Chant

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

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

San Antone

#80
Below are some comments from Jerome F. Weber, the former early music specialist at Fanfare.  Weber is a chant scholar, and since Mary Berry is no longer with us, I trust his expertise more than any other living authority.

I emailed him some of your comments and Peres quotes and below are excerpts from his responses.

QuoteIt is easy to pontificate about a subject like ornamentation of chant in the 8th century. There is no documentary evidence whatsoever, one way or the other, so conclusions must be drawn from other evidence, like neumatic notation.

QuoteThe first reference to three Graduals (not the two Antiphoners, however)  from Rome was published in Paleographie Musicale 2 (p.5 fn) by Dom Mocquereau, who could not explain their differences from all other chant MSS. Contrary to your friend's remark, there was no discussion whatsoever at the time. Apart from one article in 1911 by Dom Andoyer in Revue du chant gregorien, which led nowhere, the first discussion of Old Roman chant was begun by Staeblein in 1950, which led to a decade of intense controversy. After a consensus was reached, more or less, it remains only to choose whether one thinks Old Roman chant (witnessed by five late MSS dated between 1071 and 1300 that were the result of several centuries of oral transmission) or Frankish/Gregorian chant (edited to an unknown degree by Frankish scribes from the Roman chant that they were taught at the end of the 8c., mingling to some degree the surviving Gallican chants such as St. Martin) more closely represents the 8c. Roman chant.

Chant developed in East and West independently, although there was some influence from the East and even a string of Greek and Syrian popes in this time (7-8c.). You must study the liturgies of East and West to realize how independently they developed from antiquity, for all chant is merely the embellished texts of the liturgy.

QuoteMary Berry wrote a masterly diss. on the "The Performance of Plainsong in the Later Middle Ages and the Sixteenth Century" (I read it at Catholic U.) which shows clearly both the state of the chants (melismas truncated, etc.) and the style of singing (more slow as the feast is more solemn). Peres adopts her slow tempos consistently. Peres was totally self-taught after arriving in Marseilles from Algeria. His early studies were at the organ. He has since pursued some study but only after making the first series of recordings for Harmonia Mundi. His first recording was Old Roman chant with the participation of Angelopoulos, a cantor from Athens. As he moved on to every other form of chant as far removed as neo-Gallican (17c.), he retained this cantor and applied the notion of ison singing that they used in OR chant to every other kind of chant, however baseless. I pointed out that, even in the East, there is no documentation of ison singing before the 14c. I picked his records apart in Fanfare regularly, leading Bernard Sherman in Inside Early Music (1997), p. 41, to cite my "persistent" criticism of Peres for "no scholarly basis."

QuoteThe medieval MSS were recognized in France as early as 1811, when the question of restoring public worship after a decade (1794-1804) of the Revolution arose: back to the neo-Gallican that had been used since from c.1640 to 1789 or a return to Roman liturgy (now that Ultramontanism was no longer a bad word). (The answer was neither.) The discovery of Montpellier H. 159 with its alphabetical (hence decipherable) notation in 1847 and the publication of the Reims-Cambrai Gradual in 1852 were among the parallel developments that accompanied Gueranger's work on chant that could be sung at Solesmes, the sole original purpose of his work. Dom Jausions and Dom Pothier studied medieval MSS from the 1850s. The Congress of Arezzo endorsed the Solesmes edition in 1882, and the seminarians at Santa Chiara in Rome embraced his work enthusiastically in 1890, a backdoor to the Roman authorities beginning with the conversion of Fr. de Santi to their cause. Pothier and Mocquereau, in their divergent ways, had no intention other than to restore the chant of the 10c. MSS for use in the liturgy.

I am done discussing this since you appear to be relying entirely on Peres' ideas, which I had thought were questionable, a conclusion endorsed by J.F. Weber.

While I enjoy Peres' recordings, as I do with Bjorn Schmelzer, I also understand them as personal interpretations, with little or no historical/musicological underpinning.

Merely because something is enjoyable does not also mean that it is historically accurate.  But what galled me the most about the Peres quotes you have posted is his (what I consider) unwarranted attack on the Solesmes performance of chant.

Mandryka

#81
Quote from: San Antone on May 25, 2019, 05:15:59 PM

But what galled me the most about the Peres quotes you have posted is his (what I consider) unwarranted attack on the Solesmes performance of chant.

He is indeed attacking Solsemes,  though I'm not at all convinced that the attack is unwarranted. That's what I want to explore.

When you  say that Peres ideas have little or no historical underpinning, which  ones do you have in mind? Can you make a list so that we can look at them?

Can you list the Solesmes ideas which you think Peres attacked in an unwarranted way for me?

