Chant

Started by Mandryka, October 11, 2013, 07:14:51 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Artem

Quote from: HIPster on October 11, 2013, 11:16:58 AM
[asin]B00001NTI0[/asin]
I am a big fan of that disk.

Also i like this disk by Vox Silentii a lot featuring three female singers:

aligreto

I know next to nothing about Chant other than the fact that I do enjoy listening to it from time to time. The only contribution that I can make is this offering from the Tallis Scholars with a particular type of Chant....



XB-70 Valkyrie

#22
In addition to plainchant, this CD also includes early polyphonic forms such as conductus, organum, etc.--music attributed to Leonin and Perotin. However, it is very captivating and beautiful, especially with the vast acoustic of the church. I highly recommend:




If you really dislike Bach you keep quiet about it! - Andras Schiff

Drasko

There is a decent amount of uploads of full CDs of Greek monastic choirs of Mount Athos on youtube. Actuall CDs are generally difficult to find, and youtube sound is quite decent. These are all studio recordings I think.

Simonopetra
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AQThtMIUBM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdHUKmcOYbc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47KWgFoDVhU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjbhgXP2l_8

Vatopaidi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLBIG3EUHWs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyRNczwL2kA

Mandryka

#24


This 11th Century Christmas mass reconstruction by ensemble organum is turning into a favourite. It's very austere - OVPP I think, so max four voices, even in the monophonic chant, and  no instruments. But the polyphonic music is far from austere!

It was their second  album, the first one being Christmas music again, a century later, and this time from not from Paris but from Limoges



For some reason I just can't explain, this one has had less of an impact on me, apart from one song which is a real knockout - called O homo coruit.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Spineur

#25
In the orthodox liturgy, the use of musical instruments is forbidden.  There are two exceptions: the Armenian orthodox church tolerates a modest use of the organ and the the Ethiopian church uses drums.  Because of the absence of instruments, the chorus takes the role and this can lead to some pretty elaborate polyphony.  In some orthodox liturgies, there can be solo voices, giving the upper melodic line.  This is the case in the orthodox music from the adriatic (mostly Serbian) which I actually bought (see below).  The melodic line is without any vibrato and blends very well with the chorus.  In the recordings of St John Chrysostom liturgies that I have, this upper melodic line is absent, and the polyphony develops between the different choruses.  This is also the case in the examples posted by Draško.

Anyway Divna Ljudojevic voice is that of an angel and the work she has been doing with the Melodi and the dialogos ensembles is admirable.  Although it is religious,  this music is absolutely captivating, and when I am listening no other activities can induce any letdown of attention. Amazing.

He is a youtube portion of this CD.  Its really worth it
https://www.youtube.com/v/bXOGNYwSkSY

 


Mandryka

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

#27


Does this CD comtain music from The Winchester Troper? Is it true that the Winchester Troper contains the earliest known notated western vocal polyphony?

But then what about the polyphonic stuff here?

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Draško

Quote from: Mandryka on September 25, 2018, 01:17:58 AM


Does this CD comtain music from The Winchester Troper? Is it true that the Winchester Troper contains the earliest known notated western vocal polyphony?

But then what about the polyphonic stuff here?



Most likely because even though Old Roman Chant was probably in use since something like 6th century, and all Ordines Romani, d'Arezzo in Micrologus and treatise Summa Musice from 1200 say that the drone like organum (in a manner of Byzantine Ison, though Peres claims that it is possible that Ison came to Byzantines from Roman chant via Venice and its holdings in Greece) called in Summa Musice diaphona basilica was part of the Roman Chant tradition as early as 7th or 8th century there are just very few surviving sources, oldest manuscript of which is from 1071, which makes it younger than the Winchester Troper, dated at beginning of 11th century.

