Question: What is "true" Gregorian chant? Solesmes vs. Roman
  • jaxcathelineau
    Posts: 2
    Good morning,

    I hope that everyone is doing well. I was hoping that someone could englighten me on a topic which has been bugging me for a while.

    I am part of an amateur church choir. Oue choir director and organist is a Gregorian chant "purist" who studied the Solesmes method with a former student of Dom Joseph Gajard who teaches us to sing exclusively in immitation of the monks of the Solesmes congregation and generally has desdain for every other way of singing Gregorian chant, which he flat-out calls incorrect.

    I am aware of the archaeological work of the Benedictine Abbey of Solesmes and the congregation to restore Gregorian chant to what they perceived to be the way it was sung in the high middle ages, and I am able to appreciate the Solesmes way of singing and our choir master's teachings very much.

    However, I always had the feeling (from our own singing and from listening to recordings from Solesmes) that this way of singing Gregorian chant sometimes sounds way too academic, strict and even sterile, lacking genuineness and true emotion. Almost as if it makes sense for the convents but not so much for a parish church, however I never dared bring it up because I was always tought that there is only one correct way of singing Gregorian chant and that is according to the monks of Solesmes.

    Then I started listening more attentively to recordings from the Vatican (and Italy in general), specificially the Sistine and Giulia choirs (pre-Vatican II) and could not ignore the fact that Saint Peter's never seems to have sung like the monks of Solesmes. In these roman choirs you seem to hear the real timbre of each singer, natural breathing, the texts sungs much more articulate, the singing more robust, more natural. And I could not help but see such beauty and merit in this way of singing.

    I also came accross this quote by His Eminence Domenico Bartolucci, former Sistine Chapel master: "Gregorian chant has been distorted by the rhythmic and aesthetic theories of the Benedictines of Solesmes. Gregorian chant was born in violent times, and it should be manly and strong, and not like the sweet and comforting adaptations of our own day."

    As my musical education is non-existent, I was hoping to get some clarification on this topic (is the Solesmes method truly the correct way of singing Gregorian chant, if such is even possible). Apologies if this has already been discussed here before.

    Thank you.
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  • smvanroodesmvanroode
    Posts: 1,089
    There is no ‘correct’ way to sing Gregorian Chant. The chants as we know them today, whether from the Solesmes editions, from the Graduale Novum or the Liber Gradualis, are nothing more than historical reconstructions based on and interpretations of the available sources. You could speak of an invention of tradition.

    Don’t get me wrong. These reconstructions and interpretations are not at all arbitrary or merely left to personal taste. They are, each in their own way, well-substantiated and based on academical research. But they remain, because of what do not and cannot know, a perceived image of the past.

    Each schola has to make a choice: which edition and which interpretation do we follow? That choice might depend on the ability of the choir members, the beliefs of the choir master or the customs of the choir. Make a deliberate choice and stick to it; it will greatly enhance the sound of the schola.
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  • Charles_Weaver
    Posts: 150
    I do not think that Solesmes offers the correct way to sing chant. It is, however, wrong to consider it completely arbitrary. It offers a way to shape and perform the chant that does a good job with creating phrase structure and choral unity. It could certainly be improved on by incorporating the research of the school of semiology. It is extremely prayerful and can bear good spiritual fruit! Gajard and Mocquereau are both wonderful and inspiring writers well worth reading still.

    On the other hand, there are many other approaches that are worth learning about and considering. Others here disagree, but I consider “correctness” to be only one among several aspects (and not necessarily the most important one) to consider in implementing a chant program and teaching the chant to students. Among the other ways of thinking about it, I strongly recommend semiology and the closely related mensuralism (the newer kind informed by semiology, that is). As for vocality and style, of course Cdl. Bartolucci is just as conjectural as the French monks! I have no interest in phrasing and performing chant based on the violence of the seventh century. Ensemble Organum is cool but doesn’t want to make me change the way I chant on Sundays. The Franks described the Romans as very sweet singers!

    My short advice is to lean into the Solesmes method and try to take some spiritual nourishment from it while informing yourself about other ways of singing. Chant can accommodate (indeed, has done so) many different ways of performance over the last millenium and a half! Why commit yourself to just one?
    Thanked by 3tomjaw FSSPmusic M. Jackson Osborn
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,210
    I might not go so far as your director, and I usually just don’t talk about competing approaches to avoid disparagement or needless arguments, but I think that there are ways of singing which are presented as being “more correct” than Solesmes, the Vatican edition, etc. when that’s just not the case, as there are certain assumptions made about how music is “traditionally” sung around the world, that commonalities from two distinct regions and cultures suggest a conservatism in handing down performance practice and that every part of said practice is equally conservative (like with language change and variation, this is not a correct assumption).

