Preface Missal Chant

[Nick Baty]

Have been rehearsing with the PP this evening from his shiny new altar missal – chapel size for our smaller church, full size for the other two. He was really struggling with the preface chants – he reads well enough to see ups and downs. And it's the same tone we had in the last missal but set against the new words. But he couldn't quite get it to work.

We sang them together and I found that I didn't always want to move when the blobs said I should and sometimes wanted to when they said I shouldn't. So we turned back to one of the prefaces without music and he had another go. Perfect. He might not having been upping and downing when the music editors decided one should, but he was chanting it perfectly to the same tune. Just wondered how others – presiders in particular – are doing.

[John Ainslie]

My PP, a trained musician, found the prefaces in the old missal 'second nature', but is having much more difficulty with the new tones. Perhaps one should allow more time for familiarisation, but I consider them a mite too complicated. IMHO, the team setting the texts to chant were too keen to keep the details of the Latin chant, at the expense of the natural rhythm of English. The opening of the 'Holy, Holy' is evidence.

In contrast, some of the Eucharistic Prayer setting is too plain. In EP3, from 'Therefore, O Lord...' it is 23 words before you come to the first cadence (on 'consecration'); the colon after 'implore you' is ignored. Cadences should reflect punctuation, in order to assist the communication of the text. In the new setting, this prayer has only two cadences. In the previous version, with fewer words, there were four. Better!

[Calum Cille]

The opening of the 'Holy, Holy' is evidence.

The linguistic stresses are exactly the same in both Latin and English at this point. There is no 'different' English linguistic stress to be catered for here. The fact that some people instinctively want to stress both '-ctus' and '-ly' at that point merely highlights how dodgy it is to use the speech-rhythm approach to this item of the repertoire in either language, and to end up thus imagining the melodic stress to be forcing itself onto that second syllable when the first syllable carries the musical stress perfectly adequately. Appropriate chordal movement on the organ can accentuate the change of pitch in the melody rather than the change of syllable and can thus correct any problems with incorrect verbal stress.[/quote]

[alan29]

The opening of the 'Holy, Holy' is evidence.

The linguistic stresses are exactly the same in both Latin and English at this point. There is no 'different' English linguistic stress to be catered for here. The fact that some people instinctively want to stress both '-ctus' and '-ly' at that point merely highlights how dodgy it is to use the speech-rhythm approach to this item of the repertoire in either language, and to end up thus imagining the melodic stress to be forcing itself onto that second syllable when the first syllable carries the musical stress perfectly adequately. Appropriate chordal movement on the organ can accentuate the change of pitch in the melody rather than the change of syllable and can thus correct any problems with incorrect verbal stress.

.... but surely, of all settings that one is designed to be sung without accompaniment. Of course, it could be that the original Latin is clumsy, too.

[JW]

The opening of the 'Holy, Holy' is evidence.

The linguistic stresses are exactly the same in both Latin and English at this point. There is no 'different' English linguistic stress to be catered for here. The fact that some people instinctively want to stress both '-ctus' and '-ly' at that point merely highlights how dodgy it is to use the speech-rhythm approach to this item of the repertoire in either language, and to end up thus imagining the melodic stress to be forcing itself onto that second syllable when the first syllable carries the musical stress perfectly adequately. Appropriate chordal movement on the organ can accentuate the change of pitch in the melody rather than the change of syllable and can thus correct any problems with incorrect verbal stress.

But the musical setting has double the notes on the second syllable as on the first, so it is unlikely that this setting will ever be commonly sung with the correct accentuation (I used to consider it odd in Latin). The other plainchant settings of the Sanctus with which I'm familiar (de Angelis, Cum Jubilo, Orbis Factor) are set with more notes on the first syllable than on the second.

I suspect that those responsible for the Missal Chants may have been searching for settings which contain relatively few melismas and this is one of the results (... and it is the Sanctus that used to be used for Requiem Masses!).

Thanks for the tip about chordal movement. I'm using the Corpus Christi Watershed accompaniments but will not change chords on the first two 'Holy Holies' in future!

At the end of the day, perhaps it would have been better to compose new English chants for everything in the Missal, rather than adapt existing Latin ones - but it's easy to be wise after the event.

[Calum Cille]

.... but surely, of all settings that one is designed to be sung without accompaniment.

Why that one in particular? Regardless, I suggested appropriate chordal movement on the organ as an aid to correct moderns who have learned this section of melody with incorrect verbal and musical stress, to help them feel the correct stress. I made some comments on the rhythmic interpretation of this section of melody in an earlier thread.
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1202&start=32

Of course, it could be that the original Latin is clumsy, too.

Only from a perspective of an approach such as ' 'speech rhythm' or all-notes-should-be-short equalism, which should be enough to make us question such approaches. Offhand, I can't think of any rhythmically clumsy application of music to Latin in the ordinary as far as word setting goes. But then, I don't use the above mentioned approaches and therefore I don't experience any part of such compositions in that way until asked to join others in singing the material that way. Which grates. A sense of musical clumsiness in relation to the words are the occupational hazard of such approaches.