Mandryka

Peres on the history of chant from the Chants de l'eglise de Rome CD

QuoteA short historical summary: (2)
At the end of the eighth century, the Frankish kings began to become conscious of their role in protecting the papacy. Pippin the Short, followed by his son Charlemagne, realised that the importation of the Roman liturgy would be a fantastic tool for establishing their legitimacy and culturally unifying a vast and disparate empire. Moreover, in the eyes of the Carolingians, the chant of Rome seemed to be the best preserved musical monument of the Graeco-Latin culture which they wished to revive at all costs. Conscious of the disaster that the loss of the knowledge of the ancients would represent, Charlemagne surrounded himself with scholars and artists who collected what they could of the artistic and scientific remains of Antiquity and attempted to breathe new life into them. The music of Rome was one of the key implements of this Renaissance. The musical terminology elaborated in Carolingian learned circles borrowed numerous terms from Greek theory, which the Franks discovered through the intermediary of the Romans. Thus the Carolingians developed a sensation of being a living part of a certain form of culture whose expression, according to ancient tradition, was Greek. As a result they acquired a degree of legitimacy which buttressed them in their attempts to forge relations with Constantinople. However, it was necessary to adapt the Roman liturgy to the new liturgical preoccupations which took shape in the course of the ninth century. Successive reforms, and a certain crossbreeding with the old Gallican traditions, resulted in a transformation of the former Roman chant. From this emerged a new dialect known today as 'Gregorian chant'. This chant spread through the Western empire and returned to Rome around the end of the eleventh century, gradually taking the place of the older repertoire from which it was derived. Old Roman chant, whose origins dated back to before the sixth century, continued to exalt the papal liturgy at St Peter's and in the great Roman basilicas until the end of the thirteenth century. The installation of the papacy in Avignon dealt it a fatal blow, and all trace of it was lost in the early fourteenth century, when it ended up being supplanted by the chant now called 'Gregorian'. Like Milanese and Beneventan chant, the other two older Latin repertories, Old Roman chant is situated at the turning point between the music of Graeco-Latin antiquity and that of the Middle Ages. It testifies to a time when the Eastern and Western Churches communed in cultural and spiritual unity.


This programme illustrates the different musical genres in use in the Roman Mass. The chants known as Propers' are specific to a particular liturgical time. These are the Introit, the Gradual, the Alleluia, the Offertory, and the Communion. To these are added the chants known as 'Ordinary', here a Kyrie. The art of reading is illustrated by a Gospel sung in the manner still in force in the Eastern churches, whose tetrachordal musical structure is characteristic of ancient Greek music.


For this recording we have used the oldest Roman chant manuscript. It is dated 1071, and is today preserved in the extraordinary collection of the Fondation Martin Bodmer at Cologny (Geneva).(3)

One must imagine this music in the context of the great Roman liturgies of the first millennium. The glimmer of the candles which makes the colours of the mosaics flicker on the walls, ceiling and the floor of the basilicas, the movements and the static positions of the officiants, the long periods of silence. This music is founded on the art of cantillation, that is to say the act of proclamation and transmission of the sacred texts. On the most solemn feast days, the words were drawn out to extreme lengths so that the faithful might better absorb the meaning they convey. Through the magic of music, sung texts become icons. Time is deployed with sovereign slowness in order to give contemplation all the space it needs and allow consciousness genuinely to settle into the encounter with the Word. The use of the drone, the note held by the lower voices — a form of polyphonic chant then called basilical organum — confers on the sound a hieratic immanence in which time and space are united in a single vibrant truth.


Old Roman chant occupies a central position in the history of music. It is the keystone which gives meaning and coherence to what ought to be the musical consciousness of Western Europe and far beyond. For, looking back to the period before, it gives us the key to the filiation between the chant of the Temple of Jerusalem and the heritage of Greek music. Looking forward in time, it enables us to follow and understand the treasures of Koranic cantillation. Outside certain extremely restricted musicological circles, this repertory is today unknown to musicians, ecclesiastics, and the general public. Yet it offers us the oldest version of Graeco-Latin music of Late Antiquity, and represents the missing link between Byzantine, Coptic, Armenian, and Syrian chant, Arab music, and Western music.
Marcel Peres


