Chant

[San Antone]

I'll tell you one thing that really surprised me about this discussion, San Antone, I somehow had the idea that you were an Orthodox Jew, I don't know how - I vaguely remember wishing you a happy Christmas and you replied saying happy Chanukah, but maybe I'm mixing you up with someone. Anyway for all I know you are Jewish now - it's just that I was was kind of stunned when you said that you were brought up a Catholic.

I was raised Catholic but converted to Judaism in 2005.  One thing I learned was that music in synagogue is not very good either.  The Church lost a lot when it modernized the mass and music.

[JBS]

I was raised Catholic but converted to Judaism in 2005.  One thing I learned was that music in synagogue is not very good either.  The Church lost a lot when it modernized the mass and music.

I'm not sure most chazzanut (cantorial singing) qualifies as music.  The trop used in public readings of the Torah and accompanying prophetical passages are often merely punctuation guides.  But a good chazzan is expected to have the ability to be highly expressive when the prayers warrant.

[Florestan]

The Church lost a lot when it modernized the mass and music.

Yes, absolutely.

I'll be blunt: what the Second Vatican Council did with respect to Catholic liturgical music amounts to nothing less than a major, imprescriptible theological and cultural crime.  Give me the Latin Tridentine Mass any day and night over what today passes as Catholic "Mass",

A few years ago I attended a Catholic "Baptism Mass". My heart cringed witnesssing it. A few little songs interspersed with a few little electronic piano chords, and the priest barely making any gestures and sounds at all --- awfull, awfull, awfull, theologically and aesthetically offensive.

[San Antone]

I'm not sure most chazzanut (cantorial singing) qualifies as music.  The trop used in public readings of the Torah and accompanying prophetical passages are often merely punctuation guides.  But a good chazzan is expected to have the ability to be highly expressive when the prayers warrant.

In the synagogue I attended, our cantor used some odd melodies during the Rosh HaShanah service.  "The Cassons Go Rolling Along", was one I never understood.  Gregorian Chant has its origins in the Hebrew prayer melodies of the 4th century.  Apparently, the Jewish service has lost a lot of good music too.

I don't think there is any better liturgical music than chant.  I would sometimes daven at home and would have some playing softly in the background in order to create a more spiritual environment.

[Florestan]

I don't think there is any better liturgical music than chant.

Agreed.

[Mandryka]

Neume notation was deciphered long ago, which brought about translating the nuemes into four line square note notation. 

It's not so simple.

[Mandryka]

Thanks for posting this.

I came across an interview with Sister Marie Keyrouze, who works with Peres. I find what she says really exciting because it reveals what Peres means when he says "In musicology, like in the sciences, we must have experiments", and it shows why the notational issues aren't as simple as San Antone wants to have us think. It also suggests that Jerome may not be completely correct when he suggested

It 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

and

You must study the liturgies of East and West to realize how independently they developed from antiquity

This is my very quick translation from the French.

I came to Paris in 1987 to complete my doctorate in Religious Anthropology and Musicology at the Sorbonne, a thesis entitle The Role and functions of cult chanting in the oriental churches. At that time MArcel Peres was working on a manuscript of Milanese chant and he invited me to see if the chant of this church had been influenced in some way by the eight modes of the Eastern Byzantine and Syrian churches. . .

The idea seemed to me interesting, obvious even, especially because in Northern Italy there was music before the normalisation of the Gregorian repetoire. Also following the 7th century Muslim invasion of middle and near eastern countries, lots of religious Christians, bishops and archbishops and the faithful, took the path of exile and found themselves in, for example, Northern Italy. In escaping they took with them their most precious things . . . relics, sacred garments, religious instruments and above all their poetry and their chants. . . .

Which elements of the manuscript helped you to see the correspondences between musical traditions which a priori are very separate?

It was a liturgical chant in neumes, accompanied by signs indicating the movement of the chant and above all the vocal fluctuations. There was, quite clearly, some funny little signs under some neumes which the paleographers and musicologist couldn't agree about. Marcel pares had a cool idea. He asked me to sing a passage of this famous manuscript in the 1st mode, but thinking of the first byzantine mode.

