Greetings! I have taken an interest in the theory presented by Jan van Biezen, a short summary of which can be found here: http://www.janvanbiezen.nl/gregorian.html
And here also is a link to his book with a detailed review of the theory: https://www.amazon.com/Rhythm-Meter-Tempo-Gregorian-Chant/dp/1945416009#customerReviews
I study Byzantine chant and do not practice Gregorian chant, but nonetheless take interest in any new "approaches" to interpreting the Gregorian repertoire besides the famous Solesmes approach. Having found out about Jan van Biezen's approach, I tried to search for audio recordings of chant done according to his method, but found none. Do any such recordings exist? And is there any critique of or consensus on this method by other researchers? Thank you in advance!
Replies
My observations on the aforementioned examples of notae debiles.
1. Communion Jerusalem (Graduale Triplex, p. 370).
The 'l' in 'Jerusalem' is a small consonant cluster, and moreover a liquid consonant, allowing for the second note of the clivis over 'sa' and the initium debilis on 'lem' to be elided effectively into the same 'note'. The clivis could have been notated liquescently here. Why it wasn't, maybe this has to do with Alasdair's earlier observation of a correlation between liquescents and note-length.
2a. The '-m c-' in "cum cithara" in Alleluia Exsultate (GT p. 312-313) is a heavy consonant cluster, having two consonants produced from different places in the mouth.
2b. However, stepping back from the melody on the page, we see that the melody in the mind expects only a single short-duration note at this point, as in Introit Ad te levavi (GT p. 15), where the D is hit as a terminum debilis by "Ad" in some variants, as an initium debilis by "te" in others, and as both in still others like St. Gall 376. (Compare Graduale Triplex to Graduale Novum.) Wherever an initium debilis follows a terminum debilis (i.e. appended liquescent), and the terminum debilis is indeed part of a two-note syllable (e.g. a liquescent clivis) rather than just a liquid long, I think it wise to look in these cases for an implied meta-note or meta-tone, into which the first diminutive note liquesces, and out of which the second liquesces. If so, then maybe we can speak of liquescence at both the end and the beginning of syllables.
3. These liquescents may also have more to do with the melody transmission itself than simply being the effect of a long or short consonant cluster between the syllables. In Communion In Salutari (Graduale Triplex p. 350), "verbum tuum" is a common pre-cadential figure in neumatic Mode 6, and it usually has that liquid note. Off the top of my head, I can't think of an example where the initium debilis is lacking (it would be helpful to find one). So we may have to refine our examination to figure-by-figure scrutiny, since the initium debilis appears to be more optional in some figures than in others. I suspect the same is true for the terminum debilis.
4. Alleluia Exsultate Deo (again, Triplex p. 313)
"cum ci(thara)" is parallel to "sumite" in the line just above it. The figure on "sumite" is [G + (G)CB + CD], which is the incipit of Solemn Tone 7, as I mentioned before. Parallel analysis with Simple Tone 7 (Psalm Tone 7) reveals the C, not the G, to carry the beat. More on Psalm Tone rhythm later.
Alasdair Codona said:
Commemoratio Brevis says that "all notes are long or short, always one twice the duration of the other, no more, no less". Guido and Aurelian, however, have a threefold, not twofold, classification of note values:
1. Longa (long)
2. Brevis (short)
3. Tremula or Vinnula (spelled "vinola" in Medieval Latin)
I believe the third category is a catch-all class for non-binary notes of brief, but undefined, duration. These include the observed grace notes, dotted notes, quilismas, light passing notes, implied repercussive auxiliaries, and potentially also the 'compressed' *notes inegales* that we can observe in the aforementioned Gradual Clamaverunt on "eos". Today we think of these as different kinds of ornaments, but it seems Early Medieval cantors understood them as a single general concept.
I believe the vinnula/tremula was perceived not so much as a note *per se* but more as a vocal effect. Since the brevis was the smallest binary unit of *tempus* in rhythm, Guido's words "aut tremula" ("or else trembling") in Micrologus Chapter 15 suggest that the vinnula/tremula was perceived as a special kind of *motus* outside the binary rhythmic system. Its absence in the aforementioned paragraph in Commemoratio Brevis is therefore not surprising.
In practice, I think the written grace note that opens the Gradual Sciant might be just as easily interpreted (or rather re-interpreted) as a short or even as a long. The opening formula of Solemn Tone 7 (Canticle, Introit), [G + CB + CD] --- which is also the figure on "sumite" in Alleluia Exsultate Deo (Triplex, p. 313) --- would sound just as lovely if the G is sung as a grace, a short, a long, or omitted altogether, because the rhythmic ictus still comes into its own on the C. I have observed this kind of variance in other parallel places too.
Prof. Ricossa,
Thank you for your continued recordings. With each recording, your rhythm is growing closer to my view.
