Ensemble Organum and Old Roman Chant

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Ensemble Organum is a well-respected group that offers renderings of what is known as Old Roman Chant.

An example may be heard here: youtube.com/watch?v=srr_uPB0esI

The Roman chants they cover are from the 6th and 7th century, when Rome was still influenced by the Byzantine Empire. The guiding idea behind the renderings is that due to this influence, Roman chant was more Byzantine or Eastern in sound.

What do you think of this? Did old Roman music sound more Byzantine?

Another interpretation is that Old Roman Chant was like Gregorian Chant, only simpler. I believe this is the interpretation followed by Schola Hungarica.
 
Well, there was a period where there were Syrian and Greek popes. That means there had to be a lot of Syrians and Greeks at Rome.

So, it stands to reason that their musical styles would have influenced Roman chant.

I’ve heard one such tape (don’t know if it was by Ensemble Organum or another group), and whether Latin or Greek was used, they were sung with isons (similar to Western Organum) and sound almost indistinguishable from Byzantine or Neo-Byzantine Chant.

Rome was a cosmopolitan city, so it wouldn’t surprise me that church music would have been eclectic.

The idea that everything in the Church was absolutely uniform reached its zenith in the 16th century–not only with the Council of Trent but in Reformed Churches. But musico-liturgical history, especially of previous periods, doesn’t support this theory.
 
I am not an expert by any stretch, but it does seem IMO that Ensemble Organum’s historical chant recreations are a bit too influenced by modern Byzantine music to be faithful recreations of the period they claim they are from.
 
Formosus said:
I am not an expert by any stretch, but it does seem IMO that Ensemble Organum’s historical chant recreations are a bit too influenced by modern Byzantine music to be faithful recreations of the period they claim they are from.
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Isidore of Seville said it was impossible to notate music.

Early systems of neumatic notation (affectionaly known as squiggles) were developed in Byzantium, Russia, and the West. How much the influenced each other, and how much they borrowed from each other is a subject more suited for doctoral theses.

If all you have is a chain of squiggles, with at most one or two lines to suggest relative pitch and tessitura, it might be anybody’s guess how to render such ancient music.

One thing we know for sure: musical styles are NEVER fixed, even in the church, and cannot be, without a clear system of notation.
 
bpbasilphx said:
Isidore of Seville said it was impossible to notate music.

Early systems of neumatic notation (affectionaly known as squiggles) were developed in Byzantium, Russia, and the West. How much the influenced each other, and how much they borrowed from each other is a subject more suited for doctoral theses.

If all you have is a chain of squiggles, with at most one or two lines to suggest relative pitch and tessitura, it might be anybody’s guess how to render such ancient music.

One thing we know for sure: musical styles are NEVER fixed, even in the church, and cannot be, without a clear system of notation.
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Perhaps writings from the time on how the music sounded can shed light on the subject.
 
Madaglan said:
Perhaps writings from the time on how the music sounded can shed light on the subject.
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Some do. So do the physical instruments in use, especially flutes & pan-pipes. We know their basic instumental repertoire, and as some annotated fingerings exist, the tonality in which they were used. Accurate neumatic notation is about 800 AD, IIRC (My NAWM is stored, so I can’t look it up.).

And why flutes & pan-pipes? Because they don’t change pitch over time as a general rule. Especially bone or metal flutes.
 
Would various forms of flutes and panpipes have diatonic or chromatic fingering, as we consider these scales since at least the 15th century?

Or would they, too have been designed for microtonal intervals?
 
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Hi! I’m new to the forum also. I’m close to your type too!
 
bpbasilphx said:
Would various forms of flutes and panpipes have diatonic or chromatic fingering, as we consider these scales since at least the 15th century?

Or would they, too have been designed for microtonal intervals?
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Most flutes are tuned to a particular mode. It is possible to get chromatic tonality out of them (by partial coverage and/or skipping holes), but the default fingering is in fact diatonic mode for modern recorders and flutes.

I have, in the past, seen flutes tuned to other modes (specifically lydian mode).

Pan pipes, being specific pitches for each tube, can be either, tho’ most ancient ones are in fact modal, rather than chromatic.

A C Recorder, for example, thumb & 0-7 fingers, plays a C-Major (diatonic) scale, tho usually the F is slightly sharp, but not sharp enough to be an F# (about 1/6th to 1/8th step), hence why the F uses T1234_6_ covered. to get the F#, T123_56_.

C Baroque
Diatonic Notes . Chromatic Notes
D’: 2___ … C#’ 234_
C’: T_2_____
B : T1______ … A#: T1_3____
A : T12_____ … G#: T12_45__
G : T123____ … F#: T123_56_
F : T1234_6_
E : T12345__ … D#: T12345_7
D : T123456_ … C#: T123456½
C : T1234567

Note that the chromatic patterns and the F figering vary between “Baroque” (aka “English”) and “German” fingerings. German fingering for F is T1234__ but it doesn’t do chromatic notes well (most are off by a 1/16th tone or more). For recorders in other keys, the relationships are almost always maintained. Many Baroque pattern recorders play in F in tune with T1234_6_, whilst others require T1234_67.

So one can, by looking at a modern recorder, note the easiest fingerings are on the major scale having the tonic of the fully closed fingering note.
 
Well im no expert but just listening, This chant sounds more like a muslim chant rather than the byzantine, or maybe the muslim chant was influenced by byzantine or the other way around.
Madaglan said:
Ensemble Organum is a well-respected group that offers renderings of what is known as Old Roman Chant.

An example may be heard here: youtube.com/watch?v=srr_uPB0esI

The Roman chants they cover are from the 6th and 7th century, when Rome was still influenced by the Byzantine Empire. The guiding idea behind the renderings is that due to this influence, Roman chant was more Byzantine or Eastern in sound.

What do you think of this? Did old Roman music sound more Byzantine?

Another interpretation is that Old Roman Chant was like Gregorian Chant, only simpler. I believe this is the interpretation followed by Schola Hungarica.
Click to expand...
 
marlo said:
Well im no expert but just listening, This chant sounds more like a muslim chant rather than the byzantine, or maybe the muslim chant was influenced by byzantine or the other way around.
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There is no tradition of choral sining in that religion.
 
marlo said:
Well im no expert but just listening, This chant sounds more like a muslim chant rather than the byzantine, or maybe the muslim chant was influenced by byzantine or the other way around.
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Basic forms of Islamic chant were ripped straight from the Melkite and Syrian Christians in the middle east.
 
Formosus said:
Basic forms of Islamic chant were ripped straight from the Melkite and Syrian Christians in the middle east.
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Can we sue them for copyright infringement? :yup:

Don’t suppose there are any statutes of limitation on that.
 
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