Perhaps it was in honor of the Day of St. James, the Elder
that Dr. Carver set to work on this. What a great service he is providing in putting these old Lutheran (corrected) texts to English and the Gregorian to modern notation. Enjoy!
There ain't no D major in chant. There ain't no major or minor in chant. There ain't no scales in chant. We got four modes, each with an authentic and a plagal, or my name ain't Guido Aretinus, OSB.
Terry, I've added a note for musicians. I realize that the pitch in chant is variable, but since I'm using modern notation, I had to put it in a certain key or mode, and thought it sounded best raised a step. Perhaps you can tell me what mode that makes it. Thanks! By the way, I may be wrong but I think both the "correction" and the original are included in Lossius.
If I had a copy of the Lossius around here, it has long since been stolen by a damn White Monk or a Bugnini operative.
I'm thinking it is a "correction" of the text I quoted because two of the stanzas resemble each other closely at the beginning and the end of the two texts.
I'd really rather read the chant notation. Who the hell can read all this modern stuff anyway? Even in Bach's day you could still jam your butt off on a figured bass or a cadenza.
Best I can make out from it, if one takes the f-sharp as the final, or tenor, the cofinal, or dominant, is weird.
I'm gonna call it mixolydian. which is the seventh mode in the miserable revisionist numbering by eight, but the authentic of the fourth mode to a real monking monk not merely monked over.
D-Dur, oh sorry, D major, as it is set seems to preserve the tone/semitone structure of mixolydian mode.
And of course one can start it on whatever pitch you find most comfortable.
Sure you guys don't wanna do "Jesus Dropped the Charges"?
PS and no I don't mean the "music of the spheres" by musica mundana. There ain't no spheres and no music thereof. I mean what the term applies to now, particle physics, quantum mechanics and stuff like that.
Dr. Herl notes (though he doesn't have an open ID):
It's Mode 4 (Hypophrygian). You can tell because the final (last note) is E and the range is from low C to high C. The mode stays the same in the new key: it's just Mode 4 transposed.
In Hypophrigian -- Mode Two plagal -- if the final is e the range would be b to b, not c to c. Plagal range is always from a fourth below the final to a fifth above. Starting on f sharp, the range would be c sharp to c sharp.
It is possible the final, as in last, note is not the final, as in modal final. It sometimes happens in authentic modes final/last note is one note below the modal final.
That would indicate Lydian due to the semitone, as Marinus indicates, though using the worldly term for it, Ionian. Either the authentic or the plagal of Mode Three (modes five and six for revisionists) would show this. So I defer to Marinus.
Hypophrygian makes total sense (although without the C# a modulated Ionian is pragmatic). Two things distract in the notation: the fact it is modulated to a tonic G; and the fact there is no C# in the music. This leads to some confusion: one sees a beautiful, obviously mediaeval chant and then one sees the strange number signs (;-)) at the staff. Modulate it back to the proper Phrygian (f1-f2) with attendant b natural and the problem's solved! Beautiful hymn, beautiful Phrygian melody! It make Homer (Simpson, that is) proud.
Still not convinced. The ambitus is just wrong for the pitch identified as the final to be hypophrygian. So either it's not hypophrygian or the modal final is misidentified with the last note.
The final note doesn't even sound final, like the tonic should. Even after the final F#, the G in this example feels like the tonic. However, we sink into esoterica. Again, a lovely hymn, Phrygian, Ionian or otherwise....
I gave it a "D" key sig. in the modern notation because that corrolates with the pitch I naturally sang it at. Would the modern notation be better suited to eighth notes rather than quarter notes? I think that's what LSB does for the few remaining ancient melodies.
Music theory is music theory. "Lovely" is esoterica.
If the final is E, the ambitus in hypophrygian is simply not c to c. Or any transposition thereof, it will not be two tones (major third if you gotta use the later term) below.
And too, and again, the final note of a chant is usually but not always the mode's final.
The g in this example feels like the tonic because of hearing it with tonal ears. The semitone leading tone that is so much a part of tonality would simply not be heard as such to pre-tonal modal ears.
Having chanted a boatload of chant alongside the SOBs, I mean OSBs, it sounds quite satisfactorily "final" to me.
Another problem is, the original is not the original; it is the original of a "correction" of an unidentified original. Since text is always primary in chant, one could wonder if the original neumes were "corrected" too.
Another problematic thing is, being a Reformation product, this is very late chant, well past the heyday of chant composition and may not show as thoroughly the characteristics of the main body of chant from which modal theory was drawn.
The one who could really solve this is my old magister scholae cantorum, but alas, he is now dead and was boofed from die Abtei post Vatican II long before he died.
16 comments:
Thank you! Master will do (MFA is my highest degree). :)
There ain't no D major in chant. There ain't no major or minor in chant. There ain't no scales in chant. We got four modes, each with an authentic and a plagal, or my name ain't Guido Aretinus, OSB.
What got "corrected", this? (I'd love to chant it with good old Benedict and see if he makes the "oe" into an Umlaut like Germans do sometimes!)
Exsultet coelum laudibus
Resultet terra gaudiis;
Apostolorum gloriam
Sacra canunt solemnia.
Vos saecli justi Judices
Et vera mundi lumina,
Votis precamur cordium
Audite preces supplicum.
Qui caelum verbo clauditis
Serasque ejus solvitis,
Nos a peccatis omnibus
Solvite jussu, quaesumus.