But Byzantine music is based on intervals, big medium and small, of 7, 9 and 12 commas, with a notation which is made up of signs which show at the same time the interval and the manner of producing the vocal sound: the ornamentation, the nuances etc. We immediately realised that every time that I embellished, lowered or moved a note following the characteristics of the 1st byzantine mode, it was precisely where there were the famous little signs. So we carried on decoding other pieces in the same way. The more we moved on, the more something became clear: we had brought out melodic cells, entire musical phrases and cadences which we now find in the Byzantine tradition.

[San Antone]

I came across an interview with Sister Marie Keyrouze, who works with Peres. I find what she says really exciting because it reveals what Peres means when he says "In musicology, like in the sciences, we must have experiments", and it shows why the notational issues aren't as simple as San Antone wants to have us think. It also suggests that Jerome may not be completely correct when he suggested

What she describes is pure speculation, and appears to start with a conclusion, i.e. that Byzantine practice is relevant to interpreting Gregorian neumatic notation - and then, lo and behold, they prove it through singing it that way.  That's not how musicology works.  You first look at the evidentiary evidence and then you see if it leads you somewhere.  You don't begin at the end and cherry pick from some sources to support your hypotheis.

To a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Here's some information about chant notation from An Overview of Gregorian Chant, Dom Eugene Cardine::

The oldest notations are very incomplete, though they are irreplaceable for their rhythmic and interpretive indications.  They represent the melodic line in only rudimentary way.  They clearly indicate the number of notes sung to a syllable, but not the melodic intervals between the notes.  They show only the successive movement - up, down or unison.  Quite often, even these general indications exist only for notes represented within the same graphic entity.  A precise indication of size of the intervals (diastematic notation) does not come until later, its speed of arrival more or less depending on the country.  In Aquitania (the South of present-day France and some of Spain), diastematic indications appear from the very beginnings of notation in the tenth century.  They become perfect in the eleventh, with the notes stratified above and below a line traced into the parchment with a stylus.  On the other hand, the melodically imprecise notation called "in campo aperto" (literally "in an open field," that is, without landmarks) or in "pure neums," persisted the longest in the Germanic countries.  In Switzerland it was used right up to the fifteenth century.

So a schematic view of Gregorian chant's manuscript tradition can be divided into three stages: the eight century, which offers the text alone; the tenth century, when "pure neums" appear above the same text; and the tenth to eleventh centuries, when the neums begin appearing stratified with increasing accuracy above and below a line.  This line was imaginary at first, but was later traced with a stylus, and flanked by one or more additional lines.  Among these, according to a system popularized by Guido d'Arezzo in the eleventh century, one was often colored to indicate the location of the note above the half-step - red for "fa", yellow or green for "do".

It is on these three successive planes that a critical restoration of the chant must be based, taking into account an inevitable diminishing of the unanimity of the manuscript evidence at each successive phase, and in the reliability of the musical version put forward.

At the stage where the neums are written on a staff, which is generally made up of four lines, we truly can come into contact with Gregorian chant, but there are two conditions: first, that we neglect none of the interpretative signs which abound in the oldest notations made in "pure neums"; and second, that we retain only those pieces of the repertory from the still earlier manuscripts containing no notation whatsoever.  We can thus arrive at what is called the "foundation layer of Gregorian chant," which can be reconstructed with a fairly satisfactory degree of certainty and precision.

Chant went through a period of decadence from the 16th through the 18th centuries as polyphonic composers began to alter the melodies according to the current style. Palestrina was involved in this effort, and I assume that composers like Dufay who wrote chant contributed to the deterioration.

