Does Solesmes really say this?

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Does the monks of Solesmes really say that we should recite Latin with the Latin pronounciation but refrain from doing this when we sing?
I can hear a bit of this when listening to french people chanting if I really focus on it.
The most , what I find stupid, is when people who are supposed to be the experts in chant say things like that. Don’t chant as you speak Latin?
Then chant is not sung speech which it has been called. Solesmes is actually not to be trusted???
Just avoid their tradition? Are they also perhaps pronouncing their Latin very much like if it was French and therefore want us to sing like that?
As a non-French person I should not bother about Solesmes French method of chanting?
 
jesusmademe said:
Latin with the Latin pronounciation
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Your error is in thinking that there was only one “official” way of pronouncing Latin, and you are equating it with the Italianate pronunciation that is prevalent today. Formerly, there was enormous variation in how Latin was pronounced in various countries. There was even an English Latin pronunciation, which was very, very far from the Italianate one (you can see it still in how scientific and legal Latin words are pronounced by English speakers today. France, Germany, Poland, Spain and Portugal each had their own varieties, as well. And, of course, Italy was not united, and pronunciation of Latin varied depending on the local dialect, as well.

This was long the case. In 717, St. Boniface, who was an Anglo-Saxon Latin scholar who had written a famous grammar of Latin, visited Pope Gregory II in Rome. Boniface was a renowned Latin Scholar who had written a famous grammar in Latin. Pope Gregory was likewise a renowned Latin scholar, and had been in charge of the Vatican Library before he became pope. Nevertheless, Bonifice later wrote that he had some difficulty in understanding the Pope because of the differences in pronunciation.

Gregorian chant can be sung using whatever pronunciation. While it is true that, for public performances nowadays, the Italianate pronunciation (usually slightly modified to be pronouncable by locals) is the sort of “standard”, but this is not official, by any means. The only thing that is important is that if you are singing as part of a group, you are all more or less using the same pronunciation. Rather more than less.
 
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A quibble - you should sing Latin in the Italianate/Liturgical pronunciation because music for Liturgical Latin was written for that pronunciation.

I would add that spoken Liturgical Latin should use the Liturgical Latin pronunciation acknowledging local variations - no priest should say “wo”-biscum." at Mass. Otherwise, spoken Latin should use the Classical pronunciation…
 
johnnykins said:
A quibble - you should sing Latin in the Italianate/Liturgical pronunciation because music for Liturgical Latin was written for that pronunciation.
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Actually, no. No one knows exactly how eccliastical Latin was pronounced at the time Gregorian chant was created, and which pronunciation was used by the creators, who mostly came from north of the Alps rather than Rome. However, we do know that it differed significantly from modern Italianate pronunciation, which was a creation of fourteenth century Humanists, and had changed since.

And the German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish and English pronunciations were all developed by monks singing Latin chants for many hours on end every single day of their lives, so it is impossible to argue that any of those pronunciations are any less suitable for singing Gregorian Chant than the Italianate one.
 
I confess, I love Solesmes songs. I loved these monks who are all smiling and peacefull when we see them in their abbey. I listen them all the time when i was pregnant, when i was giving birth, and as a conclusion my child love them too. And I am a frenchwoman.

But I know very little of the questions you raised.
jesusmademe said:
Does the monks of Solesmes really say that we should recite Latin with the Latin pronounciation but refrain from doing this when we sing?
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I am not aware or search for any statement of Solesmes on your questions.

However, I just listen again la messe du jeudi saint de l’abbaye de Solesmes. this CD
https://www.abbayedesolesmes.fr/productdisplay/la-messe-du-jeudi-saint
I hear the “Catholic pronunciation” that is the Italian one. such as for our father: *"pater Noster qui es in caelis", caelis is pronunced as “tchelis”. (16)

It is not as i have learned it in school where we pronounced “caelis” as “kaélis”.