Excellent point on the Baroque. Recently I read a similar discussion on controversy over Bach's intended meaning of the fermata. We cannot discount the possibility that some signs, especially Romanine letters, had different meanings for different scribes. For example, the 'X' means 'expectate' in the St. Gall scripts, but in the Hartker Codex it appears to mean 'breathe' as though it is the Greek letter Chi rather than X.
It seems apparent to me from all these examples that the notators did not treat their notations with today's precision, not merely because notation was immature at the time, but because, for them, the true melody resided not on the page but *in their minds*. Remember that the notation is a description, not a prescription, of a pre-existing melody which was generated by and within an oral tradition.
Alasdair,
Great video of the Coptic Trisagion. Thanks for sharing. The Gregorian Alleluias and prose-less Sequences strike me as a similar kind of chant.
I wouldn't say that the ambiguity is restricted to usage, though. Taking as an example his qui tribulato in the verse Juxta est of the gradual Clamaverunt justi (p346 in the Graduale Novum), yes, there may be a significance to the absence of a marking on St Gallen 359's virga jacens at -bu- but can we be sure of what that significance is? The two virgae in St Gallen 359 are marked long and the third virga between them is marked c so we assume it to be celeriter but how long are the virgae marked celeriter and the virga jacens unmarked by celeriter? For the first long and the assumed celeriter, the ratio is ambiguous: for example, 2:1, 3:1 or 4:1. And for the second long and the virga jacens, the ratio could be interpreted as a long to (unmarked) short 2:1, 3:1 or 4:1 or a longer to long 3:2 or 4:2 or even as a long to long 2:2?
We could imagine the scribe of St Gallen 359 simply not bothering to mark the virga jacens as celeriter and to regard these four syllables as either a rhythmical variation on what would otherwise normally be a simple longa, longa, longa, longa rhythm (so 2 2 2 2 becomes 3 1 3 1) or a straightforward representation of long short long short (2 1 2 1) but that may do the scribe discredit. If the note of -la- in Laon 239 is proptyptic in nature, then its absence in St Gallen 359 means that the virga jacens would not be eaten into and made short: it would be left long.
Not quite at the stage of making rules yet myself, the question I would ask in such circumstances is how long is long, if proportions are to be applied to these notations? This is the kind of thing I mean when I refer to the notation being rhythmically ambiguous.
If we see two basic notes in Swiss notation on one syllable, clearly representing a higher and lower pitch (the statistics of the comparative analysis make that clear), nevertheless, without an additional marking, the durations of the pitches are ambiguous and that ambiguity can be laid at the door of usage, as you say, that is, the scribe writing the notes without adding other functional information for duration. However, the example of his qui tribulato shows that, even with information about duration, we are still left with ambiguity with regard to the rhythm and therefore to the rhythmic feel of the music, that is, how foursquare or unfoursquare the pattern is here.
Sgr Ricossa,
Rapprochement between Solesmes and mensural approaches can be very difficult to achieve and discussion unnecessarily fraught. If the Solesmes advocates cannot even agree that the notation is rhythmically unclear and ambiguous, it is expecting the other side to have to prove that the ambiguity - the very origin of the disagreement - even exists in the first place. I have been made well aware of the attitude that these notations are rhythmically adequately clear to Solesmes advocates and that, if I find them unclear, it is because I lack the sufficient knowledge and expertise that Solesmes advocates have to interpret them as they do. Whatever the case in regard to my lacking sufficient know-what and know-how, the same case could not be made against Peter Wagner in his day and cannot be made against Jan van Biezen today. If these notations weren't ambiguous, Solesmes would not have produced two different approaches.
Thank you for your snippet recordings which highlight some of that ambiguity. I particularly valued hearing the durations you gave to the curved notes in Deus, Deus meus.
Ricossa said:
Fr Weber,
I am grateful to you in turn for gracing my response with a reply. I hope you can understand why mensuralists react they way they do too. On one occasion, a supporter of a Solesmes approach claimed to welcome engagement and critique but then actually blocked it and ignored it, saying that the debate had already been had and that there was no consensus. What such people are actually doing is making sure that their interpretation predominates by shutting down public debate online and thus controlling the dialogue. The website that we are communicating on now is one of the few websites where that does not happen: it actually has a section for mensuralists.
The binary nature of representing a note in the earliest notations indicates either durational differentiation or dynamic differentiation. An intellectual position on the matter cannot (and should not) be belittled on the basis of disagreements of whatever kind between proponents of one view or the other. I see no virtue in pointing out either that Pothier and Mocquereau had differences in their understanding of these notations, nor that Dechevrens and Wagner had theirs, as if somehow the mere existence of a difference disqualifies any overall principle such as whether the signs indicate durational differentiation or not.