[Calum Cille]

But the musical setting has double the notes on the second syllable as on the first, so it is unlikely that this setting will ever be commonly sung with the correct accentuation (I used to consider it odd in Latin). ... I'm using the Corpus Christi Watershed accompaniments but will not change chords on the first two 'Holy Holies' in future!

It is only unlikely if people are using such organ accompaniments. Are you referring to the Nova organi harmonia ones?

http://www.ccwatershed.org/media/pdfs/1 ... 7-09_0.pdf

If so, then small wonder people can't sing the stresses right. The chording has been selected so that it sounds cadential, the first chord acting as subsidiary to a chord with appoggiatura, which lends stress. The notation is confusing because a semibreve only exists to show that its note is being held for as long as two or more notes of the melody. The melody notes are given no durational differentiation.

We have no proof that the notes B & A on "-ctus" are in fact to be regarded as an example of appoggiatura as we would understand it (ie, the first note is stressed in singing). Look at the word "excélsis" at the end of Sanctus XVIII, replete with liquescent. Would we stress the note G here (and thus the syllable "-sis") rather than the note A, as if it were an appoggiatura G? (Solesmes have marked the G as long, but this duration originates from them.) Would that lead us to unstress the syllable "-cél-"? See also Agnus Dei XIII. Do we stress the note E in the 1st "Dei", 1st "nobis" & "pacem" or the final note D? If we stress the note E, does the preceding stressed one-note syllable become unstressed? Should we stress the 2nd F in the 2nd "nobis" or the following E, comparing with the ending of the chant?

In short, can we assume that the B on the "-ctus" in Sanctus XVIII is to be stressed? If not, then we can move to a subsidiary chording on the note A rather than on the note B, thus rendering "-ctus" as an appropriately unstressed syllable.

At the end of the day, perhaps it would have been better to compose new English chants for everything in the Missal, rather than adapt existing Latin ones - but it's easy to be wise after the event.

Indeed, but then at least two of us on this forum have been advocating this for some time, and some people are actually composing such new chants. Gregorian chant does work in English when the chant is set properly and sung proportionally; however, setting the Gregorian chants to English might lead people to not bother learning the Latin ordinary, which would a pastoral disaster, not least for international gatherings which is where the Latin comes into its own liturgically these days. The inability of the assembled to join in with the Latin at the World Youth Day mass (which all of them should have been able to do, by right) is embarrassing. How can non-Spanish speakers join in with confidence at such an occasion unless with Latin, the other language they should be familiar with from their own parish liturgy?

[alan29]

CC - unaccompanied because of its simplicity. And because it is plainsong - too many attempts at accompanying it end up bogging its fluidity down - was that English?.
I have clearly listened to far too much Purcell and Britten. They have been my yardstick when it comes to elegant word setting.

[John Ainslie]

Re- the Sanctus, I would simply observe that the puncta mora (the lengthening dots) on the second and third notes of the 'Sanctus' are a Solesmes editorial addition. All the dots (and vertical episemata) have now been deleted from both the monastic and Roman Antiphonals, and no doubt the same will happen with the Graduale when they get round to it.

Why continue to sing 'Sanc-TU-US' - or 'Ho-LY-Y' - when Solesmes have revised so much of their editorial principles? And there are no dots in the ICEL settings!

Try singing Sanctus XVIII (and ICEL Holy) without the dots and the quarter barlines (also Solesmes editing): it's more fluid and quite refreshing.

[Calum Cille]

.... but surely, of all settings that one is designed to be sung without accompaniment.

Why that one in particular?

CC - unaccompanied because of its simplicity. And because it is plainsong - too many attempts at accompanying it end up bogging its fluidity down - was that English?

Perfectly clear! But what's plainsong? Wasn't it all designed to be singable without the organ? And wasn't almost all of it ultimately accompanied once the organ was introduced?

I have clearly listened to far too much Purcell and Britten.

We're trying to understand a style of melodic composition that comes from elsewhere long ago. I think we can trust the Latins that they knew how these ordinary chants went and that the words were properly singable in their melodic and rhythmic context as they knew it. I agree that what they felt was alright for their syllables might not be in line with what we might feel is alright for our syllables (eg, adding closing formulae onto unstressed syllables is par for the course in chant but we don't have music that does that in English so we find it alien) but that's the musical style and we can't change it without rewriting it as a musical form.

[Gwyn]

. . . bogging its fluidity down

What a lovely line. It sums it up in one.

[Calum Cille]

And there are no dots in the ICEL settings!

Only that awful doubling of noteheads.

Try singing Sanctus XVIII (and ICEL Holy) without the dots and the quarter barlines (also Solesmes editing): it's more fluid and quite refreshing.