Notes (1) The 'hours' referred to here correspond to the system practised in the ancient world. The day is divided into twelve hours, from sunrise to sunset, and the night is similarly divided into twelve hours. The duration of the hour varies each day according to the angle of inclination of the earth towards the sun. At the beginning of winter, the hours of night are much longer than the hours of day, while the reverse is true in summer.
(2) For more detailed account of the historiography of this repertory and the problems of musical interpretation, readers of French are directed to our two works published by Desclee de Brouwer in the series Texte et Voix': - Marcel Peres and Jacques Cheyronnaud, Les voix du Plain-chant (2001); - Marcel Peres and Xavier Lacavalerie, Le chant de in memoire, ensemble Organism 1982-2002 (2002). (3) Our three earlier recordings devoted to the chant of the Church of Rome (HMC 901218, HMC 901382, HMC 901604) used the Latin manuscript 5319 of the Vatican Library. Only five manuscripts of Old Roman chant have been preserved. Aside from that of the Fondation Martin Bodmer, which dates from the eleventh century, the others are from the twelfth century. In the thirteenth century the old liturgical chant books were burnt by the Franciscans, who imposed the Romano-Frankish breviary in the papal chapel.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

Quote from: Draško on September 25, 2018, 03:38:43 AM
Most likely because even though Old Roman Chant was probably in use since something like 6th century, and all Ordines Romani, d'Arezzo in Micrologus and treatise Summa Musice from 1200 say that the drone like organum (in a manner of Byzantine Ison, though Peres claims that it is possible that Ison came to Byzantines from Roman chant via Venice and its holdings in Greece) called in Summa Musice diaphona basilica was part of the Roman Chant tradition as early as 7th or 8th century there are just very few surviving sources, oldest manuscript of which is from 1071, which makes it younger than the Winchester Troper, dated at beginning of 11th century.

yes after I posted I read Peres's essay for the Chants de Rome CD where he mentions the 1071 manuscript.

What I'm really curious about is why in the Gregorian tradition as we know it, there's so little polyphonic singing, why it took so long for polyphony to become a part of the liturgy in the west. In that essay I just posted Peres says something quite interesting which is maybe helping me to understand what's going on in chant, viz

QuoteThis music is founded on the art of cantillation, that is to say the act of proclamation and transmission of the sacred texts. On the most solemn feast days, the words were drawn out to extreme lengths so that the faithful might better absorb the meaning they convey. Through the magic of music, sung texts become icons. Time is deployed with sovereign slowness in order to give contemplation all the space it needs and allow consciousness genuinely to settle into the encounter with the Word. The use of the drone, the note held by the lower voices — a form of polyphonic chant then called basilical organum — confers on the sound a hieratic immanence in which time and space are united in a single vibrant truth.



what is "hieratic immanence"?
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Draško

#31
Quote from: Mandryka on September 25, 2018, 03:57:47 AM
What I'm really curious about is why in the Gregorian tradition as we know it, there's so little polyphonic singing, why it took so long for polyphony to become a part of the liturgy in the west.

Catholic church is highly codified institution. I'm pretty sure you can find in church histories exactly when and whyfore.

In the east it's still monophonic, Ison is not considered to be a polyphony.

Quotewhat is "hieratic immanence"?

Not sure, especially in that context.

XB-70 Valkyrie

#32
Quote from: Spineur on April 16, 2016, 11:26:52 AM
In the orthodox liturgy, the use of musical instruments is forbidden.  There are two exceptions: the Armenian orthodox church tolerates a modest use of the organ and the the Ethiopian church uses drums. ...



Curious fact: The orthodox church of Los Angeles allows for guns fired into the air as well as accompaniment by 20" subwoofer (playing a single tone = 60 Hz). Both guns and subwoofers are difficult to maintain here due to the hideous air pollution, but that is alleviated by additional violence, carjackings, and other forms of stealing.

ANYWHOOOOO, a question:

In various chant recordings, including the Leonin and Perotin I posted above, I regularly hear women and/or high-piched voices singing. Is this historically authentic? I imagine it is because mostly my chant recordings are fairly recent (within last 20 years). In historical times, were these higher voices boys? castrati? women???
If you really dislike Bach you keep quiet about it! - Andras Schiff

Mandryka

#33
As far as I know there's no indication of absolute pitch in any of the manuscripts of Gregorian chant.

