Chant

[prémont]

These texts are canonical, and the performance is part of a ritual.  The last thing that should happen is for the performer to treat it almost operatically, drawing attention to himself and away from the purpose of the chant in the first place, which is to point to God.

I thought the essence of chant was the words. A good performer may well manage to draw the appropriate attention to the text without drawing attention to himself.

[San Antone]

But San Antone, the liturgy is a Middle Ages drama.

I repeat

No, it isn't.  The Catholic Mass is not a play; it is a worship service.  I don't care how many people you quote, if they say otherwise, they are simply wrong and probably have a non-religious agenda.

[prémont]

Entertainment is the purpose of all commercial recordings....

I do not think this is true. There are lots of recordings with spiritually elevating or educational purposes.

Solesmes recordings are made during a liturgical service and are meant for instruction, not entertainment.  There might be other choirs who do the same thing, but any serious sacred music performed outside of a worship service is being treated inappropriately, IMO.  This why my preferred recordings of the Machaut Messe incorporate all of the liturgical aspects, and in a couple of cases (Parrott's and Mary Berry's, I think) they were, in actual fact, recorded during a service.  Those recordings which strip Machaut music from its liturgical context and offer just the composed sections are 100% wrong-headed.

I haven't got the time to sit through a whole service just to hear Machauts messe or part of it. And you can say, that I do not hear it in its true context, but having heard the context a few times, the context is in my mind, and I do not need to hear it all the time.

[San Antone]

I thought the essence of chant was the words. A good performer may well manage to draw the appropriate attention to the text without drawing attention to himself.

The words are standard texts either from the Bible, Psalms mostly, or the Mass or the Daily Office services.  These are well known to devout Catholics, nothing new there.  What chant brings to the experience are the melodies.  These are designed to enhance the understanding of the text and to focus the mind on God.

[San Antone]

I do not think this is true. There are lots of recordings with spiritually elevating or educational purposes.

Then strictly speaking they are not commercial recordings.

I haven't got the time to sit through a whole service just to hear Machauts messe or part of it. And you can say, that I do not hear it in its true context, but having heard the context a few times, the context is in my mind, and I do not need to hear it all the time.

That is neither here nor there.  How you choose to listen to Machaut's mass has nothing to do with its purpose nor his expectations of how it will be heard. And anyway I was not talking about how an individual might listen to it, but how it is performed/recorded.

[Mandryka]

No, it isn't.  The Catholic Mass is not a play; it is a worship service.  I don't care how many people you quote, if they say otherwise, they are simply wrong and probably have a non-religious agenda.

What!. Honorius of Autun was a fucking monk and a recluse, a hermit, who studied with St fucking Anselm. He was a popular christian writer, he wrote about theology and stuff like that.  If he's not a catholic, a bloody devout one, I'll eat my hat.

[prémont]

How you choose to listen to Machaut's mass has nothing to do with its purpose nor his expectations of how it will be heard. And anyway I was not talking about how an individual might listen to it, but how it is performed/recorded.

I think you mentioned what you prefer yourself:

This why my preferred recordings of the Machaut Messe incorporate all of the liturgical aspects....

I just stated, that I prefer the Machaut messe performed in the most often recorded way, which is without chant.

[prémont]

The words are standard texts either from the Bible, Psalms mostly, or the Mass or the Daily Office services.  These are well known to devout Catholics, nothing new there.  What chant brings to the experience are the melodies.  These are designed to enhance the understanding of the text and to focus the mind on God.

A little addition to correct any mistakes about what I meant:

A good performer may well with the help of the music manage to draw the appropriate attention to the text without drawing inappropriate attention to himself.

[San Antone]

What!. Honorius of Autun was a fucking monk and a recluse, a hermit, who studied with St fucking Anselm. He was a popular christian writer, he wrote about theology and stuff like that.  If he's not a catholic, a bloody devout one, I'll eat my hat.