Quote from: San Antone on May 25, 2019, 05:15:59 PM


While I enjoy Peres' recordings, as I do with Bjorn Schmelzer, I also understand them as personal interpretations, with little or no historical/musicological underpinning.

As it is I don't know exactly what I have to address. With this sort of thing, it's really important to be specific.

Maybe Weber would like to enrol here so we could talk directly rather than through you.


I feel rather differently. I enjoy parts of some of Mary Berry's recordings.  I also understand them as personal interpretations, with little or no historical/musicological underpinning.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

Sometimes you hear the word machicotage for the French practice of ornamenting chant. Bjorn Schmelzer says this about it, which I think puts him into the camp of those who think that the approach of the Solesnes people is unsatisfactory as an expression of authentic chant  style, maybe unsatisfactory as a way of making music too.

QuoteMachicotage is an anachronism, a living leftover which remains obliquely in its own time, a surviving element which one no longer knows what to do with. Machicotage is a practice, a savoir-faire of Parisian singers that worked until the 19th century but didn't survive the Gregorian reform. Machicotage is above all a fold in the current of time of oral, operative practices: historical, musicological research can never be solely hermeneutic because the written source is only a (small) factor in the big picture of influences and practices: a similar research progresses via a comparative, interdisciplinary and historical-anthropological way. Machicotage is above all a symptom: of the infamy and complexities of the history of music, and of the diversity of execution practices.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

#83


Mary Berry says this about chant and authenticity.


Quote from: Mary Berry in "Plainchant for Everyone"Alternatim

Another whole area of adventurous chanting is the field of alternatim — the reconstruction of polyphonic or organ music involving the alternation of sections of chant with sections of measured music. If your choir is used to singing Renaissance music, search out some of the hymn settings by composers such as Tallis or Palestrina, and sing the alternate verses using the chant of the period. For you must remember that the style of chant performance in the sixteenth century was entirely different from the way in which the chant is usually sung today. By and large, singers today are all attempting to reproduce what they think the chant would have sounded like when notation first appeared: roughly, in what they consider to have been the style of the tenth century. The evidence seems to show that in the tenth century, when the chant was still a living oral tradition, it was sung quite fast, with lightness and delicacy and rhythmic variety. Over the centuries, however, the tempo had become progressively slower, so that if you want to give a really authentic performance of a Palestrina or Tallis hymn-setting, the chant sections will have to be sung in slow, equal notes, very firmly and deliberately. The result, far from being boring, is astonishingly splendid and very moving. It is a marvellous experience to sing it in this way, and it is not difficult to involve the whole congregation in the singing of these sections.

The same principle of authenticity applies if your choir is called upon to sing the chant sections in a performance of a seventeenth century organ mass, such as Couperin's `Messe pour les paroisses'. It would be a complete anachronism to sing the chant sections in these performances as if your choir was Solesmes under Dom Gajard. Each note of the chant should really be sung about as slowly as one bar of the music, and there would be a semi-metrical interpretation of certain words, particularly the dactyls. Incredible! Yes, but extremely effective and moving in performance. That sort of reconstruction requires a great deal of homework, but the standards of authenticity in performance are now such that we cannot get away with howling anachronisms in liturgical music. Ideally, too, these works should be performed in their liturgical context.


I think she would have wholeheartedly approved of Schmelzer's attempts to reconstruct machicotage in the antiphons in his recording of the Missa Caput, unless she is, for whatever reasons, firmly opposed to taking into account of oral traditions in making judgements about chant style. Such a shame that we don't know her reasons for saying that 10th century chant was light, fast and rhythmically varied; or that 16th century singing was slow and deliberate. I can't even begin to imagine where she gets this sort of idea from in fact. Maybe someone else here knows. Or maybe she's just pontificating.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

San Antone

"Alternatim" has nothing to do with ornamenting chant.  It is a style, most commonly found during the late Renaissance and refers to alternating mass sections with other instrumental music, most commonly organ. Palestrina was commissioned to write nine masses for a Mantuan Duke (I believe that was his title) specifically to be performed alternatim, with organ.  BTW, Sergio Vartolo has recorded all nine of Palestrina's Messe Mantovane in excellent performances with soliosts of Cappella Musicale di San Petronio.

Mandryka

#85
I've not read this, but it looks like it's going to be interesting on expressiveness in the Solesmes paradigm

https://media.musicasacra.com/books/gregorianmusicalvalues_desrocquettes.pdf

maybe this too -- again I have hardly done more than skim it

https://media.musicasacra.com/pdf/ward5.pdf
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

#86
Quote from: San Antone on May 26, 2019, 05:12:34 PM
It is a style, most commonly found during the late Renaissance and refers to alternating mass sections with other instrumental music, most commonly organ.

