At 10:04 PM -0600 11/9/07, Noel Stoutenburg wrote:
John Howell wrote:
But my comment was directed at the statement--I forget whose--that
square notation was not in use in Hildegard's time.
I did not write that square notation was not in use, but rather that
the rules and customs of interpretation as we know them today had
not been systematized. For example, in the Rules for Interpretation
of chant in the beginning of the Liber Usualis, Section IV,
Paragraph 1, states authoritatively
"Each note in Plainsong, whether isolated or ina group, whatever
its shape, has the same value, the value of a quaver in figured
music."
You're correct, of course, but remember that they were trying to
explain to an audience steeped in Romantic period music and style a
totally different style concept in around 1903.
When I perform chant my ideal is to achieve a speech-rhythm which
reflects the text rather than a plodding string of 8th notes, and my
singers do a pretty good job of bringing it off effectively, as long
as I keep after them to sing it as they would speak it. Obviously if
the text itself is rhythmic poetry rather than prose, that will give
a rhythmic interpretation to the music, which is probably why the
musicians at Nostre Dame de Paris in the late 12th century felt it
necessary to invent the first rhythmic notation.
The question that I find absolutely fascinating, in fact, is the
interpretation of the melismatic St. Martial-style organum of the
early 12th century. Conventionally we take the upper, melismatic
part in "consecutive quavers" while the chant notes in the lower part
are extended to the extreme. But we know that organum and other part
music was sung by soloists rather than the choir. So what if the
lower part was intended to be sung at a normal chant speed, while the
upper part was to be improvised (and in some cases written down--we
tend to forget how important improvisation was throughout music
history), at a very high rate of speed. (For a modern equivalent
picture a jazz saxophonist taking off on a chorus using fast scalar
and arpeggiated passagework.) I haven't tried it, because I haven't
had singers who could bring it off, but it does make me curious.
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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