I can only assume he was not implying that primarily the Mass is theatre or drama, but was using figurative language.  The Mass is simply not intended to be drama.  All religious services are meant to channel the congregation's expression of faith, belief in and worship of God.  This is very different from a Shakespeare play.

[San Antone]

I just stated, that I prefer the Machaut messe performed in the most often recorded way, which is without chant.

Nothing wrong with that - as long as you don't go further and say that your way was the intention of Machaut.  He intended it to be a mass setting, which means the entire mass with Machaut's composed sections worked in between the other liturgical sections. 

A good performer may well with the help of the music manage to draw the appropriate attention to the text without drawing inappropriate attention to himself.

I agree - but again, chant is normally performed by a choir, not a solo singer.  So, your focus on an individual singer displays a priority I do not think is primary to chant.

[Mandryka]

These [chant melodies]  are designed to enhance the understanding of the text

How do they do that? Maybe take Deus deus meus as an example.

These are well known to devout Catholics, nothing new there. 

But it's in Latin.

[prémont]

Nothing wrong with that - as long as you don't go further and say that your way was the intention of Machaut.  He intended it to be a mass setting, which means the entire mass with Machaut's composed sections worked in between the other liturgical sections.

I would never dream of questioning the fact, that Machaut's messe was meant to be part of a service.

I agree - but again, chant is normally performed by a choir, not a solo singer.  So, your focus on an individual singer displays a priority I do not think is primary to chant.

The rather indifferent singing style of Selesmes in Deus Deus Meus reduces it in a way to background music for religious dreaming, kind of minimalist "Gebrauchsmusik". I often have this feeling, when I listen to chant. With a few exceptions (some kinds of dance music) I think background music is unsuited for listening, and my problem with chant is maybe, that I expect and need more "substance" in the music I listen to.

[Mandryka]

He intended it to be a mass setting, which means the entire mass with Machaut's composed sections worked in between the other liturgical sections. 

What would be interesting is to know how the propers relate to Machaut's ordinarium settings. Do we even know which propers would have been used? Are there musical relationships which unify all the sung components of the mass into a single cycle? If not I can't really see much point of listening to the whole shooting match at home, while sipping a glass of wine and glancing at a magazine etc.  (I think we've discussed this in the past and I think you knew the answer, I'm sorry I just can't remember)

Don't forget that even if you listen to all the chanting you're hardly recreating any sort of mass experience anyway -- no host, no celebrant etc.

I suppose there's a point about texture. Machaut must have intended the new sounding polyphony to contrast with the familiar sounding Gregorian material.  But we're all very familiar with polyphony, and indeed Machaut's mass, so that's not going to work unless the ordinary settings can be rendered in a suitably disorienting novel way . . . shades of Schmelzer here 

[prémont]

I suppose there's a point about texture. Machaut must have intended the new sounding polyphony to contrast with the familiar sounding Gregorian material.  But we're all very familiar with polyphony, and indeed Machaut's mass, so that's not going to work unless the ordinary settings can be rendered in a suitably disorienting novel way . . . shades of Schmelzer here 

I see what you mean, but then the question of HIP or non-HIP becomes rather irrelevant, and we are only dealing with taste. And afterwards we can discuss who has got the best taste

[San Antone]

How do they do that? Maybe take Deus deus meus as an example.

But it's in Latin.

[edited this post taking out some extraneous material on the Mass, which I was not sure about.]

"Deus, Deus Meus" is associated with Palm Sunday (the Sunday before Easter).  There are a variety of hymns that can be sung, but usually one is chosen which has to do with the mass of that day.  In this case, Palm Sunday, the text chosen has to do with Jesus' suffering. But the text itself is a Psalm, #22, which predates the time of Jesus by about 1,000 years or more, i.e the time of David.

There is absolutely no basis to assume that the choir must sing this hymn as if they were enacting Jesus in Gethsemane.  In fact that is a rather superficial way of thinking about the purpose of these chants and how they work in a mass.

Solesmes simply sing the text as it should be done, straight-forward, without making a big show of it.

