing and hearing.

There are often long melismas on odd words like 'is' or 'the', or sometimes on unaccented syllables. Many of these can be made better by inserting an extra punctum, or by breaking up, say, a torculus into a pes and a punctum, to make the melisma fall on the important word or an accented syllables.

I agree with this. It's so close to fantastic, and could really make do with some tweakoneering.

I dislike psalm pointing in English that sticks slavishly to Latin rules. In English, we have an accent on the last syllable of a line far more often than Latin does, so I prefer pointings that allow the pitch to inflect on that last syllable and not come back down to the reciting note. Pointing that sticks to the Latin treats such lines by inflecting on the previous stressed syllable so the pitch can come back to the reciting note, and that results in some unnatural syllabic stress.

Example:

I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole | HEART

is better than the (slavish)

I will give thanks to the Lord with my | WHOLE heart.

Undue stress on "whole" in the latter, Latinesque pointing. Sticking to the Latin rules also gives us inflections on syllables like "the," and "a."

I consider this adaptation essential in making English texts work with psalm tones.

I dislike psalm pointing in English that sticks slavishly to Latin rules. In English, we have an accent on the last syllable of a line far more often than Latin does, so I prefer pointings that allow the pitch to inflect on that last syllable and not come back down to the reciting note. Pointing that sticks to the Latin treats such lines by inflecting on the previous stressed syllable so the pitch can come back to the reciting note, and that results in some unnatural syllabic stress.

This comes up from time to time on the forum, and I am of the exact opposite line of thinking, for a number of reasons - one of them being the traditional Latin psalmtones are fairly standardized today - and the number and variety of English adaptations abounds. This is great in terms of innovation, but poor in terms of unity of expectation. They also vary greatly - some maintain the proper reciting tone - others turn every mode into a quasi "tonus peregrinus" with different reciting tones for the first and second half of each verse.

I'm also aware there were tons of different Latin psalm tones in use in the Gregorian age, and that the "standardization" of the ones we're used to are a relatively recent innovation. So be it - it doesn't change my argument there are still standard ones we're used to. So in the end, I stick with the Latin melodies - unaltered - when singing English psalmody.

The example you gave is a good one for discussion.

I will give thanks to the Lord with my | WHOLE heart.

This is exactly what happens. So here's the difference in my approach which I think keeps it acceptable to my ears. I keep the Latin psalmtone melodies the same, but I don't feel the melodic accent needs to line up with the accent of weight so prominent in English. Many argue that ecclesiastical Latin has no (or at least much less) weight accent than English either (that's a whole other can of worms), but if you subscribe to that, at least for this argument, it helps divorce melodic accent from weight accent.

I would still sing this (shall we say Mode VIII?) example with a bit of a weighted accent on "heart," and the melodic accent on "whole" would then turn into a preparatory melodic gesture for the accented word "heart."

Granted this means that on some verses the melodic accent shares the weight accent and sometimes it prepares for it, but if you know how to pronounce English, that's not really a problem, is it?

Right. No different from all the Latin verses that end in things like "... genui te."

I admit this situation is more rare in Latin than in English, but it really doesn't bother me in either language.

From anecdotal evidence (I'm thinking particularly of the footnotes in the Liber Usualis), it seems that how to handle this situation in Latin became so heated a debate around 1900 than the Congregation of Rites had to issue permission so that this could be sung either way.

I also find it interesting the the most recent Solesmes editions have handled this as I describe, rather than changing the melody of the cadence. Something about altering the cadence melody to fit the textual stress on a verse-by-verse basis seems (to me) to interrupt the overall flow of psalmodic chant (rather than keeping the same melodic formula and naturally stressing the syllables as speech deems appropriate).

Adam, Christopher Page's book The Christian West and It's Singers?

I really liked this book, rather heavy to pick up though. Can you give me an indication of what you were reading in the book? I don't have time to re-read the entire book and being an old lady my mind is in need of a little push now and then. I am not disagreeing with you by the way, and have no desire for an online disagreement. However, I am working on a project this summer having to do with priestly chants in the vernacular and would like information (thoughts) about the accent patterns of both Latin and English. Thanks

Well it is true I am sure that Latin was not spoken in 7th century Gaul the way it was spoken in 4th century Rome but we would need to understand how it was pronounced when the chants were written. I doubt we will ever really know just as we will probably never really know a lot of things about the way singing occurred more than a 1000 years ago. Of course if we could devise a nice time machine.....

historically "accurate" performances

I think that most people if the fields of early music performance realized that this is a misnomer and that the best they can do is to strive for "historically informed" performance, taking advantage of the best that scholarship and research has to offer, tempered with wise musical sense.

I think that most people if the fields of early music performance realized that this is a misnomer and that the best they can do is to strive for "historically informed" performance, taking advantage of the best that scholarship and research has to offer, tempered with wise musical sense.

...And the "wise musical sense" is 99% of the formula.

Exactly my point.