More from my book,

After the troubled period at the end of the 18th and early 19th centuries, musicologists took up the research previously begun in France by Father Jean Lebeuf and Dom Pierre de Jumilhac and more particularly by Dom Martin Gerbert in Germany.  Due to the Romantic spirit of the times, these men were drawn to a study of the Middle Ages even more than their predecessors had been.  The most interesting promoter of the movement was Francois-Joseph Fetis.  Dom Gueranger, the first abbot of Solesmes, took an interest in his work and encouraged it, largely because of his own pressing practical needs.  He was looking for good editions of the chant for a group of monks he had just gathered.

There was, however,  major obstacle impeding any real progress.  Although already judged the best, the earliest notations were still indecipherable.  The neums without staves were like Sibylline signs inviting a whole set of fanciful explanations.  None of these seemed to provide the vital, elusive clue needed to unravle the mystery.  A jesuit priest, Father Lambillotte, had already established the principle of collating manuscripts from the different schools, but that was as far as he went.  Then on December 18th 1847, by pure chance, the key to the notation was discovered when Felix Danjou came across the Codex H. 159 of the library of the Montpellier School of Medicine.

This manuscript, which was later published as the eight volume of the Paleographie Musicale (1901-1905) is originally from Sant Benigne in Dijon.  Written for didactic purposes, it contains pieces belonging to the Proper of teh Mass grouped according to their musical categories and tones.  But the manuscript's special importance lies in the fact that there are two notations, one neumatic and the other alphabetical.  Below the French neums, and precisely corresponding with the groups of notes contained in the graphic designs, are minuscule letters going from a to p in a continuous series.  At the time the manuscript was found, many people imagined that it was the rediscovery of "St. Gregory's original."

[Mandryka]

What she describes is pure speculation, and appears to start with a conclusion, i.e. that Byzantine practice is relevant to interpreting Gregorian neumatic notation - and then, lo and behold, they prove it through singing it that way.  That's not how musicology works. 

Have another read of it maybe. 

[Mandryka]

I've been playing this non stop the past couple of days, I love it.

Can anyone check to see if it has an interesting booklet and if it does, scan and upload it for me?

[Mandryka]

Here's some information about chant notation from An Overview of Gregorian Chant, Dom Eugene Cardine::

As far as I know, Eugene Cardine proposed himself a radical interpretation of the interpretation of neumes proposed by  Pothier, an approach which put him into opposition with the Solesmes establishment.  Cadine's own work has been disputed by Jacques Vieret.

My point is not to get to the bottom of all this, I can't, I'm not part of an academic environment any more. There does seem to be quite a lot of debate about this sort of thing.

[San Antone]

As far as I know, Eugene Cardine proposed himself a radical interpretation of the interpretation of neumes proposed by  Pothier, an approach which put him into opposition with the Solesmes establishment.  Cadine's own work has been disputed by Jacques Vieret.

I have seen nothing to suggest that Cardine was in opposition with the Solesmes establishment.  His books are offered on their site, and he is described in glowing terms as one of the most important teachers there for decades.  The lengthy excerpt I quoted from his overview is simply a summation of the historical process that led to the four-line notation of chant and the important manuscripts and scholars along the way.

He does not offer any ideas of his own, certainly nothing that would diverge from their tradition.

My point is not to get to the bottom of all this, I can't, I'm not part of an academic environment any more. There does seem to be quite a lot of debate about this sort of thing.

I don't think there is any real debate about the issue of how to interpret chant or the validity of the Solesmes method, which is why I have found this entire discussion frustrating, and what dissuaded Jerome Weber from taking part at GMG.  I do think that there are some revisionist outliers like Peres making some noise.

[Mandryka]

I don't think there is any real debate about the issue of how to interpret chant or the validity of the Solesmes method

You're wrong

[Mandryka]

I have seen nothing to suggest that Cardine was in opposition with the Solesmes establishment.

This may be of interest, taken from an interview with Prof. Godehard Joppich (Frankfurt), for a doctoral thesis by Eerik Joks at the University of York (UK)

Why did Cardine leave Solesmes to go to teach in Rome?


