I would caution anyone who is not already accustomed to notating Gregorian (Solesmes) notation and has not direct model to copy from to use modern notation.
I would agree. In one instance I used the St. Meinrad fonts to reverse-engineer a modern edition back to chant notation for my ensemble, but ran into an unexpected problem. Hildegard's music uses a much wider range than almost any Gregorian chant does (one of its distinctive qualities), and I ran out of notes!
It was good enough for the 1982 Episcopal Hymnal, so it ought to be good enough for modern editions. Certainly, more singers will know how to interpret it than can sing the Solesmes notation correctly.
Certainly true, but it takes me about 10 minutes and a little practice time to teach a new group of singers to read chant notation (as i will do next fall when I again teach Early Music Literature), and I much prefer it. The information it conveys is exactly the information that the singer needs, as I'm sure you realize from your own experience; it's the proper notation for that music. (And why, oh why did we ever stop using that most useful custos--the little piece of a note at the end of a line that tells you what the first note on the next line will be?) My wife found the same with her youth choir at church (ages approximately 9 to 18). They thought nothing of singing from chant notation, or in a variety of foreign languages. (The same could not be said, unfortunately, for members of the senior choir!)
I *know* this notation, having sung full Gregorian chant ordinaries for years (often at sight), but I would *never* use that notation in any performing edition, except, perhaps, in incipits to show original notation (and even then, it's hardly necessary).
I might draw a distinction here between an edition intended for performing (under my own or my wife's direction) and an edition intended for publication with the end users unknown. For the latter I would certainly agree with David.
John
-- John & Susie Howell Virginia Tech Department of Music Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