Quorum praecepto subditur
Salus et languor omnium
Sanate aegros moribus
Nos reddentes virtutibus.
Ut, cum judex advenerit
Christus in fine saeculi,
Nos sempiterni gaudii
Faciat esse compotes.
Gloria tibi, Domine
Qui natus es de Virgine,
Cum Patre, et Sancto Spiritu,
In Sempiterna saecula. Amen.
Terry, I've added a note for musicians. I realize that the pitch in chant is variable, but since I'm using modern notation, I had to put it in a certain key or mode, and thought it sounded best raised a step. Perhaps you can tell me what mode that makes it. Thanks! By the way, I may be wrong but I think both the "correction" and the original are included in Lossius.
If I had a copy of the Lossius around here, it has long since been stolen by a damn White Monk or a Bugnini operative.
I'm thinking it is a "correction" of the text I quoted because two of the stanzas resemble each other closely at the beginning and the end of the two texts.
I'd really rather read the chant notation. Who the hell can read all this modern stuff anyway? Even in Bach's day you could still jam your butt off on a figured bass or a cadenza.
Best I can make out from it, if one takes the f-sharp as the final, or tenor, the cofinal, or dominant, is weird.
I'm gonna call it mixolydian. which is the seventh mode in the miserable revisionist numbering by eight, but the authentic of the fourth mode to a real monking monk not merely monked over.
D-Dur, oh sorry, D major, as it is set seems to preserve the tone/semitone structure of mixolydian mode.
And of course one can start it on whatever pitch you find most comfortable.
Sure you guys don't wanna do "Jesus Dropped the Charges"?
What, no takers? Judas H Alamire, I haven't published anything in music theory for twenty-five some years!
Of the three musics, musica mundana always interested me way more anyway.
The real question is, if it's not OK to take CCM and "correct" it to have a Lutheran content, then why is it OK to do that with chant?
PS and no I don't mean the "music of the spheres" by musica mundana. There ain't no spheres and no music thereof. I mean what the term applies to now, particle physics, quantum mechanics and stuff like that.
I'm not sure how it could be Mixolydian - a major scale with a lowered 7th (g1-g2). Plagal Ionian and modulated for ease, maybe?
Dr. Herl notes (though he doesn't have an open ID):
It's Mode 4 (Hypophrygian). You can tell because the final (last note) is E and the range is from low C to high C. The mode stays the same in the new key: it's just Mode 4 transposed.
Many thanks for the musical help! I defer to Dr. Herl. BTW, my word verification is "uncia" (all lowercase)!
I don't buy it.
In Hypophrigian -- Mode Two plagal -- if the final is e the range would be b to b, not c to c. Plagal range is always from a fourth below the final to a fifth above. Starting on f sharp, the range would be c sharp to c sharp.
It is possible the final, as in last, note is not the final, as in modal final. It sometimes happens in authentic modes final/last note is one note below the modal final.
That would indicate Lydian due to the semitone, as Marinus indicates, though using the worldly term for it, Ionian. Either the authentic or the plagal of Mode Three (modes five and six for revisionists) would show this. So I defer to Marinus.
Hypophrygian makes total sense (although without the C# a modulated Ionian is pragmatic). Two things distract in the notation: the fact it is modulated to a tonic G; and the fact there is no C# in the music. This leads to some confusion: one sees a beautiful, obviously mediaeval chant and then one sees the strange number signs (;-)) at the staff. Modulate it back to the proper Phrygian (f1-f2) with attendant b natural and the problem's solved! Beautiful hymn, beautiful Phrygian melody! It make Homer (Simpson, that is) proud.
Still not convinced. The ambitus is just wrong for the pitch identified as the final to be hypophrygian. So either it's not hypophrygian or the modal final is misidentified with the last note.
The final note doesn't even sound final, like the tonic should. Even after the final F#, the G in this example feels like the tonic. However, we sink into esoterica. Again, a lovely hymn, Phrygian, Ionian or otherwise....
Here is the original.
http://books.google.com/books?id=mYs8AAAAcAAJ&dq=psalmodia%20hoc%20est&pg=PT545#v=onepage&q&f=false
I gave it a "D" key sig. in the modern notation because that corrolates with the pitch I naturally sang it at. Would the modern notation be better suited to eighth notes rather than quarter notes? I think that's what LSB does for the few remaining ancient melodies.
Music theory is music theory. "Lovely" is esoterica.
If the final is E, the ambitus in hypophrygian is simply not c to c. Or any transposition thereof, it will not be two tones (major third if you gotta use the later term) below.
And too, and again, the final note of a chant is usually but not always the mode's final.
The g in this example feels like the tonic because of hearing it with tonal ears. The semitone leading tone that is so much a part of tonality would simply not be heard as such to pre-tonal modal ears.
Having chanted a boatload of chant alongside the SOBs, I mean OSBs, it sounds quite satisfactorily "final" to me.
Another problem is, the original is not the original; it is the original of a "correction" of an unidentified original. Since text is always primary in chant, one could wonder if the original neumes were "corrected" too.
Another problematic thing is, being a Reformation product, this is very late chant, well past the heyday of chant composition and may not show as thoroughly the characteristics of the main body of chant from which modal theory was drawn.
The one who could really solve this is my old magister scholae cantorum, but alas, he is now dead and was boofed from die Abtei post Vatican II long before he died.
You would have liked him, Frater Marinus.
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