Yes but my point was one of style. Berry's suggesting that instead of organ in alternatim in a hymn, you chant in an appropriate style. And my point was that she's approve, logically, of Schmelzer using machicotage for the antiphons on that Ockeghem mass.

Re Berry, can you try to get hold of a copy of her "The Performance of Plainsong in the Later Middle Ages and the Sixteenth Century" for me? And have you read this (I haven't)

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

#87
This recording is worth hearing, the singers Ordo Virtutum have made a few interesting recordings of rare stuff

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

San Antone

#88
Quote from: Mandryka on May 26, 2019, 10:29:29 PM
Yes but my point was one of style. Berry's suggesting that instead of organ in alternatim in a hymn, you chant in an appropriate style. And my point was that she's approve, logically, of Schmelzer using machicotage for the antiphons on that Ockeghem mass.

Re Berry, can you try to get hold of a copy of her "The Performance of Plainsong in the Later Middle Ages and the Sixteenth Century" for me? And have you read this (I haven't)



I have that book pictured above, and read it last year and much of it is found on the Solesmes website.  I have the Willi Apel book, as well as two other smaller ones, on the performance of chant and reading the notation. I don't have the other book by Mary Berry you ask about (it is available from Jstor), but I am less interested in that aspect and more interested in chant from the 9th-11th centuries, prior to the development of polyphony, since I feel that chant was compromised from the influence of polyphony.

I am confused what is motivating your apparent need to prove the validity of Schmelzer and Peres's approaches to performance of early music, specifically chant.  There is no need to do that; as obviously gifted musicians their ideas about interpretation and the groups they assemble and the music they create are wonderful.  Whether they represent how music was performed in the 11th - 16th centuries is irrelevant, IMO.  I enjoy their work in the 21st century, and that is enough for me.

For the record, I reject both men's arguments about the authenticity of their performance; and do not think a scholar like Mary Berry would place their approach to the performance of chant above that of the Abbey of Solesmes.

Mandryka

#89
Quote from: San Antone on May 27, 2019, 02:59:23 AM
I have that book pictured above, and read it last year and much of it is found on the Solesmes website.  I have the Willi Apel book, as well as two other smaller ones, on the performance of chant and reading the notation. I don't have the other book by Mary Berry you ask about (it is available from Jstor), but I am less interested in that aspect and more interested in chant from the 9th-11th centuries, prior to the development of polyphony, since I feel that chant was compromised from the influence of polyphony.

I am confused what is motivating your apparent need to prove the validity of Schmelzer and Peres's approaches to performance of early music, specifically chant.  There is no need to do that; as obviously gifted musicians their ideas about interpretation and the groups they assemble and the music they create are wonderful.  Whether they represent how music was performed in the 11th - 16th centuries is irrelevant, IMO.  I enjoy their work in the 21st century, and that is enough for me.

For the record, I reject both men's arguments about the authenticity of their performance; and do not think a scholar like Mary Berry would place their approach to the performance of chant above that of the Abbey of Solesmes.

Let me explain why this has caught my imagination, though it's a bit convoluted maybe.

I started my working life as a philosopher at Oxford, and there one of the things I was interested in was the way that certain scientific paradigms become entrenched in the establishment's way of looking at the world, so that it becomes very difficult to dislodge them, even when better theories become available.

I'm interested in exploring whether the same thing happens in music.

All this puts too serious a slant on it, it's many many years since I was part of a university milieu, and I'm at best a dabbler now. However once a philosopher, always a philosopher! 

There's another reason actually, Peres' book is good to read! Passionate. If you can read French I recommend it to you enthusiastically, even if you're predisposed to disagree with the conclusions.

There's a third thing I'd like to mention, which is a big question, too big and vapid maybe. In my head I have a nagging voice, the devil's, which keeps whispering "the Solesmes way isn't very poetically satisfying, the Solesmes way isn't very poetically satisfying, the Solesmes way isn't very poetically satisfying, the Solesmes way isn't very poetically satisfying."
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

San Antone

Quote from: Mandryka on May 27, 2019, 04:10:16 AM
Let me explain why this has caught my imagination, though it's a bit convoluted maybe.

I started my working life as a philosopher at Oxford, and there one of the things I was interested in was the way that certain scientific paradigms become entrenched in the establishment's way of looking at the world, so that it becomes very difficult to dislodge them, even when better theories become available.

I'm interested in exploring whether the same thing happens in music.

All this puts too serious a slant on it, it's many many years since I was part of a university milieu, and I'm at best a dabbler now. However once a philosopher, always a philosopher! 