    I basically second the advice above. I would not chant the same way as others who pick different schools for their reasons (I know there are people more who prefer melodic restitutions such as in the Graduale Novum and similar editions, in non-equalist/proportionalist interpretation, the rhythm of the Vatican Edition…and those aren’t entirely discrete categories either). I would still stick with Dom Gajard as passed down to me in the way that it was passed down to the Institute of Christ the King. I get that spiritual nourishment, and I think that my schola does too. I also benefit from what Dr. Weaver has taught about rhythm and learning the other schools. (And boy, there are good examples of where Solesmes made mistakes or was dealt a bad hand: the proper hymn for II Vespers of the Apparition of the BVM on February 11 is basically in 4/4 and has dotted notes on first syllables which is just horrendous, but Solesmes didn’t, I imagine, put the office together…)
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,193
    The official text of the chant is the Vatican Edition, which is essentially Solesmes without the rhythmic marks. The customary text is Solesmes. The correct performance practice is "whatever your director is using". The customary performance practice is more-or-less Solesmes. That said, "There are nine and ninety ways of constructing tribal lays, and every single one of them is right." Even within the "folk Solesmes" tradition, there are variations of style. Within our diocese, one schola sang very high (with men and women in the same octave) and fast; another low and slow and always accompanied. I seek the media via, but agree with Mgr. Bartolucci. But even within a style, things can vary; our Gloria Laus et Honor is extremely march like, while honoring the Solesmes signs.

    The advantage of a standard is that it makes it easy for travelers. I can solve the "house style" questions in a few sentences. We recently had Rosemary Heredos as guest cantor/director, a semiologist in folk Solesmes land, and we did well in adapting to each other, but the differences couldn't be briefly explained.

    "True" chant calls up visions of the Caecilia ca. 1960, full of arguments about chant while the meteor was hurling toward the earth. The only not-true chant is the chant which is not sung.
    Thanked by 4Liam CHGiffen Charles_Weaver tomjaw
  • DCM
    Posts: 86
    No "chant purist" would be singing in equal temperament or Italianate pronunciation, for one thing...
  • davido
    Posts: 1,150
    Jax, I think you are asking about the vocal technique and musical ‘affect’ as much as about what notes to sing?
    The monks (with untrained voices) often sing in a half voice style which they teach as the “correct” way to sing chant. The way they teach chant has specific theological/spiritual overtones. Vocally, their half voice technique allows them the stamina to chant the long Gregorian mass and office every day.
    There is not much other music in life that can be sung this way. Almost all other styles of music call for a more robust style of singing. Chant can be sung with more robust vocal technique, even when following the scores created by Solesmes.
    Check out these recordings:
    The World of Gregorian Chant (John MacCarthy)
    A Gregorian Advent and Christmas (Pro Cantione Antiqua)
    The Gregorian Lent and Easter (Pro Cantione Antiqua)
    https://youtu.be/9ChJ4XF2al4?si=oshw-T5zFYJfZLDe
  • FSSPmusic
    Posts: 426
    what they perceived to be the way it was sung in the high middle ages
    This is the crux of the matter, and I hope you know you've opened a real can of worms here! Gregorian chant is a product of the Early Middle Ages, not the High Middle Ages. Consider the first-millennial sources and judge whether the Solesmes method is in accordance with them or not.
    https://www.cantatorium.com/interpretation
  • jcr
    Posts: 148
    I'm an "old guy" who began my post secondary education in 1960. As a fellow raised in a protestant home, the chant discussions did not reach me until, you guessed it, Music History. At that time many were arguing about whether we should perform music from bygone periods "authentically". Authenticity was explained in a variety of ways. Some of these were more valid than others, but not necessarily "authentic " in the sense of reproducing a Baroque work, a High Renaissance work, or even a late 19th century Romantic opera with everything performed as it would have been at the time of its first performance. I heard arguments for the intentional mispronunciation of Latin in a work by a German composer because that's the way they would have pronounced it. People argued about whether one should slide the finger on the string in a Bach violin work or if it was ok to clean up the articulation by jumping up with the hand. This last was solved by someone noticing that the chin rest on the violin came into use later than the work in question and the risk of throwing an expensive violin on the floor was too great to contemplate. Some of the most sappy performances were encouraged by various ideas regarding "authenticity". It didn't take too long (say 20 years or so) for much of this to be tempered and more sane principles of performance practice have been adopted with the occasional lapse into the silliness that often reared its head in academic circles. The greatest sanity was offered by those who had real practical concerns to consider. I had a position for quite a while where the expense of hiring a chamber orchestra for a choral concert was much more expensive if I wanted to hire folks who played only period instruments. However, the balance between singers and voices could be retained by fewer modern instruments. Modern instruments were the only rational choice and I believe our balance was near that of the composer's intent. I am not an authority on Gregorian chant, but I agree that there are several valid schools of thought on this matter and one can only, as was said above, use those things that are reasonably useful for the situation and your personnel. These arguments wax and wane and often some good comes from them. In the trenches we need to keep our heads and create beauty in the best way we can.
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