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Restoration of Gregorian chants is the process of restoring the original melody in Gregorian Chant manuscripts.
All mainstream editions of chant books (Vatican, Solesmes, etc.) are known to contain a large number of errors. Comparative studies have been undertaken in which related groups of the earlier rhythmic unheightened neumatic manuscripts are set in large tables of comparison which is juxtaposed with a similar table of later melodic linear notations. [1]
Research by Dom. Jean Claire in the field of modality has shown that the third and eighth modes have had their dominants raised from B to C. In mode III is E authentic; the dominant a fifth above is B, which in many chants is raised to C in official editions. Not only are many chants in mode III and VIII in need of melodic restitution, there are errors in all other modes. The Munsterschwarzach-Group (Godehard Joppich, Stefan Klockner et al.)(publishers of the Beiträge zur Gregorianik) have been issuing their own melodic restitutions, as has Anton Stingl, and Geert Maassen with his Fluxus.notation. Whereas some of the researchers are hoping to establish an Urtext edition, others have given this up as unrealistic and prefer not to mix manuscripts into 'editorial soup' but to respect them as local variants in their own right. In 2010 Con Brio, Regensburg, published the Graduale Novum, pro Dominicis et Festis, which is another step along the way of melodic restitution, and judging by some essential critique, not the last word on the issue.
Though much has been published concerning melodic restitution in academic circles, it has not reached the area of chant performance practice and remains a mostly specialist subject.
In music theory, the term mode or modus is used in a number of distinct senses, depending on context.
Medieval music encompasses the sacred and secular music of Western Europe during the Middle Ages, from approximately the 6th to 15th centuries. It is the first and longest major era of Western classical music and is followed by the Renaissance music; the two eras comprise what musicologists generally term as early music, preceding the common practice period. Following the traditional division of the Middle Ages, medieval music can be divided into Early (500–1000), High (1000–1300), and Late (1300–1400) medieval music.
Semiology is a branch of Gregorian Chant research. Semiology refers specifically to the study of the neumes as found in the earliest fully notated manuscripts of Gregorian Chant, the oldest of which have been dated to the 9th century. The first application of the term 'semiology' for the study of Latin chant was made by Dom Eugène Cardine (1905–1988), a monk of the Abbey of Solesmes. In this context, 'semiology' is understood as 'the study of musical signs'. Text and neumatic notation, together with significative letters adjoined to the neumes, presents an effective and integrated mnemonic for the rhythmical interpretation and the melody. While Gregorian palaeography offers a description of the various neumes and their rhythmical and melodic values, Gregorian semiology explains their meaning for practical interpretation.
Plainsong or plainchant is a body of chants used in the liturgies of the Western Church. When referring to the term plainsong, it is those sacred pieces that are composed in Latin text. Plainsong was the exclusive form of Christian church music until the ninth century, and the introduction of polyphony.
Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic, unaccompanied sacred song in Latin of the Roman Catholic Church. Gregorian chant developed mainly in western and central Europe during the 9th and 10th centuries, with later additions and redactions. Although popular legend credits Pope Gregory I with inventing Gregorian chant, scholars believe that it arose from a later Carolingian synthesis of the Old Roman chant and Gallican chant.
In music, monophony is the simplest of musical textures, consisting of a melody, typically sung by a single singer or played by a single instrument player without accompanying harmony or chords. Many folk songs and traditional songs are monophonic. A melody is also considered to be monophonic if a group of singers sings the same melody together at the unison or with the same melody notes duplicated at the octave. If an entire melody is played by two or more instruments or sung by a choir with a fixed interval, such as a perfect fifth, it is also said to be monophony. The musical texture of a song or musical piece is determined by assessing whether varying components are used, such as an accompaniment part or polyphonic melody lines.
Organum is, in general, a plainchant melody with at least one added voice to enhance the harmony, developed in the Middle Ages. Depending on the mode and form of the chant, a supporting bass line may be sung on the same text, the melody may be followed in parallel motion, or a combination of both of these techniques may be employed. As no real independent second voice exists, this is a form of heterophony. In its earliest stages, organum involved two musical voices: a Gregorian chant melody, and the same melody transposed by a consonant interval, usually a perfect fifth or fourth. In these cases the composition often began and ended on a unison, the added voice keeping to the initial tone until the first part has reached a fifth or fourth, from where both voices proceeded in parallel harmony, with the reverse process at the end. Organum was originally improvised; while one singer performed a notated melody, another singer—singing "by ear"—provided the unnotated second melody. Over time, composers began to write added parts that were not just simple transpositions, thus creating true polyphony.