There's another reason actually, Peres' book is good to read! Passionate. If you can read French I recommend it to you enthusiastically, even if you're predisposed to disagree with the conclusions.

There's a third thing I'd like to mention, which is a big question, too big and vapid maybe. In my head I have a nagging voice, the devil's, which keeps whispering "the Solesmes way isn't very poetically satisfying, the Solesmes way isn't very poetically satisfying, the Solesmes way isn't very poetically satisfying, the Solesmes way isn't very poetically satisfying."

I don't think it is either/or, i.e. both things occur: the tradition of chant performance is maintained and new interpretations/approaches come along by creative musicians.  I feel just the opposite as you regarding the monks of Solesmes.  "Poetic", "inspiring", "spiritual" and most importantly without ego are exactly the words I would use to describe their chant recordings, and how I think chant ought to be performed. 

jf

I have to comment on a few points noticed in this thread in the last couple of days. Writers who cannot spell "Solesmes" show how unfamiliar they are with the whole field of chant studies. Peres and Schmelzer, two of the most individualistic interpreters of chant on record, are cited as models while Mary Berry's deep and lifelong background in chant study, teaching and directing, is described as "individualistic." Her diss. is not published or online, but at the time she was completing it she wrote a summary article for the Proceedings of the RMA, and that may be on Jstor, although a quick search didn't turn it up. Keith W. cites beaufort.demon.co.uk for chant discography, a convenient way to see a brief list of some good recordings, but chantdiscography.com has 37,000 recorded chants, where a search on a single incipit will tend to show the more important versions first and the least important last. Drasko's description of the Peres repertoire as "pre-Gregorian" ignores many much later types of chant such as neo-Gallican chant from the 17c. (two CDs). How he sang Roman chant (with the ison) because of the situation in 7c. Rome is extended to every other rite, no matter how far removed from Greece and Rome or from the 7c. Mandryka's description of "Christians in Milan [singing] in an Easter way" is hardly a valid way to distinguish one Western rite from another. Summing up everything in a few words is the typical fault in this thread. Mandryka ventures to deny the role of boys in liturgical singing. (Biffo corrected him.) Boys were part of the Schola Cantorum in Rome from the earliest existence of that body, and their liturgical function of singing the psalm-response at Mass is cited by St. Augustine (d. 430) in Sermon 352:"He from his boyish heart ordered what he thought would be useful for you to hear" (that is, the celebrant did not choose the psalm for him to sing). Boys had the time to study in preparation for the daily cycle of chants.

San Antone

Quote from: jf on May 27, 2019, 12:43:58 PM
I have to comment on a few points noticed in this thread in the last couple of days. Writers who cannot spell "Solesmes" show how unfamiliar they are with the whole field of chant studies. Peres and Schmelzer, two of the most individualistic interpreters of chant on record, are cited as models while Mary Berry's deep and lifelong background in chant study, teaching and directing, is described as "individualistic." Her diss. is not published or online, but at the time she was completing it she wrote a summary article for the Proceedings of the RMA, and that may be on Jstor, although a quick search didn't turn it up. Keith W. cites beaufort.demon.co.uk for chant discography, a convenient way to see a brief list of some good recordings, but chantdiscography.com has 37,000 recorded chants, where a search on a single incipit will tend to show the more important versions first and the least important last. Drasko's description of the Peres repertoire as "pre-Gregorian" ignores many much later types of chant such as neo-Gallican chant from the 17c. (two CDs). How he sang Roman chant (with the ison) because of the situation in 7c. Rome is extended to every other rite, no matter how far removed from Greece and Rome or from the 7c. Mandryka's description of "Christians in Milan [singing] in an Easter way" is hardly a valid way to distinguish one Western rite from another. Summing up everything in a few words is the typical fault in this thread. Mandryka ventures to deny the role of boys in liturgical singing. (Biffo corrected him.) Boys were part of the Schola Cantorum in Rome from the earliest existence of that body, and their liturgical function of singing the psalm-response at Mass is cited by St. Augustine (d. 430) in Sermon 352:"He from his boyish heart ordered what he thought would be useful for you to hear" (that is, the celebrant did not choose the psalm for him to sing). Boys had the time to study in preparation for the daily cycle of chants.

Thank you for providing some desperately needed context to the discussion.  I sincerely hope you continue to contribute to the thread.