I think that they sent Cardine away from Solesmes. When Joseph Gajard was a schola master and Cardine became more and more aware that Gregorian chant in Solesmes is not properly sung, what happened was that they sent him to Rome. That was the only reason. It is not possible to combine the Cardine and the Solesmes way of singing. It is like
fire and water – this is how Cardine thought.. .

When you met Eugène Cardine in 1957, was his understanding of neumes already fully
developed?

Not completely developed. For example, he was still convinced that each neume has an accent on the first note. This is completely wrong. About 1962‐63, I wrote my first article about torculus specialis. After reading it, Cardine commented: 'Every neume has accent on the first note, except torculus specialis'.

Was it the understanding of Joseph Pothier that every neume has an accent on its first note?

Yes, it was Pothier. Mocquereau's principle was that accents go according to groups of 3
and 2. It is important for history to know how far Cardine's understanding of neumes was
developed when he came to Rome in 1952. I believe his understanding was already scholarly. In Solesmes at this time, and probably until now, they actually sing according to Pothier's principles. Anyhow, 21 years ago when Cardine died, they sang according to Pothier's principles. They never sang according to Mocquereau's principles. One thing for Cardine was studying neumes but the other was singing according to this study. He was able to study neumes but it was not possible to sing according to this study in Solesmes. Only when he went to Rome did he start to realize his scholarly work. Until then, it was just a study of signs. Perhaps he tried out different possibilities for himself, but to realize this in Solesmes was impossible.
 
How do you think, did Cardine also propose his ideas to Gajard?

I do not think that he spoke about it to Gajard. I am convinced that even if he had shared his thoughts with him, a man like Gajard would never change his manner of understanding chant.

I understand that, but it is a very long time from 1928‐1952. Something must have
become known about his ideas.

His solemn vows were 1930 and he started his work after that. Only then was he able to go alone to the 'Paleo' [a manuscript room in Solesmes]. Before taking solemn vows, it was forbidden for novices to go to the 'Paleo' unaccompanied. Therefore, only in 1930 did he have a chance to look at the manuscripts. Of course, he did not know at this time what was going to happen – he was just curious to see the manuscripts or the photos of the manuscripts. You can see it here [Godehard takes the Graduel Neumé]. He started with the same piece that I started with 30 years afterwards. He told me that the first pieces he copied were the Introits Exurge,Ciricumdederunt me,  and Esto mihi. Here he started to copy neumes, as he was convinced that it is important to know what neumes communicate to us.


This happened in 1930?

I would not say 1930, but 1932. We will probably never know. Of course, he had his duties in the community. It was not possible for him to sit all day and study manuscripts. I know that he was an organist and he had to accompany singing of psalms during the Office. He had to do it always using the same sequence of chords. He could never change even one chord. I accompanied the Office in my monastery for many years using different registrations and different harmonies. I asked him once why he did not change the harmony. He said 'No, no, no – I was not allowed. I have to use only these harmonies'. These harmonies were repeated in some cases 20 times, if it was necessary. When Rome asked for one teacher for Gregorian chant in 1952 it appeared to be the best solution to send Cardine to Rome. They used a principle 'promoveatur et amoveatur'. They were glad that he went to Rome and it was 'quiet' again in Solesmes.


I am very interested in this one single question of Cardine going to Rome. I have several
quotes from his friends that he was unhappy about leaving Solesmes. How do you
comment?

I think it is true. When school finished on the day of St Peter and St Paul on 29 June he left Rome immediately. On the same evening, he took a train to Paris where his sister lived and after that, he went straight to Solesmes. He did not stay there for one hour more than necessary. He loved his home and he loved Solesmes. For me it was difficult to study with him in Solesmes. He was a monk of Solesmes and he lived the life of Solesmes in every way. I remember that once I was in Solesmes and we were standing on the opposite sides of the choir. When he was singing he was 'nodding' the book according to the rhythm of Solesmes singing style. I admired his love towards his home monastery. I asked him: 'how can you stay here and still sing Mocquereau's system?' He replied that it is not straightforwardly Mocquereau's system; rather it is Pothier's system. But Pothier's system was like [Godehard sings a short example in a rather floating manner but stressing first notes of every neume element]. You can here it on recordings of Solesmes. Cardine was able to adapt to life and singing in Solesmes for three and a half months until he returned to Rome on 15 October. He was happy in Solesmes. He was happy. 