From what i know the official latin pronounciation has not been fixed for french schools before the 1960’s on what seems the more probable antic version. It is not written on the stone.
jesusmademe said:
Then chant is not sung speech which it has been called. Solesmes is actually not to be trusted???
Just avoid their tradition? Are they also perhaps pronouncing their Latin very much like if it was French and therefore want us to sing like that?
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wooh!!! Are you not going too far??

Of course solesmes can be trusted. They refunded the benedictine order that was almost destroyed with the french Revolution. Beautiful latin liturgy! If we love traditional mass and gregorian songs, we love Solesmes.
jesusmademe said:
As a non-French person I should not bother about Solesmes French method of chanting?
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No, you should not bother. And stop to torment yourself or avoid them, unless their songs make you more angry than peacefull.

Peace brother
 
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How about you let Solesmes do Solesmes - so many people love them just the way they are - and you do you? Especially since you are not French and not having to be in contact with them a lot.
 
It is Solesmes that restored Gregorian chant in the late 19th century after it fell into disuse and had been corrupted.

It is not chant as it was in the Carolingian era. It his how Solesmes believes chant was in the Carolingian era based on the study of ancient manuscripts. A lot, and I mean a lot, of scholarship has gone into it.

I belong to an abbey of the Solesmes Congregation (as a secular oblate) that uses Gregorian chant daily. I also sing in a Gregorian schola. I was trained by one of their monks, the former choirmaster (RIP+), and regularly under go refresher sessions. Plus I sing with them every Sunday and Wednesday… when not in lock-down.

So it’s what I know and it’s what I sing, and it works just fine, and when well executed produces very beautiful results. The important thing in a schola is to be all of one voice. I can hear German, French, Italian, Anglophone nuances etc. when I listen to other recordings. That’s OK, we’re human.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
How about you let Solesmes do Solesmes - so many people love them just the way they are - and you do you? Especially since you are not French and not having to be in contact with them a lot.
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Agreed. And the OP can also refrain from calling things that he/she doesn’t understand “stupid,” simply because they are unfamiliar.
 
jesusmademe said:
Does the monks of Solesmes really say that we should recite Latin with the Latin pronounciation but refrain from doing this when we sing?
I can hear a bit of this when listening to french people chanting if I really focus on it.
The most , what I find stupid, is when people who are supposed to be the experts in chant say things like that. Don’t chant as you speak Latin?
Then chant is not sung speech which it has been called. Solesmes is actually not to be trusted???
Just avoid their tradition? Are they also perhaps pronouncing their Latin very much like if it was French and therefore want us to sing like that?
As a non-French person I should not bother about Solesmes French method of chanting?
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I would like to be able to read the source to which you allude to see what they say.

One of my friends sings and she says that when you sing you often enunciate a word differently from how you do when speaking. I wonder if what they meant was as simple as that.
 
We sometimes vacation near a benedictine abbey of the Solesmes congregation. Mass there is absolutely beautiful.
jesusmademe said:
Don’t chant as you speak Latin?
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jesusmademe said:
Then chant is not sung speech which it has been called. Solesmes is actually not to be trusted???
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I have no expertise whatsoever in Gregorian chant, but I’m a French amateur musician with a keen interest in baroque music. A lot a scholarship has gone into recreating, for example, the 17th century pronunciation of French, and, for that matter, the 17th century French pronunciation of Latin. It is quite different from how today’s spoken French* sounds, and from how the Latin I learned at school sounds, but it is how it is sung by any serious baroque singers, because it is the best approximation we have of the way the composers intended their music to sound.

*I should say “French French” actually. It’s probably closer to Québécois French.
 
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TomH1 said:
I would like to be able to read the source to which you allude to see what they say.
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“THE ICTUS’ AND THE TONIC ACCENT. In just the same way, the ictus is inde-
pendent of the tonic accent of a Latin word, with which it is most important not
to confuse it. It mayor may not coincide with the tonic accent, at the composer’s
pleasure; according to the well-known and ancient saying, “Musica non subjacet
regulis Donati”, the music takes precedence of the grammatical structure of
the words.
Since the ictus is the. thesis or coming to rest of a rhythmic step, it will fall more naturally on the final syllable of a word.”


