Three Different Approaches to Gregorian Rhythm and How to Sing Them - Online with Dr. Charles Weaver
  • Jenny Donelson
    Posts: 309
    Catch the last topic of the Catholic Institute of Sacred Music's Fall Monday Online Workshop Series!

    Register here - live and archived access available.

    Three Different Approaches to Gregorian Rhythm and How to Sing Them
    Three Mondays: Nov. 9, 16, 23
    5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Pacific | 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Eastern
    with Dr. Charles Weaver

    Three ways to sing the Church's chant with beauty!

    Discover the Church's Gregorian chant with fresh ears by singing it according to different styles. The principles articulated by mensuralists, Dom André Mocquereau, and Dom Eugène Cardine will be presented.

    Ideal for musicians with prior experience singing Gregorian chant.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • Xopheros
    Posts: 192
    Out of curiosity: Are these the three styles called "La méthode de Solesmes", "La méthode neumatique", and "Comme du chant traditionnel" in this video?
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,879
    The first would be Mocquereau (Gajard) but note that Dr. Weaver has a lot to say about the naming conventions of (old/classical) Solesmes…the second seems to be what the rest of us call "semiology", perhaps unhelpfully, because modern mensuralism is semiological in nature, and Cardine's ideas about the neume don't emerge in a vacuum. The last is the Pères style, essentially, which Bruno de Labriolle uses himself.
    Thanked by 1Xopheros
  • Charles_Weaver
    Posts: 261
    @Xopheros, more or less yes to the first two, but as for mensuralism, I will present it more like how Patrick Williams does it, which is to say, it's basically a particular méthode neumatique that interprets the signs proportionally.

    To clarify the order, my plan is to go in the following order: Mocquereau, Cardine, mensuralism, since the last depends so much on the research style also advocated by semiologists.

    I was only able to do three methods, and of course there are others worth learning about.

    I have the following surprising anecdote to share. I'm currently teaching a medieval performance practice class for singers. I devoted a couple of classes to this, with most of the time spent on semiology. I then gave them some projects to do and found almost an even distribution among these three methods! I was very clearly not advocating Solesmes/Mocquereau as a viable historically informed performance practice that early music professionals should pursue. But some of them just still found it beautiful and practical and worth further study and effort.

    Anyway, i hope this online series will be of some interest!
    Thanked by 3CHGiffen tomjaw Xopheros
Add a Comment