Oliver Gerlach for Emilysue Reichardt:
What is the most recent published work about these microtones, and where can I find it to read it?
I would like to learn more. Preferably in English.
Thanks
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Dear Leo
I hope you don't mind, if I paste your answer here in this discussion, where it belongs:
I will delete your personal comment, because it was not personal, but addressed to Mrs. Reichardt and me in the context of this discussion. The comment as a whole is quoted here, without dropping anything. Just to let you know, if you do not force me to move your comments to the right place, you have the advantage that you can delete it, whenever you like. You cannot delete somebody else's contribution which is quoting a former post of yours. You see the reply function is sometimes useful…
I understand from your answer that you avoid to draw any further conclusions concerning your analysis of microtonal shifts on the level of modality. I wonder about your reasons (with Augustine you are definitely on the safe side, from a dogmatic point of view, but what is exactly the problem?). It seems to me impossible that such conclusions can be avoided for a long time. If you will not do it, somebody else will... But why leaving your merit to somebody else, after you have done all this work?
It seems that these details are mainly testified by 11th-century sources associated with the Cluniac school. William of Volpiano developed his system of letter notation, while he was abbot at Dijon, and he also used it, when he was in charge to found new monasteries in Normandy. Nevertheless, he was educated at Cluny Abbey under direction of Mayeul. Probably that was the encouragement to discuss central French neumes as well, since they had been also used by William.
I think the role of Cluny is here very similar to the one concerning the practice of organum. There might have been a period under Bernard of Clairvaux, when the custom of organum was disputed due to the anti-Cluniac attitude of Cistercian reformers, but Christian Meyer and other later evidence by manuscripots have proved that the performance of organum was continued, even at Cistercian abbeys. The same is true for the parallel evidence of microtones in other local neume dialects, there are plenty of related discussions, whether certain occasional forms used in Aquitanian and Saint Gall notation means a tone alteration.
If this discussion is usually reduced to the question "where I have to sing b flat?", it is just a common confusion of staff notation with neume notation in campo aperto, even with a projection of current performance habits which are obviously not familiar with modality. There is a difference between a diesis and b fa, b diesis and b mi, which is very simple: a diesis leads to b fa and b diesis to c fa, likewise E diesis to F fa. I hope my reference to Guido might encourage you, even if it is not always appropriate to rely too much on Guido's Micrologus.
This short comment might encourage some scholars to a wider focus on the sources. After that it might be even possible to discuss about differences between local schools.
Dear Emilysue
Please allow me some remarks about “these microtones”.
The phenomenon of microtonal shifting is usually caused by modal attraction and can be found in modal traditions all over the world. It is not a very surprising aspect, surprising is rather the approach known among musicologists concerned with Western church music to reduce the discussion to the question, whether there was microtonal attraction or not within the Latin application of oktoechos theory to the musical memory. The explanation for this particular attitude is, that there was an early interest for the historical approach to the own tradition which has unfortunately ended in a current desinterest. The result is that there is no chant at all during the services or it has been even replaced by something else to be up-to date. Daniel Leech-Wilkinson described it as “re-invented traditions”, some might even call them “padded traditions”. Their beginning was poor without any sense for modality, probably caused by an arrogance that clerics or monks who did engage in studies of the manuscripts felt superior to musicians in their environment who were familiar with the still living tradition of oktoechos modality.
Concerning the scholarly approach one might mention that it is a common cognitive short-circuit that one only perceives which one has learnt to perceive. It definitely depends on the musical socialisation, what a human ear is capable to perceive or not, despite the fact that it is conditioned physiologically.
In ethnomusicology, this bareer that an ethnomusicologist has to overcome in confrontation with her or his field is well-known.
From a historical perspective one can say that there is plenty of evidence in the Latin sources concerned with modal attraction that something similar did once exist in manyfold forms. I established this group to talk about this source evidence (discussing terms like “diesis”, “absonia”, the mention of different tone systems or simply verbal descriptions of various modal subtleties in intonation which were in most of the cases not dealing with a scientific measuring of musical intervals or their modification), but also to discuss fieldwork experience.
As you might easily imagine it must have been part of an oral tradition which could be different between various local schools. It is well known that protagonists coming from different schools do not easily agree on these topics due to the local variety. It is a typical symptom of a living tradition. If a tradition is no longer alive, a lack of knowledge makes it impossible to agree or to disagree about something one does not know...
If one would avoid to resign and to cause later a disinterest, the only way is a combination of all these methodologies and to keep always the ears open for surprises.
This is just my way to tell you, that I understood that “these microtones” are concerned with those publications in the huge field of Western plainchant, not with any other tradition of religious chant in Europe or the Mediterranean.
If I got it wrong, please let me know, because there are plenty publications about the topic modal intonation...
Everybody is welcome to answer your question, especially Leo Lousberg. As far as I know, it is his doctoral thesis:
Microtones According to Augustine : Neumes, Semiotics and Rhetoric in Romano-Frankish Liturgical Chant
https://dspace.library.uu.nl/handle/1874/369247
The author announced he will publish soon additional essays about his findings.