I am Scottish and am used to singing songs to a regular beat and without a beat but we have a particular proclivity for not singing to a beat; the Irish even more so. Nevertheless, when I was first exposed to the evidence of the earliest notations, I saw sequences notated in two ways, neither of which ways related significantly to the stresses or rhythm of speech. Having rejected the notion that such notations indicated dynamic differentiations, I looked at the office antiphons. You can imagine where that led my thinking. I find the opposition to mensuralist interpretations of chant difficult to support.
Jerome F. Weber said:
With regard to (memo)ria(lis) and (ce)lebra(bitis) in the offertory Erit vobis, the idea of a rhythmic weight or stress on the C seems to me to be an assumption coming from a given musical background. In Scottish vocal slurs, the musical weight or stress is on the slur, not on the note following the slur, and the slur is the moment of any jolting, not afterwards. This is true regardless of whether one is singing to a theoretically regular beat or singing free of any beat. If you tip a man's seat forwards suddenly and then tip it backwards gently into its original position, the jolt is felt when the seat is tipped forwards, not backwards.
While I agree that, in the Coptic examples that I reproduced for you, the singer was already well into progress of the musical item, my intention was solely to provide you with examples of a pitch performing the functions of appoggiatura and grace note, where the beat was on a short initial pitch and not on a longer second pitch. While I can't say I have heard the same phenomenon at the start of a Coptic chant, the Scottish snap occurs at the beginning of musical items before any regular beat has been established (and whether or not any regular beat is to be established) so such a phenomenon is far from being unnatural or impossible as a feature of human song and, concomitantly, at the beginning of a phrase, a short initial pitch is not inevitably sung and heard as not being given the musical weight or stress, whether or not the pitch is essential or inessential to the tune.
The suggestion that the Messine curving of an initial note (in a group of three or more notes) indicates a pitching that is not fixed (you mention portamento) is an interesting one but later heightened/staved notations assign this note a pitch position: in one later notation, that may be D, in another it might be E, but the same phenomenon (of later notations not being in agreement with regard to pitch) occurs with other Messine initial notes that are not curved, along with medial and final notes. It is easy to make such a suggestion: a similar suggestion was made in relation to liquescence markings and meanings were imported into the language of ancient treatises to support that suggestion. My own stance is that the curving of liquescence suggests that something verbal is happening on a pitch and that the Messine curving of initial notes of groupings of three or more notes suggests that something durational is happening to a pitch, indicated occasionally by the letter C in Swiss notation. Sometimes the pitch A is reached after both an E and a D have been sung, as at the start of the Alleluia Surrexit Altissimus. Obviously, there can be no unfixed pitch overtly indicated in those instances, or in the Swiss notation elsewhere. For me, portamento is to be imported: we would have to read it into the notation.
Whatever was thought by whom you call the authors of Gregorian chant, the ancient treatises do think it to matter very much whether or not syllables were sung to whole beats or half beats so I am not quite sure what you mean when you write that you suspect that the authors did not think it to matter too much.
I find more interesting the suggestion that the Messine curved initial note represents a pitch of no fixed duration. As to whether it is protyptic or not, I regard the jury as still being out on that one. I would add that it is interesting that, in Erit vobis, the Swiss notation does not have a punctum and yet otherwise depicts the first three pitches of the stressed syllable in exactly the same way as the Messine notation (barring the letter C in the Messine notation). Obviously, in theorizing about this music, the rhythm is not necessarily to be interpreted as always running according to pairings of shorts, as per quavers in a bar of 4/4 so it is accordingly not necessary to regard the first pitch of the stressed syllables following the punctum as protyptic in any way at all.
Kevin M. Rooney said:
Mr. Cordona, Thank you for your explanation, for which I am grateful. I only desire to point out why I react the way I do. The thread betrays from many of its contributors the sort of disdain for old Solesmes, Cardine, new Solesmes, and semiology that you detect from my remark. I do not argue ad hominem as others do. If the notation is rhythmically ambiguous, the Cardine approach should receive as much respect as van Biezen or his predecessors. Earlier criticisms of nuanced rhythm usually referred to mensuralist theory as if eight 20c. theorists (before Vollaerts and van Biezen) were not mutually contradictory. Willi Apel's conclusion in 1958 was that mensuralism is correct, although he did not choose which mensuralist he meant among the eight.
Mr. Cordona, Thank you for your explanation, for which I am grateful. I only desire to point out why I react the way I do. The thread betrays from many of its contributors the sort of disdain for old Solesmes, Cardine, new Solesmes, and semiology that you detect from my remark. I do not argue ad hominem as others do. If the notation is rhythmically ambiguous, the Cardine approach should receive as much respect as van Biezen or his predecessors. Earlier criticisms of nuanced rhythm usually referred to mensuralist theory as if eight 20c. theorists (before Vollaerts and van Biezen) were not mutually contradictory. Willi Apel's conclusion in 1958 was that mensuralism is correct, although he did not choose which mensuralist he meant among the eight.
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