At 1:40 PM -0500 11/9/07, David W. Fenton wrote:
On 8 Nov 2007 at 22:18, John Howell wrote:
The fact is that Hildegard's music WAS
notated, probably by the monks who ran the convent and in ranges
suitable for men's voices, and as notated fits the extended range of
female voices absolutely perfectly. The lady knew what she was doing!
I think you're assigning a modern meaning to clefs, i.e., that they
indicate a single absolute pitch for the notated music. I don't
believe they actually worked that way -- they, in fact, worked
somewhat like key signatures do today in some contexts. Yes, they did
indicate the range of the melody, but not via a reference to an
absolute pitch standard.
Oh, completely agreed, of course. That's why many chants began with
an incipit so the choir leader could establish the pitch, much like
shape-note singing. Let's not forget those Holy Offices in the
middle of the night!
But if she were using, say, a psaltery as a relative pitch standard
(and I may be stretching things a bit because in the movie I use in
my Survey of Music class she is shown playing a psaltery), the pitch
level is probably close to what she intended, if not tied down to
firmly fixed pitches.
But my comment was directed at the statement--I forget whose--that
square notation was not in use in Hildegard's time.
John
--
John R. Howell
Virginia Tech Department of Music
College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences
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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