[Mandryka]

"Deus, Deus Meus" is associated with Palm Sunday (the Sunday before Easter).  There are a variety of hymns that can be sung, but usually one is chosen which has to do with the mass of that day.  In this case, Palm Sunday, the text chosen has to do with Jesus' suffering. But the text itself is a Psalm, #22, which predates the time of Jesus by about 1,000 years or more, i.e the time of David.

Excellent.thank you

There is absolutely no basis to assume that the choir must sing this hymn as if they were enacting Jesus in Gethsemane.  I

I can well imagine that it would an unusual way of doing it in a mainstream white middle class Catholic church in London. But given what Honorius of Autun says it may have been the way it was sometimes done c. 1100.

  In fact that is a rather superficial way of thinking about the purpose of these chants and how they work in a mass.

What would a deeper way be to think of the purpose of these chants and the way they work? In particular, I'd be interested in any ideas you have about the relation of the music and the text. Liturgy in the middle ages was a dramatic affair, with ritual gestures and props and very emotional texts. The question we're concerned with is the role of music in all of that.

Solesmes simply sing the text as it should be done, straight-forward, without making a big show of it.

You're begging the central question of this discussion. That's BAD!!!!!

But let me note that all this started with an appraisal of the idea that the Solesmes way is authentic, it captures the way things were done in the early western church. That's why it's relevant to be enquiring about medieval liturgical practices, and why I was keen to introduce medieval dramatic liturgies into the discussion.

[San Antone]

I can well imagine that it would an unusual way of doing it in a mainstream white middle class Catholic church in London. But given what Honorius of Autun says it may have been the way it was sometimes done c. 1100.

That is your assumption based on one quote you have selected and posted.  I am not convinced that the Medieval church service was done dramatically, and would be very surprised if it were.  As I've posted previously, church authorities were quite explicit in keeping secular styles out of the sacred music and for a long time after the Middle Ages.

What would a deeper way be to think of the purpose of these chants and the way they work? In particular, I'd be interested in any ideas you have about the relation of the music and the text. Liturgy in the middle ages was a dramatic affair, with ritual gestures and props and very emotional texts. The question we're concerned with is the role of music in all of that.

My impression is that we've already had this discussion; it seems you keep asking the same question, whereas my answer will not change: ego-less, selfless, non-individualistic, i.e., a holy performance.  Absolutely not theatrical or dramatic; the chant mostly sung by a choir, not as a solo performance.

But let me note that all this started with an appraisal of the idea that the Solesmes way is authentic, it captures the way things were done in the early western church. That's why it's relevant to be enquiring about medieval liturgical practices, and why I was keen to introduce medieval dramatic liturgies into the discussion.

Well, to be honest you've only quoted one source, without any context for the quote.  But, I have no reason to doubt the scholarship of the Solesmes monks, and considering their motivation, and history, theirs is probably coming at this whole question from the correct orientation..

[Mandryka]

Damien Poisblaud on the offertories

Introduction

The Latin liturgical chant that is called 'Gregorian in fact stems from different repertoires ran-ging from Spain to the Gauls of the Northeast, by way of Aquitaine (in southwestern France), Northern Italy and... Rome. The decision to record these Great Offer-tories was guided by a desire to bring out the richness of the purely Hispano-Frankish portion of this 'Gregorian repertoire. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the latter is generally known essentially as choral singing, but History also offers us as a marvellously rich solo re-pertoire calling for the virtuosity of highly experienced cantors.

The long melismas that we encounter in the verses of these anthems show the fantastic develop-ment that these pieces underwent towards the Carolin-gian era. Having progressively fallen into oblivion since the Middle Ages, it would nonetheless seem that they represented the 'cantors bravura piece'.

Melismatic singing customarily means or-namented singing. All musical traditions, be they western or eastern, attest to the importance of vocal ornaments. Moreover, the earliest Latin manuscripts systematically note this, and the extreme precision with which these vocal effects were written down leads us to suppose this that was a general practice in which cantors had to de-monstrate certain know-how. Voce et arte, 'with voice and art', as Raban Maur taught in 840.