The Antiphonary tonary missal of St. Benigne was written in the last years of the 10th century, when the Abbot William of Volpiano at St. Benignus of Dijon reformed the liturgy of several monasteries in Burgundy. The chant manuscript records mainly Western plainchant of the Roman-Frankish proper Mass and part of the chant sung during the matins, but unlike the common form of the Gradual and of the Antiphonary, William organized his manuscript according to the chant genre, and these sections were subdivided into eight parts according to the octoechos. This disposition followed the order of a tonary, but William of Volpiano wrote not only the incipits of the classified chant, he wrote the complete chant text with the music in central French neumes which were still written in campo aperto, and added a second alphabetic notation of his own invention for the melodic structure of the codified chant.
A neume is the basic element of Western and Eastern systems of musical notation prior to the invention of five-line staff notation.
The gradual is a certain chant or hymn in liturgical Christian worship. It is practiced in the Catholic Mass, Lutheran Divine Service, Anglican service and other traditions. It gets its name from the Latin gradus because it was once chanted on the step of the ambo or altar. It is customarily placed after a reading of scripture.
Guillaume-Gabriel Nivers was a French organist, composer and theorist. His first livre d'orgue is the earliest surviving published collection with traditional French organ school forms. Nivers's other music is less known; however, his treatises on Gregorian chant and basso continuo are still considered important sources on 17th century liturgical music and performance practice.
An antiphonary or antiphonal is one of the liturgical books intended for use in choro, and originally characterized, as its name implies, by the assignment to it principally of the antiphons used in various parts of the Latin liturgical rites.
Ambrosian chant is the liturgical plainchant repertory of the Ambrosian rite of the Roman Catholic Church, related to but distinct from Gregorian chant. It is primarily associated with the Archdiocese of Milan, and named after St. Ambrose much as Gregorian chant is named after Gregory the Great. It is the only surviving plainchant tradition besides the Gregorian to maintain the official sanction of the Roman Catholic Church.
The Kyriale is a collection of Gregorian chant settings for the Ordinary of the Mass. It contains eighteen Masses, six Credos, and several ad libitum chants. This collection is included in liturgical books such as the Graduale Romanum and Liber Usualis, and it is also published as a separate book by the monks of Solesmes Abbey.
A tonary is a liturgical book in the Western Christian Church which lists by incipit various items of Gregorian chant according to the Gregorian mode (tonus) of their melodies within the eight-mode system. Tonaries often include Office antiphons, the mode of which determines the recitation formula for the accompanying text, but a tonary may also or instead list responsories or Mass chants not associated with formulaic recitation. Although some tonaries are stand-alone works, they were frequently used as an appendix to other liturgical books such as antiphonaries, graduals, tropers, and prosers, and are often included in collections of musical treatises.
The book Octoechos is a liturgical book containing a repertoire of hymns ordered in eight parts according to eight echoi. Originally created in the Monastery of Stoudios during the 9th century as a hymnal complete with musical notation, it is still used in many rites of Eastern Christianity. The book with similar function in the Western Church is the tonary, and both contain the melodic models of an octoechos system; however, while the tonary serves simply for a modal classification, the octoechos is organized as a cycle of eight weeks of services. The word itself can also refer to the repertoire of hymns sung during the celebrations of the Sunday Office.
Louis Lambillotte was a Belgian Jesuit, composer and palaeographer of Catholic music, associated with the restoration of Gregorian music, which he inaugurated and promoted by his scientific researches and publications.
The Roman Gradual is an official liturgical book of the Roman Rite of the Roman Catholic Church containing chants, including the proper and many more, for use in Mass.
Gregoriana Amsterdam is a vocal ensemble specialized in the reconstruction and performance of Gregorian chant based on tenth-century sources. Gregoriana was initiated by Reinier van der Lof in 2002. Since its foundation Gregoriana has been directed by Geert Maessen. Since 2006 Gregoriana also has a female branch, initially called Virga. Gregoriana’s home is the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, Amsterdam, where every first and third Saturday of the month at 16:00 Vespers are sung and every first Sunday at 10:30 Holy Mass. Until September 2019 Gregoriana's home has been the Amsterdam Obrechtkerk.
Graduale simplex is a gradual in Latin and in Gregorian chant, published by the Vatican in 1967 following the Second Vatican Council, so that the use of Gregorian chant can adapt to smaller parishes and churches or to those who lack experienced choirs.
for the melodic restitutions of Anton Stingl, see: http://www.gregor-und-taube.de/
for Geert Maassens melodic restitutions in Fluxus notation, see: www.gregoriana.nl, where you can find as well a downloadable file of Chis Hakkennes' Graduale Lagal
for the Graduale Novum, see: http://www.conbrio.de/musikbuch/graduale/graduale.php