If Gajard was convinced that he was teaching Mocquereau's system and Solesmes was never actually using it, what was it that he taught?

When he went to teach, he taught Mocquereau, but in Solesmes they still performed according to Pothier. When people came to Solesmes, they were confused, because they did not hear what they had learned from Gajard. If people wanted to hear how Mocquereau's rhythm sounded they had to go to another monastery, where Mocquereau's system was followed.   Cardine always told me that it was not possible to switch in the community from one performance practice to another. It was impossible. During the time of Mocquereau, there were still so many monks who sang according to the system of Pothier. It was not possible for Mocquereau's system to be realised. Novices studied the Mocquereau system but they never performed accordingly in Solesmes.   It would be very interesting to know what was the relationship between Gajard and Cardine. That we probably will never know. 

When was Graduel Neumé finished?

I do not know exactly when it was finished. I think that all neumes were already copied when he was called to Rome. The indexing of course continued. In 1960, I made the first 20 copies of Graduel Neumé by using photos. When they heard in Solesmes that I was already circulating the Graduel Neumé, the director of the Solesmes Editions said that 'we must print it'. Solesmes printed the first version in 1966. 
[...] 
Cardine's obligation in Rome was not to teach the performance of chant. There was another teacher for that. Cardine was teaching paleography. I remember that I went to Raffael Barrata to sing. After that, you had to forget everything before you went to study with Cardine, because it was so different. Only when Cardine left Musica Sacra did they start officially to teach semiology.

[San Antone]

Cardine does refer to a debate, in earlier decades concerning rhythm.  Nowhere does he even address ornamentation since the assumption is that the melodies have been deciphered.

He writes this:

Obviously, the practical singing of chant should be based on scholarly research also.  No longer is it necessary to fight the excessive, emphatic articulation or hammering of the notes which was so common in the last century (19th).  But today there can still be an exaggerated equalization of notes, a "plainsong," which is in marked opposition to the variety of graphic designs observed in the early notations.  Consequently, in order to avoid the resulting monotony, some singers fall into the trap of embellishing their performance arbitrarily with crescendos, decrescendos, accelerandos, and retardandos inherited from romantic music.  Such practices spell death for the true nature of the chant.

He goes on:

The correct manner of performing and interpreting is perfectly indicated by the neumatic designs.  They show, for instance, one or more long notes followed by lighter, flowing ones in all sorts of combinations.  Their energy and intensity serves to highlight and color the musical accents suggested either by the text or by the melody itself.  This gives the chant its ever fresh, limitless variety.

He addresses the margin for subjectivity on the part of a singer:

Of course, there is also a subjective element in singing the chant, just as in any living musical tradition.  For Gregorian chant, it involves establishing the right balance and proportion between all the prescribed variations in the duration and intensity of the notes.  The margin left to the singers for interpreting the chant is really quite large.  However, there can be no authentic expression of the chant if the objective indications provided in the manuscripts are contradicted.

Note that he limits the singers' interpretation to rhythm, phrasing and flow - not ornamenting the melody with extraneous notes.

Here he describes the debates:

However, it was on the subject of chant rhythm that debates were most frequent and most vehement.  Many experts wrote on the issue, but without having sufficient knowledge of the chant.  Most of them started off with preconceived notions and prejudices - "musical rhythm must be this way and no other ... ." According to all of them, some kind of measured time was absolutely indispensable.  But that was the only point they agreed upon.  Each one advanced his own theory with different explanations and different practical applications.  In general, they tended to limit themselves to only a few selected pieces of the chant.  Sometimes their choice of pieces was purely arbitrary and quite misleading, since unsuspecting readers were led to believe that the rest of the chant repertory was similar to the examples advanced in support of the theory being presented.

Sounds familiar.

