Hodie: Pronunciation of (arch)ANgeli ?
  • probe
    Posts: 67
    We're preparing the Hodie Christus Natus Est for Christmas.

    As written, and sung the downward inflection on the 'ge' of 'An-GE-e-li' and 'Arch-an-GE-e-li' makes it sound uncomfortably to my English-speaking ears as if we're singing about jelly.
    Would it be a violation of a thousand years of practice to rephrase that as 'ca-a-nunt AN-ge-li' to put the stress on 'An'; and '-tur A-arch-AN-ge-li' similarly?
    It's not specifically mentioned in the Gregorian Musical Values PDF.

    Maybe I'm running into a question of Italianate Ecclesiastical Latin versus Classical Latin.
  • davido
    Posts: 1,156
    Text stress is on first syllable of Angeli. Musical stress is on the second syllable “ge.” The two stresses are in tension, which is one of the advertised features of Solesmes chant.
    I would teach my choir to be aware of the tension, but to sing into the text stress and de-emphasize the musical stress so as to not make it sound like they are putting the emPHAsis on the wrong sylLABle.
    Thanked by 4Chant_Supremacist Liam probe smvanroode
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,247
    Even if you’re not doing Solesmes (or rather Mocquereau in particular) I think that the above idea is a Very Bad Idea.
    Thanked by 1tomjaw
  • probe
    Posts: 67
    Thanks, @davido, I was not aware of that intentional tension. I'll do as you say.
    Although I should not be surprised, I'm currently setting a 19c. poem to a 20c. piano piece without doing too much damage to either and the word stresses can be a bit ... offbeat.
  • Chant_Supremacist
    Posts: 248
    I think of tension between word stress and musical stress as an artistic opportunity.

    I like davido's answer but personally I don't solve in favour of the word stress in every case.
  • SponsaChristi
    Posts: 616
    When I sing it I don’t hear anything about “jelly”. Perhaps this is more about how you’re singing your Latin vowels?
  • FSSPmusic
    Posts: 434
    The problem is that there is no way to know from the Vatican edition or the Liber Usualis that An- is notated with a cephalicus in the manuscript and should have the same duration as the pes of -ge-. If you're using the 1934 Antiphonale Monasticum or one of the newer (21st-century) Solesmes editions, you at least have a chance because you can tell that it's an "augmentative" (to use Cardine's terminology) unison cephalicus without referring to another edition, but the classic Solesmes method treats it as a short note, which cannot get the ictus as it precedes a two-note compound neume, and that would result in a syncopated compound beat. Of course all of that is 19th-century theory with no basis in the oldest sources.

    Here is my attempt at a literal version based on Hartker and the 2005 Antiphonale Monasticum I:

    image
    They use the B-flat throughout, even at the hodie before exsultent, so I have situated it as mode IX, Aeolian, since the characteristic raised sixth of the Dorian mode is absent. See also Jan van Biezen's edition. Although not an exact match, this recording by Cappella Romana is worth a listen.
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen OMagnumMysterium
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,247
    although there are examples of a final note of a compound beat with the episema, maybe in a ternary group only, in later Solesmes editions, so…

    As to the flat, I was told today that Daniel Saulnier's antiphonal (and I presume that it's a scan of his Antiphonale found at Gregobase, since the adiastematic neumes are written in) adds flats back to chants such as the O antiphons where Mocquereau et al. felt that they were later developments and had removed them in the monastic antiphonal of 1934, and so they are in the AM of the 2000s and in the modern AR as well. So although Saulnier is no longer here to explain things, and Solesmes has since seemingly moved away both from him and Cardine (in part, not in whole I would say…), I wonder if this is a peculiarity of Saulnier's interpretation more than anything.
  • FSSPmusic
    Posts: 434
    It looks like Dr. Schaefer's edition is the same except that for that one B-natural and the notes at Glo-.image
    Screenshot 2025-12-17 142222.png
    3055 x 1600 - 494K
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,247
    I am again reminded that in actual practice (and it is less obvious perhaps because the monastic editions sometimes deviate substantially from the Roman) you can essentially achieve this with a Solesmes edition, you just have to know what to do, slash by listening you get a sense of what has dots and episemata that maybe should have had different note heads instead, had Mocquereau gotten his way in 1906 instead of whoever decided on the notation of the official editions.

    Other than repercussions (which aren’t forbidden by Mocquereau, and I know Mocquereau followers who do them!) that chant is in the ballpark of what I would sing normally. The salicus is another matter, but Dr. Schaefer’s notation is also familiar at least (I really respect what Matthias Bry is doing with the new Nocturnale Romanum, but one could balk at the amount of new note forms in one shot.)

    Honestly if I had two wishes it would be the 1930s version of the Graduale Romanum from Solesmes in duplex form (SG) and then an original 1949 Liber antiphonarius also in duplex form. I’d be very happy to sing that way more consistently.
    Thanked by 1Andrew_Malton
  • FSSPmusic
    Posts: 434
    the 1930s version of the Graduale Romanum from Solesmes in duplex form (SG)
    You know about the Graduel neumé, right?
  • FSSPmusic
    Posts: 434
    And in case anyone wanted an even more literal version:
    image
    hodie_literal.jpg
    1279 x 709 - 326K
Add a Comment