Mandryka

#93
Quote from: jf on May 27, 2019, 12:43:58 PM
I have to comment on a few points noticed in this thread in the last couple of days. Writers who cannot spell "Solesmes" show how unfamiliar they are with the whole field of chant studies. Peres and Schmelzer, two of the most individualistic interpreters of chant on record, are cited as models while Mary Berry's deep and lifelong background in chant study, teaching and directing, is described as "individualistic." Her diss. is not published or online, but at the time she was completing it she wrote a summary article for the Proceedings of the RMA, and that may be on Jstor, although a quick search didn't turn it up. Keith W. cites beaufort.demon.co.uk for chant discography, a convenient way to see a brief list of some good recordings, but chantdiscography.com has 37,000 recorded chants, where a search on a single incipit will tend to show the more important versions first and the least important last. Drasko's description of the Peres repertoire as "pre-Gregorian" ignores many much later types of chant such as neo-Gallican chant from the 17c. (two CDs). How he sang Roman chant (with the ison) because of the situation in 7c. Rome is extended to every other rite, no matter how far removed from Greece and Rome or from the 7c. Mandryka's description of "Christians in Milan [singing] in an Easter way" is hardly a valid way to distinguish one Western rite from another. Summing up everything in a few words is the typical fault in this thread. Mandryka ventures to deny the role of boys in liturgical singing. (Biffo corrected him.) Boys were part of the Schola Cantorum in Rome from the earliest existence of that body, and their liturgical function of singing the psalm-response at Mass is cited by St. Augustine (d. 430) in Sermon 352:"He from his boyish heart ordered what he thought would be useful for you to hear" (that is, the celebrant did not choose the psalm for him to sing). Boys had the time to study in preparation for the daily cycle of chants.

Welcome Jerome! And what a lovely surprise to find your interesting post this morning.

I hope you don't mind if I jump straight in and ask you a question which, as a result of reading Peres's book, I've become interested in.

How did the people at Solesmes arrive at their conclusions? If you can recommend something to read -  something I can get hold of - I'd be very grateful. What I would especially like is something which covers some details about the  historical method, the processes,  which underlay their work, rather than a summary of their conclusions or a manual on how to sing in their style.


Peres argues that the Solesmes approach is a historical aberration; yet it still seems to be quite entrenched in some chant cultures, maybe I'm wrong to think that, and it's not such a dominant approach any more. I find that quite interesting, that's why I want to understand the Solesmes ideology a bit better. It's ironic that you say that Peres's approach has no scholarly basis and Peres says that the Solesmes approach has no scholarly basis. And Peres seems to have convinced the Royaumont Foundation too! Go figure. 

Such a shame that it's hard to find out more about Mary Berry's ideas. I know she was at a Cambridge college, so it's surprising that she didn't publish more, or that there aren't publications about her. Maybe she had more of a performance and admin role than a research role, I don't know.  I don't own any of her recordings (I listen to them through a streaming service) so I don't know if she contributed interesting booklet essays for them.

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

#94
Quote from: San Antone on May 25, 2019, 05:15:59 PM
Below are some comments from Jerome F. Weber, the former early music specialist at Fanfare.  Weber is a chant scholar, and since Mary Berry is no longer with us, I trust his expertise more than any other living authority.

I emailed him some of your comments and Peres quotes and below are excerpts from his responses.

QuotePeres was totally self-taught after arriving in Marseilles from Algeria. His early studies were at the organ. He has since pursued some study but only after making the first series of recordings for Harmonia Mundi.

Just a quick note on this remark of Jerome's because, by coincidence, I just saw it  discussed in Peres's other book, Le chant de la mémoire. He says that prior to 1984 he had followed courses with Michel Huglo at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique Michel Huglo is  (or rather was) a musicologist specialising in early music, interestingly enough a former Solesmes man. Here's an obituary (sorry, it's full of conversion errors, but it's readable I think.)

Did Peres really record anything for Harmonia Mundi before 1984? I'm not sure what.