Quite so. Yes, the tropes do show us phrasing but they don't necessarily show us the original phrasing. Besides, considering how much and how little we know, we should be less hide-bound about what we do with this material. Our forebears had no qualms about reshaping it to their own taste, which is exactly how we've forgotten how it was originally done.

[alan29]

.... but surely, of all settings that one is designed to be sung without accompaniment.

Why that one in particular?

CC - unaccompanied because of its simplicity. And because it is plainsong - too many attempts at accompanying it end up bogging its fluidity down - was that English?

Perfectly clear! But what's plainsong? Wasn't it all designed to be singable without the organ? And wasn't almost all of it ultimately accompanied once the organ was introduced?

I have clearly listened to far too much Purcell and Britten.

We're trying to understand a style of melodic composition that comes from elsewhere long ago. I think we can trust the Latins that they knew how these ordinary chants went and that the words were properly singable in their melodic and rhythmic context as they knew it. I agree that what they felt was alright for their syllables might not be in line with what we might feel is alright for our syllables (eg, adding closing formulae onto unstressed syllables is par for the course in chant but we don't have music that does that in English so we find it alien) but that's the musical style and we can't change it without rewriting it as a musical form.

Good reply. learned my chant decades ago via Solesmes. Obviously much has changed, though some at ICEL seem as ill-informed as me. I wondered if the lengthening of "-tus" was something to do with the French enjoying the particular sound of that vowel in their language.
Organ - how much do we actually know given that one of the original job titles for the operator was "pulsator" a term that doesn't immediately suggest fluidity.
Re-writing - now there's the rub. Do we attempt to crow-bar English stress patterns into a melodic system (or even, heaven help us, actual melodies) that evolved from something different, or do we try to develop something else? I think we know what the good folk at ICEL would prefer.
I have been interested to see the number of faux-chant setting there seem to be around, interested, but not exactly overwhelmed by them - why do they summon up pictures of ruined abbeys and guttering candles?

[Calum Cille]

Obviously much has changed, though some at ICEL seem as ill-informed as me.

Rough, isn't it? There are still too many people punting a way of doing it and passing that off as being the only historical set of possibilities. You wouldn't get away with such claims in the natural sciences. Mind you, having said that ...

Organ - how much do we actually know given that one of the original job titles for the operator was "pulsator" a term that doesn't immediately suggest fluidity.

Not my forte, but the basic Gregorian repertoire was in place well before Constantine sent an organ to Pippin.

Re-writing - now there's the rub. Do we attempt to crow-bar English stress patterns into a melodic system (or even, heaven help us, actual melodies) that evolved from something different, or do we try to develop something else? I think we know what the good folk at ICEL would prefer.
I have been interested to see the number of faux-chant setting there seem to be around, interested, but not exactly overwhelmed by them - why do they summon up pictures of ruined abbeys and guttering candles?

Don't they just. Is this because the compositional structures of, eg, the Gradual are not taught analytically? Who has ever attended a workshop on how an introit antiphon was composed? It's far from being just warble.

Crow-barring into English is what the Orthodox are doing but these are national styles anyway so you'd want to keep them in a national church. Gregorian chant isn't quite a national style except for the Italians perhaps. We can easily keep the Gregorian repertoire and develop vernacular repertoires too. But heaven help us if they don't develop a sound of their own that marks them out as not merely being an insipid form of the local popular music. My current idle musings include something like those beautiful English hymn tunes inspired by folk music, but strengthened by knowledge of the compositional techniques of Gregorian chant. I wonder if that's a practical avenue of possibility. Can't say I've thought of this seriously as my own sphere of operations is Gaeldom and the native song tradition hands us down ready made recitational structures that are easy to extrapolate from.

But what do others think?

[John Ainslie]

We can easily keep the Gregorian repertoire and develop vernacular repertoires too. But heaven help us if they don't develop a sound of their own that marks them out as not merely being an insipid form of the local popular music. My current idle musings include something like those beautiful English hymn tunes inspired by folk music, but strengthened by knowledge of the compositional techniques of Gregorian chant.

I'm with you there, CC. I've always been haunted by Vaughan Williams's use of English folk tunes, and was responsible for importing Tallis's '3rd Mode Melody' into Praise the Lord as a tune for 'Help, Lord, the souls that thou hast made' - this, of course, is the theme of his Fantasia on a theme by...

Has that genre of English folk tune had its day? Probably. What is its successor? or successors in a multi-cultural society?

As for 'compositional techniques of Gregorian chant', I would regard them as highly debatable, given that we know so little about their origins, even pace McKinnon, etc. If the experts cannot agree, what hope is there for lesser mortals?

As I asked in my recent keynote lecture: how to find music that is both culturally accessible and ritually significant? Not by an unthinking hand-me-down from chant composed for Latin texts.