Even performances illustrating these theories could be deceiving.  Take the system of Georges Houdard, with its theory of neumatic beats, for example.  According to this theory, each neumatic entity or syllable has the same time value, regardless of the number of notes involved.  Performance of the chant according to this theory required extraordinary virtuosity and was capable of producing spectacular impressions.  But Mr. Houdard was quite obviously unaware of the very notion of the neum, which the best manuscripts often represent in different ways without altering its signification in the least.  So far, none of the mensuralist systems has been able to stand up to the test of paleographic evidence.  Their authors either totally ignore the evidence, interpret it incorrectly, or disdainfully reject it.

He ends with a section for future research:

The manuscripts provide the unique link to rediscovering the very life of Gregorian chant performance.  Their evidence is perhaps less direct and less clear on the point of rhythm than it is about the musical construction and the melodic line.  But we must resign ourselves to this fact, and strive in all honesty to discover the surest method of extracting from the neumatic, graphic designs their full meaning in every possible detail.

Such is precisely the object of Gregorian Semiology, a field of study which has already produced significant results over the past century, and which must continue to progress still further.  This science is based on two criteria. The first, which deals more with the material, graphic order, concerns the shape and design of the signs used around the 10th century to transcribe music sounds.  The second, which belongs more to the practical, aesthetic order, concentrates on the musical context in which each sign is used.

I am not transcribing these excerpts in order to convince you of anything, but to put this material in this thread as a baseline reference of the history of chant notation and interpretation.

[San Antone]

This may be of interest, taken from an interview with Prof. Godehard Joppich (Frankfurt), for a doctoral thesis by Eerik Joks at the University of York (UK)

The Cardine book I've been quoting from is a translation of an earlier book (not sure of the publication date), but copyrighted by Solesmes in 1992, so what Joppich says about Cardine being at odds with Solesmes does not make much sense.

The jacket has this blurb, "The modern liturgical movement owes a great debt to Solesmes monk Dom Eugene Carine (1905-1988), whose tireless research in the ancient manuscripts uncovered the elusive secrets of Gregorian Rhythm, thus revealing some of the original pristine beauty of Gregorian chant."

I think the quote you posted makes more of a controversy than there might have been.  Mocquereau and Pothier worked together, and Mocquereau was responsible for creating the Liber Usualis, the primary book used for daily mass chant. 

[Mandryka]

Godehard Joppich is well worth exploring I think, I've heard one of his St Gall recordings, a Passion, which is rather relaxing in small doses, and I can see there are a lot more - good singers with a sense of meaning what they're chanting.

As far as I know there's nothing on record by Eugene Cardine, maybe he sounded a bit like Joppich. 



I know that Cardine was interested in manuscripts. And so is Peres. In that anecdote of Marie Kayrouze, you can see how it was marks around the neumes in a Milanese manuscript that prompted the experiment, with very exciting results.

[San Antone]

Some Mary Berry recordings I've been listening to:



The Coming of Augustine



12th Century Chant



Pentecôte à Pontigny, Music in honour of 3 Archbishops of Canterbury

Wonderful singing.

[Mandryka]

Here's the Castrato Alessandro Moresschi singing a lamentation in a very declamatory style, this style (cantillation ) seems as close to speech as to song. I think people think it's related to the authentic Balkan style in epic poetry -- this is what the Iliad would have sounded like in C5 BC Athens (in my dreams)


https://www.youtube.com/v/F6bdPCVwoMw

This CD contains some amazing cantillation in the sanctus




This is I think Corsican style cantillation, maybe can someone confirm, a lamentation, very good about 2 minutes in whatever it is

https://www.youtube.com/v/KdqqjwE_Rk8

[aligreto]

Cross post from the Listening Thread....


Gregorian Chant:





Recorded in a warm and slightly reverberant acoustic which greatly enhances the rich tones of the singers. The performance sounds devotional without being academic.


I cannot add anything to the debate but the above old offering was always very pleasing to my ears. There may or may not be a modern digital iteration. It is worth hearing.