QuoteMASNE DE LHERMONT.
t MICHEL Hugo (1921-2012). — Avec le décès de Michel Huglo, survenu à Washing-ton k 13 mai dernier, k monde de k musicologie médiévale perd l'un de ses plus grands savants. Né à Lille en 1921, Michel Huglo devient moine de l'abbaye Sain, Pierre de Solesmes, où il étudie la philosophie et la théologie tout en travaillant à l'ate-lier de paléographie musicale. C'est pendant ces années que se développent ses capaci-tés d'observation et de critique des sources et la rigueur de sa méthode de travail. Aux côtés des plus grands noms de la musicologie solesmienne - dom Eugène Cardin, dom René-Jean Hesbert, dom Jacques Froger, dom Jean Claire, dom Pierre Combe et dom Jacques Hourlier - il prépare l'édition du deuxième volume du Graduel romain, consacré à l'étude des sources musicales. Après avoir renoncé à la vie religieuse, M. Huglo entre au Centre national de la recherche scientifique et crée la Section de musicologie de l'Institut de recherche et d'histoire des textes. Il obtient le titre de docteur de recherche à l'université Paris-IV et soutient son doctorat d'État à l'université Paris-X-Nanterre. Il mène un imposant tra-vail sur les tonaires, qu'il publie en 1971, et produit en même temps un grand nombre de contributions portant aussi bien sur les traités musicaux que sur les tropes, les séquences, les chants ambrosien, vieux-romain, gallican et mozarabe, la polyphonie ancienne, la morphologie des nomes et la pratique de l'enseignement de la musique au Moyen Âge. Il suffit de jeter un coup d'oeil sur sa bibliographie pour mesurer l'éten-due de son domaine de recherche et l'importance de ses études, non seulement pour les savants, mais également pour les étudiants en musicologie médiévale. Tout au long de sa carrière, en effet, il consacre beaucoup de temps à la formation de dizaines de chercheurs, notamment à l'École pratique des hautes études où il enseigne la paléographie et l'histoire de la musique médiévale, ainsi qu'à l'université libre de Bruxelles. Plusieurs universités étrangères l'invitent aussi à animer des séminaires de musicologie. Établi aux États-Unis après son départ en retraite, il reçoit en 1991 k doctorat honoris causa de l'université de Chicago, et à partir de 2000 il est professeur à l'université du Maryland. En évoquant l'activité de ce grand chercheur, on ne saurait omettre les précieux volumes du Répertoire international des sources musicales qu'on lui doit k réper-toire des processionnaux (RISM B XIV 1-2), qui recense plus de 1 500 manuscrits, et k répertoire des sources de la théorie musicale (RISM B III 3-4). Le chemin tracé par Michel Huglo, qui a énormément enrichi l'histoire de la musicologie, de la paléogra-phie et de la liturgie, est d'une importance fondamentale pour les chercheurs d'au-jourd'hui; mais avec k savant, la communauté scientifique perd aussi un collègue d'une grande humanité et d'une immense générosité. — Laura ALBIERO.

By the way I dug out this very entertaining recording today, if you don't know it you're missing something passionate

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

#95
Anne Marie Deschamps was an inspiration to the young Marcel Peres, so I'm going to explore what she does and what she thinks about chanting, starting with this CD.



Here's her ethought provoking essay on the music in the CD

QuoteThe eternal chant from cistercian abbeys

The cistercians, known amongst other things for the abbeys they built, attached great spiritual importance to listening. In making their prayer and orison as rich and sumptuous as possible, they were in fact trying to reach new heights of spirituality, though they still tried to keep a certain simplicity of form.
In the 12th century, Saint Bernard wrote the following text to present the service he had composed in honour of Saint Victor:
"If one sings, let it be a song of the utmost gravity, with no place for timidity or vulgarity! And may its sweetness, may it be pleasing to ear and touching to the heart, may it ease sadness, calm anger and rather than lose the meaning of the words, may it reveal them in all the fullness and depth of their beauty".

Saint Bernard has not written about architecture; however, Cistercian architecture still remains a vivid symbol of beauty. It was created by his thought, faith, and rigor, and given form in stone by geometers.
Throughout the century of Saint Bernard's life, Europe was full Cistercian abbeys and priories that were built up in a system of square stones with vaults made in the image of the "vault of heaven" (Abélard), capable of communing with the palatal vault of the singer. The bare stone, treated in such a way, is capable of realizing the harmonics of the voice which glorify the stone and at the same time create a resonant environment for the listener, which is still a subject of wonder for acousticians as well as for architects and physicians.
Saint Bernard wrote a great deal on the importance of hearing, and we could have expected the Cistercians to be a creative musically as they were architecturally. However, reforms in the Cistercian liturgical music were inspired by the desire to return to certain sources which, at that time, were not very well known. Therefore, as they were based on ideological principles rather than musical ones, such reforms remained within the walls of the Cistercian abbeys, and did not influence the development of music, which was undergoing a great evolution at that time.
Nevertheless, in spite of all this, an intense musical life built up around Bernard de Clairvaux, and was influenced by is writings, his vigour and his impetus: there were admirers' or detractors' works in Germany, in England, in Spain, in Italy, as well as in France. Celestial help, love, and light responded throughout Europe to the cantor of Notre Dame, through musicians who often wrote liturgies, and whose amazing musical creations demanded to be revived and "invented".
Inspired by the visions of poet-theologians of the same period as Saint Bernard. "L'Ensemble Venance Fortunat" celebrates the "Angels and the Light" (CD 1), chosen from the favourite themes of the contemplations of St Bernard and his entourage. After the introduction, the programme includes nine parts set within nine Alleluia (the angelic cry: praise to Yaveh) with in the middle, a Kyrie in nine parts. Nine is usually the sign and symbol of the celestial hierarchies.

