At 6:05 PM -0600 1/6/07, Robert Patterson wrote:
Ficta or embellishments are my concern.
Hi, Robert. Ficta should not be a factor in the chant, just in later
useages of the chant in polyphonic pieces, but even that use of ficta
is an artifact of the arrangement and not of the original chant.
OK, I just realized that there's one obvious exception in chant, the
use of "una nota super la semper est canendum fa" (i.e., one note
that exceeds the upper range of the hexachord--la--and returns to it
is sung "fa" or lowered. This almost always involves B becoming Bb,
or rarely E becoming Eb, but it wouldn't be notated in the chant.
You'd have to understand Guido's solmization.
Also how to read ligatures, although the particular example is quite simple.
Treat them as equivalent to slurs, of course, indicating that they
share a single syllable of the text. Then read from left to right,
OR from bottom to top if the upper note is swiveled to the left on
its stem. Same thing in a more complex ligature with more notes.
Anything more complicated had to wait for the rhythmic modes and
mensural music.
Also how to interpret dashes and dots over/by tones.
Generally interpreted as a lengthening or tenuto, and almost always
at a phrase end. They may be inserted by the Solemes monks, or they
may be in the manuscripts they studied. And of course they may have
been misinterpreted by the faithful monks.
My exposure is mostly limited to one medieval music survey course 25
years ago, so I don't have the advantages of many on this list.
Understood! It's the kind of thing you have to work with in order to
remember it.
But the biggest problem seems to be an embarassment of different
versions. The PDF I downloaded from
http://www.cantoambrosiano.com/spartiti.htm
(Each line has the same music.)
A lovely and very readable transcription. As I said above, both
dashes and dots indicate a lengthening of the notes (and they always
come at phrase ends), and the single 2-note ligature is read G A
(i.e. bottom note to top note). (And there's no question of ficta.
The melody covers the entire soft hexachord, G to E, and does not
exceed it. Not very adventurous!!)
Then there is a version in a javascript popup link at
http://interletras.com/canticum/Eng/Translation_Xmas.html
Your observation that this is a different chant melody is quite
accurate. There are often different regional variations with the
same melodic contour and internal variations, but that is not the
case here. The setting is even slightly more neumatic rather than
syllabic (i.e., more ligatures, or neumes). Different tune, same
words.
This version does not match at all the version in the PDF, unless my
reading skills are even worst than I thought.
Finally there is the incipit in HAM 120a. (Thanks to Dennis for
reminding me to go and look there.) However, it seems to be yet
different again from either of these other two.
Mine's packed away somewhere, so I can't compare it.
More than notation help, if anyone can offer guidance in
understanding why the discrepancies exist, that would be a big help.
All three are called "Veni Redemptor Genias--Ambrosian Chant" or
something like that.
Actually no, they're both called "Veni Redemptor Gentium," not
"Genias." And such variations in the incipits can indicate totally
different texts.
OK, first it is a hymn. That is a form that was imported from the
Eastern Church, largely through Milan, where St. Ambrose was Bishop
(thus "Ambrosian Chant," one of the main historical variations. And
a hymn IS THE TEXT! It is the poetry. I learned this in grad school
when I went to look at "Hymna Analectica" (or something close to
that), expecting to find something like a modern hymnbook, and
instead found 10 or 20 volumes of nothing but poetry!
The hymn (the poetry) could then be set to music--a chant, a hymn
tune, whatever. And it could be set to quite different music by
different people in different times and different places. That's
what we seem to have here. Which one is the REAL hymn? Both of
them. All of them! Because they are all settings of the same "hymn"
(i.e. poem).
For such things musicologists--and musicology students--live.
Pathetic, isn't it?!!
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
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