Although synonymous with an accom-plished art, ornamentation can nonetheless become a pitfall in which the music can get bogged down or the text is lost. More than an appendix for embellishment, it fulfils the essential function of articulation within a melodic movement. This is what allows for finding the the right supports, meting out the voice's energy, accenuating what should be accentuated so that the melody finds its dynamic balance and that the text is thereby well 'spoken'.

The modern western singer must therefore be particularly careful as to the sense that this ornamen-tation may have. Far from being a difficulty to overcome, it will, on the contrary, help in finding the appropriate intervals (if possible, non-tempered), organising the melodic development and furthering the emergence of the text. The inflections of his voice will espouse the ex-tremely precise graphic notation of mediaeval copyists, whose pen basically only transcribed what the ear was hearing. He will have to discern what comes from the vocal process or from the melodic development itself.

The injunctions of Gregory the Great (590-604) for curbing the extravagances and vanity of the virtuoso cantors should not make us overlook the constant concern of the Latin Church to glorify the Word of God through church singing. 'Let the young man be lacking in neither presence nor agility,' taught Master Alcuin. The cantor must achieve this libertat canendi, which Amalaire de Metz learnt from his teacher, Alcuin—doubtless the freedom of a singer who has thoroughly mastered his art...


The musical composition makes these offertory anthems a unique repertoire by the brightness of the colours, surprising contrasts and extraordinary freedom of expression. The gestures and postures of the characters evoked recall those found in medieval iconography or stained-glass windows: Moses prostrate, turning his face towards Him whom he beseeches; Job, overwhelmed by his ruin, lifting his eyes towards Heaven from whence he awaits new happiness (ut videat bona...); God rushing down the slopes of Mount Sinai to meet Moses or the faces, model the bodies, make praying, imploring passing in the breath of a breeze (dum pertransiero...). breasts thrill, and smile at the intense life palpitating in Here, it is up to the voice to paint the colours, sculpt the heart of the notes!

[Mandryka]

The Great Offertories by Mathieu Smyth

The Great Offertories

The Carolingian liturgical chants known as 'Gregorian' are not authentically Roman but are hybrids built on a Roman foundation. Yet, even recently, a cer-tain taboo hovered over the subject of the real impact of the Carolingian hybridisation. For apologetic moti-ves, consecutive to the history of the restoration of this repertoire at the turn of the 20th, it was necessary that Gregorian chant be Roman. However, this repertoire was not purely Roman any more than the rest of the Roma-no-Frankish liturgy imposed by the Carolingians. They sought to replace the old liturgy of the Gauls by the Ro-man liturgy but succeeded above all in bringing about the blending of the two rites.

Since taking into account the 'old-Roman books, which enlighten us a bit about the pre-Carolingian Roman liturgy, since Dom Jean Claire's discovery of a musical modality that is specifically non-Roman, including His-pania, Gaul and Lombard Italy, and especially since the delimitation of a Hispano-Gallican repertoire within the offrrtoria of the Romano-Frankish gradual, we can no longer ignore that the Romano-Frankish repertoire is the fruit of a hybridisation and lack of education: 'Gre-gorian chant is that which was born outside Rome and spread primarily in France under cover of the name of Pope Saint Gregory, beginning at the end of the 8th cen-tury [...] Gregorian chant is the product of the Pippino-Carolingian liturgical renaissance, which introduced in France a new liturgy labelled "Roman" to replace the Gallican liturgy".