For a long time it was thought that polyphony had been abandoned for ever in Cistercian chant, first in its reformed version by Etienne Harding, then in the form given it by Bernard de Clairvaux. But a mention in the margin of a Cistercian manuscript in the library at Fribourg shows that the art of polyphonic chant by sight reading from the book (i.e. improvised according to a very precise set of rules) had in fact remained quite usual practice.

The manuscripts of several monasteries reveal some astoundingly beautiful polyphonies. Could this be due to the influence of the 14th c. Cistercian monk Pierre de Picardie, a musical theoretician? These manuscripts come from various European libraries which proves they were not just a local phenomenon. In Oxford, for example, there is a manuscript from Hauteriv Abbey in Switzerland, others are to be found in Fribourg, Lucerne and Las Huelgas, near Burgos in Spain. Two of these manuscripts – the one in Fribourg that comes from Maingrauge Abbey, and the Las huelgas manuscript – were written in the scriptorium of a Cistercian nunnery.
During the 14th century, the same train of thought regarding liturgical chant was being explored by three different theoreticians, with only a few years' interval between each : Jacques de Liège, Pierre de Picardie and Pope John XXII. Their aim and guiding principle was restitution of the vocal parts and the importance of presenting the whole text, whilst the notion of a tempo not broken up into equal parts also became prevalent. This was all happening just at the time when virtuosity of composition and the division of time were moving towards the idea of metre and intermittence (later to become the distinguishing characteristic of the Ars subtilior); but such notions did not fit in easily with the liturgical nature and content of plainchant.

All the pieces on the programme of the CD 2 come from the Cistercian repertory that evolved thanks to the researchers of the 12th to 14th centuries. They are arranged around the Dedicatory Mass of ms. n° 17328 in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris (12th c.) (echoing the Clairvaux Dedicatory mass from ms. n° 907 from the Bibliothèque Municipale in Troyes, unfortunately without musical notation). The polyphonies come from Oxford, Fribourg and Las Huelgas, and the monodies from Paris, Troyes, Oxford, Milan and Bruges.

These "mystic chants" are the expression of a certain experience of time and space. Just as Saint Augustine professes in the 4th c. "Memory is the past made present; direct intuition gives the present made present, whilst expectation is the present made future".

The interpretation and performance try to respect all the richness of the texts and its many layers of meaning, whilst leaving room for the responses or the accompaniment from Bonmont Abbey. Within the pauses for silence in this music there wells up a resonance of sound that is totally independent of the singer and which forces his auditive attention.

Anne-Marie Deschamps (traduction Delia Morris & Denise Fowler)

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

San Antone



Missa de Septuagiesima : Solesmes

Beautiful and moving.

This chant was not created as concert music, its purpose was to sing the mass, to create/enhance an appropriate atmosphere for worship in the Catholic service.  I almost wish to say that the monks of Solesmes are an amateur group, but one whose entire life in the monastery is devoted to preserving and transmitting this chant.  Theirs is a egoless performance, they are not out to prove anything other than to sing the chant for the glory of God, and while their CDs are available, they do not have careers to promote.

The 17-day period beginning on Septuagesima Sunday was intended to be observed as a preparation for the season of Lent, which is itself a period of spiritual preparation (for Easter).

JBS

Isn't Solesmes the origin and first proponent of the "establishment" version og Gregorian chant? After all, its scholarly work on chant dates back to the 19th century, and it became what might be called the  official guardian well over a century ago.
QuoteIn 1904, Pope Pius X entrusted to the monks of Solesmes the work of preparing an official Vatican edition of the Church's chant, and appointed a Commission with Dom Pothier as its president.
https://reginamag.com/unquiet-home-gregorian-chant/

So it shouldn't be a surprise that alternate views about chant should have arisen in the last 114 years.

Wikipedia contains this description of the context and percieved flaws of Solesmes
QuoteIn the late 19th century, early liturgical and musical manuscripts were unearthed and edited. Earlier, Dom Prosper Guéranger revived the monastic tradition in Solesmes. Re-establishing the Divine Office was among his priorities, but no proper chantbooks existed. Many monks were sent out to libraries throughout Europe to find relevant Chant manuscripts. In 1871, however, the old Medicea edition was reprinted (Pustet, Regensburg) which Pope Pius IX declared the only official version. In their firm belief that they were on the right way, Solesmes increased its efforts. In 1889, after decades of research, the monks of Solesmes released the first book in a planned series, the Paléographie Musicale.[27] The incentive of its publication was to demonstrate the corruption of the 'Medicea' by presenting photographed notations originating from a great variety of manuscripts of one single chant, which Solesmes called forth as witnesses to assert their own reforms.