Women would sing in convents, much of the music was written for convents, Abelard wrote for Héloïse's order, Hildegard wrote for her community. I don't believe that women would have sung in Notre Dame in Paris, but they may have sung Notre Dame music in their own abbatiale.

No boys as far as I know, or castrated men.

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Biffo

Quote from: Mandryka on September 26, 2018, 08:35:40 PM
As far as I know there's no indication of absolute pitch in any of the manuscripts of Gregorian chant.

Women would sing in convents, much of the music was written for convents, Abelard wrote for Héloïse's order, Hildegard wrote for her community. I don't believe that women would have sung in Notre Dame in Paris, but they may have sung Notre Dame music in their own abbatiale.

No boys as far as I know, or castrated men.

Boys entered choir schools at the age of 7 and plainchant was the first thing they learned. Some choir schools are very old; the Regensburger Domspatzen founded in 975 is the oldest I know that is still active. When he was in residence at the Escorial, Philip II had the boys of the monastery choir sing mass for him every morning. Plainchant has been sung continuously right down to the present day and certainly in the 1950s when I sang it.

Castration of boys was forbidden by canon law and castrati were forbidden from singing in church until one of the renaissance popes changed the law so he could have them sing in the Sistine chapel. The practice of using castrati in church wasn't widespread, possibly not at all outside Rome but I don't know enough about it to say for certain.

Mandryka

Quote from: Biffo on September 27, 2018, 01:02:12 AM
Boys entered choir schools at the age of 7 and plainchant was the first thing they learned. Some choir schools are very old; the Regensburger Domspatzen founded in 975 is the oldest I know that is still active. When he was in residence at the Escorial, Philip II had the boys of the monastery choir sing mass for him every morning. Plainchant has been sung continuously right down to the present day and certainly in the 1950s when I sang it.



Thanks.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

#36


Does anyone know the dates of the music on this CD -- I don't have the booklet, I'm listening to it on streaming. It contains some ecstatic chants. I can see from the back of the CD that the manuscript is C16 -- am I to conclude that the music is C 16? Worth hearing.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Biffo

Quote from: Mandryka on September 27, 2018, 06:26:17 AM


Does anyone know the dates of the music on this CD -- I don't have the booklet, I'm listening to it on streaming. It contains some ecstatic chants. I can see from the back of the CD that the manuscript is C16 -- am I to conclude that the music is C 16? Worth hearing.

This link is to an article about the manuscript, it has a short film embedded. Unfortunately it concentrates on the Antiphonal itself and says very little about the actual music - http://www.smu.ca/academics/archives/the-salzinnes-antiphonal.html

There are quite a few online articles but most seem to concentrate on the Antiphonal as a work of art and historically important artefact. The best I could glean was that the music is from 1550-75.


Mandryka

Quote from: Biffo on September 27, 2018, 06:44:22 AM
This link is to an article about the manuscript, it has a short film embedded. Unfortunately it concentrates on the Antiphonal itself and says very little about the actual music - http://www.smu.ca/academics/archives/the-salzinnes-antiphonal.html

There are quite a few online articles but most seem to concentrate on the Antiphonal as a work of art and historically important artefact. The best I could glean was that the music is from 1550-75.

Yes I had a search as well and came to the same results, I'm sure that some of it is C16, but some of it makes me think of earlier music, of Hildegard, but my response is very naive and informal.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Biffo

#39
Quote from: Mandryka on September 27, 2018, 07:44:27 AM
Yes I had a search as well and came to the same results, I'm sure that some of it is C16, but some of it makes me think of earlier music, of Hildegard, but my response is very naive and informal.

The abbey was founded in 1196-97 so perhaps the Antiphonal is a compendium of existing manuscripts, some of them quite old. It is frustrating that there is so little information on the actual music. I will have to see if I can find some to listen to though I can't say I am more knowledgeable than you.

Edit: I have found the album on Spotify. A brief listen indicates that it is all chant and so would sound archaic compared to the contemporary polyphony - still no idea when it was actually written. Will listen to some more tomorrow.