Dom Jean Claire brought to light the predilection of the Milanese, Mozarabic and Gallican repertoires for the archaic recitation note (the 'mother note') of D. Within this modality, the dominant and fi-nal remain on the same D, this being surrounded by its 'mother-cell': A-C-D (but the degrees designated by these notes are part of a diatonic scale, the hexachord defined by Guido of Arezzo in the llth century, which has only an analogical value in relation to melodies ela-borated outside this context—above all if we view this scale via our modern tempered scale). This dynamic musical structure normally corresponds to what theorists of the Latin ocroechos (the eight musical church modes) defined a posteriori as the plagal protus, or second mo-de—when the piece is identified as such, this being far from automatic—, of which the final is in D (or A when this mode is transposed to the fifth) and whose dominant is located a minor third above. However, this principle is sure only for the pieces that are, liturgically and mu-sically, the most archaic: psalmodies, holiday anthems, tracts or recitatives, whose age we know through other channels. It was not easy to change a melody rooted in the oral tradition: 'The Roman cantors having left again, the Gallican cantors set to work [...). As concerned the texts common to both liturgies (Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Pater, Te Deum), they simply kept their traditional Galli-can melodies. (...1. As for the cantilated texts, they took the texts from the Roman [.. .] but kept their traditional cantilation tones (D)

Fortunately, there exist other means besi-des just musical archaeology for updating the origin of a piece. Comparing the Visigothic, Milanese, Romano-Frankish aid old-Roman repertoires, Kenneth Levy, in his article 'Toledo, Rome, and the Legacy of Gaul', had no trouble showing that the famous series of non-psal-mic 'offertories' of the Gregorian antiphonaries could not have come from Rome even though the old-Roman books had taken them in'. It was quite some time be-fore someone perceived the non-Roman origin of these pieces accompanying the procession of offerings before the Eucharist. The strength of prejudices as to the purely Roman nature of the 'Gregorian' forbids it, except for a few more perspicacious minds like Dom Louis Brou'.

The Romano-Frankish series of these offir-toria is, in fact, part of a much vaster, fairly homogeneous series centred on the sacrificial themes of the Exodus, which is found in Milan and, especially, in Hispania'. In Hispania, unlike the old-Roman books in which they are the exception, non-psalmic sacrificia are the rule. Close study of the sources showed early on that the Roma-no-Frankish and Hispanic lessons are much better than those in the old-Roman books. The series is more exten-sive and its texts richer. Rome seems to have restricted it-self to undergoing the Romano-Frankish 'reflux'. On the other hand, the agreement of the Romano-Frankish and Hispanic pieces, between the texts as much as between the melodies, is often quite distinct. Even though we are not yet able to decipher the neumes of the Leon Antiphonary, it is possible to compare them with the Frankish neumes. Whereas Rome still favoured the singing of psalms and avoided centonisation and paraphrase, this was, on the contrary, a characteristic of our series of offer-tories, which does not deprive itself of arranging the text, in the manner of Hispanic lectionaries. What's more, the biblical text is close to those of the Hispanic lectionary and of the Gallican lectionary of Luxeuil. In addition, there is a parallel between the sacrificial typology drawn from the Exodus of these texts and the glosses of Isidore of Seville (De ecclesiae officiis I, 14) concerning the rites and the hymn that precede the Eucharistic sacrifice. Isidore's text indicates that he already knew a chant in this spot (the sacrificium) rela-ted to our series of offertories. This sacrificium is none other than the so-called sonar chant, which several Gallican sources situate being sung before the Eucha-ristic prayer, when the offerings are placed on the altar. If we take as a basis the first Frankish antiphonaries of the Mass, we can establish the following list: Aue Ma-ria (Le 1; but which is surely from the Carolingian era); Sicut in holocaust° (Dn 3); Angelus domini (Mt 28); In die solemnitatis (Ex 13): AMS 84; BCKS (Thursday in albis); Erit uobis (Ex 12); Precatus est Moyses (Ex 32); Oraui (Do 9); Sanctificauit (Ex 24); VIr mat Oh 1); Rlcordare (Est 14); Domine Dew in simplicitate (1 Ch 29); Oratio mea Oh 16); Stetit angelus (Ap ; Audi Is-rael (non-scriptural and Ps 80); Viri Galilei (Ac 1); Foe-tus as repente (Ac 2); Elegerunt apostoli (Ac 6). We find in Leon: Oraui; Erit uobis; Sanchficauit; Domine Dew in simplicitate; Stair angelus; Foetus es repent• Elege-runt apostoli; certain pieces are also found in Milan.