The monks of Solesmes brought in their heaviest artillery in this battle, as indeed the academically sound 'Paleo' was intended to be a war-tank, meant to abolish once and for all the corrupted Pustet edition. On the evidence of congruence throughout various manuscripts (which were duly published in facsimile editions with ample editorial introductions) Solesmes was able to work out a practical reconstruction. This reconstructed chant was academically praised, but rejected by Rome until 1903, when Pope Leo XIII died. His successor, Pope Pius X, promptly accepted the Solesmes chant – now compiled as the Liber Usualis – as authoritative. In 1904, the Vatican edition of the Solesmes chant was commissioned. Serious academic debates arose, primarily owing to stylistic liberties taken by the Solesmes editors to impose their controversial interpretation of rhythm. The Solesmes editions insert phrasing marks and note-lengthening episema and mora marks not found in the original sources.

Conversely, they omit significative letters found in the original sources, which give instructions for rhythm and articulation such as speeding up or slowing down. These editorial practices have placed the historical authenticity of the Solesmes interpretation in doubt.[28] Ever since restoration of Chant was taken up in Solesmes, there have been lengthy discussions of exactly what course was to be taken. Some favored a strict academic rigour and wanted to postpone publications, while others concentrated on practical matters and wanted to supplant the corrupted tradition as soon as possible. Roughly a century later, there still exists a breach between a strict musicological approach and the practical needs of church choirs. Thus the performance tradition officially promulgated since the onset of the Solesmes restoration is substantially at odds with musicological evidence.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_chant

Final note:
It would seem to me that if chant is a living organic type of music, ot should be always inventing new expressions of itself. Is anyone now composing chant?

Hollywood Beach Broadwalk

Mandryka

#98
Quote from: JBS on June 02, 2019, 07:27:18 PM


Final note:
It would seem to me that if chant is a living organic type of music, ot should be always inventing new expressions of itself. Is anyone now composing chant?

Yes, I'd say yes,  by Arvo Part and Michael Finnissy.

Quote from: JBS on June 02, 2019, 07:27:18 PM
Isn't Solesmes the origin and first proponent of the "establishment" version og Gregorian chant? After all, its scholarly work on chant dates back to the 19th century, and it became what might be called the  official guardian well over a century ago.https://reginamag.com/unquiet-home-gregorian-chant/

So it shouldn't be a surprise that alternate views about chant should have arisen in the last 114 years.

Wikipedia contains this description of the context and percieved flaws of Solesmeshttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_chant



I'm not sure how frozen Solesmes is in ideas from the C 19 and early C 20 century. That's one of the things I was hoping that Jerome would be able to throw light on.

I wouldn't want to present them in a cartoonish way, like they're just a bunch of latter day Sixtus Beckmessers. But maybe they are!

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

San Antone

#99
Quote from: JBS on June 02, 2019, 07:27:18 PM
Isn't Solesmes the origin and first proponent of the "establishment" version og Gregorian chant? After all, its scholarly work on chant dates back to the 19th century, and it became what might be called the  official guardian well over a century ago.https://reginamag.com/unquiet-home-gregorian-chant/

So it shouldn't be a surprise that alternate views about chant should have arisen in the last 114 years.

Final note:
It would seem to me that if chant is a living organic type of music, ot should be always inventing new expressions of itself. Is anyone now composing chant?

My understanding is that the priorities of Solesmes were to find and develop a method of singing chant that fulfilled the spiritual needs of the celebration of the Mass of the Catholic church, not to perform chant as entertainment.  So, I place more importance on their approach, which I also find beautiful, an approach which has been endorsed by the Catholic church for well over a century, than someone like Manual Peres who is advancing his personal agenda in order to promote himself and his recordings in a competitive field.

Peres is of course free to sing chant in any manner he wish. And the issue of "authenticity" is a bug-a-boo in early music; there are always competing musicological claims of the "correct" way to perform certain music ...  I just remove chant from that discussion in my mind.  I am not a scholar, nor is anyone else taking part in this discussion, except for J.F. Weber - who has chosen not to remain on this forum.

Weber has spent his life studying chant, and is the curator of a huge repository of all available recorded examples.  I wish he would have hung around, but in discussions with him, he did not think GMG was a worthwhile forum to discuss these issues.  According to him, Peres and Schmelzer are "outliers" and not worth his time to refute.

Revisionist scholarship is quite common.  The early music camp first saw it in the 60s & 70s which spawned the HIP movement. Now we have revisionist scholarship applied to previous revisionism.