They are actually saying that we shouldn’t chant with the same accent we use we speak.
I do not use this method. This is probably working for the French people but I am a non-French person so I don’t use it.
Would would anyone even think about changing the accent when chanting?
If they want to use this method let them do it but…I do not understand why they think their method is the best one.
 
Thank you for the link to the PDF.

Could you please cite a page number so I do not have to go through the entire document.
 
The PDF is obsolete. Chant interpretation evolves. Starting with the 2005 Antiphonale Monasticum, and more recently with the Antiphonale Romanum and Liber Hymnarius, Solesmes has eliminated all rhythmic signs from chant books. Only the notes are shown now along with the text. The spacing between notes still counts for timing.

The Graduale Romanum of 1974 still has them. Presumably some time in this century a new edition taking this into account will be released.

It’s not an innovation that hasn’t stirred controversy as most of us are used to having rhythmic signs. We were taught in fact to ignore vertical episema well before this change.

My Divine Office books are all recent and have no rhythmic signs. I have now gotten used to it, and prefer it. The score is neater and easier to read, and the chant purer, with coloration limited to the tonic accent of the Latin, the timing, and the arsis-thesis.

So this controversy can be put to bed unless you belong to a choir wedded to the old way.
 
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Jbrady said:
There was even an English Latin pronunciation, which was very, very far from the Italianate one (you can see it still in how scientific and legal Latin words are pronounced by English speakers today.
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Westminster School (London England) still uses it at morning prayers. The Grace comes out as “Grayshia domineye Jeesew Christeye, et caritas dee-Eye pay-triss, et communicayshio spy-rittus sanct-eye, sit semper come omnibus nobis.”
 
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I find the biggest flaw with English-accented Latin is the inability to roll R’s something that Latin-derived languages master (occasionally to excess!). I have a CD recording of the monks (Carthusian) of Parkminster in the UK. The voices and their command of chant is exemplary, but whenever they have to pronounce an R, it drives me nuts!

On the other hand Germans will pronounce a C as an S, whereas Italians and Francophones will pronounce it like a CH such as “Beneditchite” whereas the Germains will say “Benedisite”.
 
No doubt you’re right, I don’t listen to the recording I have of German monks very often so my memory is probably rusty! Actually, to show what a liturgy geek I am, I have a couple of recordings of monastic Compline. I often listen to them in my car if I’m coming home late at night so I can go straight to bed without saying Compline. The recording I have from the Austrian monastery (Cistercian), does not have the “alleluia” in the opening verse, and the hymn is on the lenten tone. So I listen to that one at Lent. The other one, from Solesmes, I listen to the rest of the year.

Cistercians always use the same Marian antiphon (Salve Regina, solemn tone) but Benedictines change seasonally. So if I’m listening to the Cistercian recording during Lent, I let the Salve Regina play. But if listening to the Benedictine one and it’s not “Salve Regina” season, I will stop the recording before it starts and chant the appropriate antiphon, in the car 😉

Also, the Liturgy of the Hours allows the repetition of psalms 4, 90 and 133 every day (which is the traditional Monastic practice). Both recordings are monastic and use these three psalms so I’m good to use them any day of the week! I also always use those three psalms every day myself. I often read Compline in bed and I’ve got most of it memorized in French (I’m a francophone).
 
I live in Luxembourg and always go to a Tridentine Mass. However I m on very good terms with the nuns of the Incarnate Word here and sometimes go to their vespers. They generally do it in French.

I find that French is a very beautiful language except when it comes to prayer. For example, Je vous salue Marie seems clumsy compared to Ave Maria or even Hail Mary; vos entrails is quite an ugly translation of ventris tui, and ainsi soit-il a very convoluted way of saying amen. But I suppose, if you are used to it…
 
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