We can thereby enlarge this Hispano-Galli-can series to certain responses of the Frankish dedication present in the anthems of the antiphonaries of the Ro-mano-Frankish service (dating from the 9th to the 12th centuries). Certain isolated elements related to this series of offertories are found finally in the Aquitaine books from the 11th and 12th centuries such as the Gaillac Gradual (Paris BNF lat. 776) or that of Saint-Yrieix (Pa-ris BNF lat. 903). One can thus add the 'sacrificial' offer-tories Altaria tuts, Holaucausta medullarta, lustorum ani-mae, Immaculatus hostiarum pieces, Sacerdotes Domini... The Aquitaine books are known, moreover, for contai-ning a rich repertoire of pro defimctis pieces of non-Ro-man origin, as well as preces litanies and anthems for the fraction stemming from the Hispano-Gallican ritual.

Even though limited, the series in its Mila-nese ver8ion has a few Hispanic pieces absent from the Frankish books, or provided with a lesson more conso-nant with the Hispanic version. There are other, non-psalmic offertories unique to Milan, such as the highly theophanic Ecce apertum est remplum of the Nativity, which is close to Armenian and Syriac chants, originally from Jerusalem, for the procession of contributions.

The Leon series is by far the richest (the texts being longer and more numerous), even though certain pieces present in Gaul are lacking. There is hardly any doubt that their origin must be sought in the penin-sula, during the golden age of the Visigoth kingdom in the 7th century or even a bit earlier. A few clerics there apparendy got in the habit of imitating the eastern cus-tom of singing a hymn during the procession of gifts but without servility, resorting to a repertoire endowed with a very particular set of themes. From there, it allegedly spread in various forms throughout the rest of Hispania. Shortly thereafter, Milan and Gaul received part of this repertoire in relatively archaic form. Whereas Gaul and Milan would preserve the repertoire more or less as was—enriched by a few local pieces composed subsequently—, Hispania would continue to develop it. In fact, the pie-ces with two or three long verses from the Leon Anti-phonary constitute a systematic re-elaboration of a much older, much more limited Hispanic repertoire, but already more substantial than those of Gaul or Milan; this is attested to by the Hispanic lessons from the old ma-nuscripts. For its part, the Gallican version would be set once it was inserted into the Romano-Frankish gradual to fill in the gaps in the repertoire of Roman offertories.

[San Antone]

I think Deus Deus Meus is not an offertory hymn but a tract, something more sober:

In their final form, tracts are a series of psalm verses; rarely a complete psalm, but all of the verses from the same psalm. They are restricted to only two modes, the second and the eighth. The melodies follow centonization patterns more strongly than anywhere else in the repertoire; a typical tract is almost exclusively a succession of such formulas. The cadences are nearly always elaborate melismas. Tracts with multiple verses are some of the longest chants in the Liber Usualis.

However, none of this is improvised; the entire melody (including melismatic cadences) is notated.

I guess our main dispute is over the aspect of improvised ornamentation; i.e., if an Eastern church tradition, e.g. Byzantine, can offer clues as to how to perform Roman chant. I see no reason to assume Byzantine chant performance history offers any indication of how Western, i.e. Roman, chant ought to be done. 

And to add to this, since chant's primarily function is how it is used in church services, either the mass or offices, then how the church wishes chant to be performed takes precedence, IMO.  How a musician such as Marcel Peres thinks the chant is most imaginatively performed might produce wonderful music, and can be enjoyed on its own merits - but my other dispute with you is this idea that Peres' performance is more correct/authentic than Solesmes.

Peres' chant recordings are musically very rewarding - but they are a different animal entirely than the sacred liturgical chant as is done by Solesmes.