Plainchant

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mary_Hawes
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
This site was helpful for me when I was learning to read/translate chant notation (interletras.com/canticum/eng/notation_eng.htm). It gives a reasonable explanation of how to translate the chant neumes into modern equivalents. It is important to remember that chant is “sung speech” so the notation is really a guide (i.e. chant doesn’t have the same concept of meter as in modern notation so chant neumes might translate to a quarter note, but not all neumens will have the same exact duration). The site also gives explanations on some of the different rhythms common in chant.

Personally, I found it helpful to listen to chants sung while looking at the notation. This site (sanctamissa.org/en/music/gregorian-chant/chant-liturgical-year/christus-rex-selected-chants.html) has chants with some of the associated chant scores.

Hope this helps.
 
Thank you for posting. It is beautiful. I wish all Catholic Churches sing Chants.
 
I just dont understand why the holy father just dont mandate Gregorian Chants to all Catholic Churches. I had with broadway style piano music in the Church. it is just awfull to hear.
 
wisdomseeker said:
I just dont understand why the holy father just dont mandate Gregorian Chants to all Catholic Churches. I had with broadway style piano music in the Church. it is just awfull to hear.
Click to expand...
Because it is easier said than done. How are you going to bring Gregorian chant to a small village parish in Africa or Asia? Even in North America today it wouldn’t be easy in remote rural parishes.
 
OraLabora said:
Because it is easier said than done. How are you going to bring Gregorian chant to a small village parish in Africa or Asia? Even in North America today it wouldn’t be easy in remote rural parishes.
Click to expand...
I’m not sure that I get your point. How did chant get all over the Roman Catholic world in the past? A parish only needs a handful of basic chants (Kryie, Gloria, Agnus Dei, etc) that can be done at each Mass (duly noted that there seasonal and festal variations).

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for a local culture’s musical expression of music at Mass – just not sure how hard it is to get basic chants in parishes. Even if one just learns a recto tono setting, which is the easiest setting of all, chant can be everywhere.
 
Are priests still taught to sing in seminary? I mean regular old seminary, not FSSP seminary or something like that. Because if the priests aren’t, then I don’t think there’s much hope for chant.
 
I_Thirst said:
I’m not sure that I get your point. How did chant get all over the Roman Catholic world in the past? A parish only needs a handful of basic chants (Kryie, Gloria, Agnus Dei, etc) that can be done at each Mass (duly noted that there seasonal and festal variations).

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for a local culture’s musical expression of music at Mass – just not sure how hard it is to get basic chants in parishes. Even if one just learns a recto tono setting, which is the easiest setting of all, chant can be everywhere.
Click to expand...
Well I sing in a choir that does only Gregorian Chant and I am a director of the Gregorian Institute of Canada.

Gregorian chant is a Western tradition and is in Latin (with a touch of Greek for the Kyrie and the improperes of Good Friday). Whether it is recto-tono, or simple settings of the ordinary, you are presuming an ability to at least read Latin fluently. That comes fairly easily to people from Western Europe, particularly those with a Latin-derived language like French.

Now let me ask again, how do you bring Latin plainchant to a small parish in, oh, say Korea? They don’t have the same language. Latin is way more foreign to them than English, and they even struggle with English. They don’t even use the same alphabet. The Church’s expansion in Korea is relatively recent. And Latin with a Korean accent will probably sound terrible anyway. Sometimes even Gregorian chant by native English speakers drives me nuts, most native English speakers can’t roll their "r"s like folks speaking Latin-derived languages.

You see? It isn’t as simple as simply mandating it everywhere. The Church as grown considerably in population and geographically since Gregorian chant was established as a Western tradition.

I’m all for it in areas where folks can manage it. But it’s a pipe dream to think that might be everywhere.
 
Thanks for the great response!

What about chant in the vernacular? For example, Adam Bartlett’s Simple English Propers (probably not too helpful for our Korean brothers and sisters). If Mass can be proclaimed in the vernacular, why not chant?
 
wisdomseeker said:
I just dont understand why the holy father just dont mandate Gregorian Chants to all Catholic Churches. I had with broadway style piano music in the Church. it is just awfull to hear.
Click to expand...
Putting aside the fact that some piano playing is horrible. Let’s talk about chant. Gregorian chant and plainchant are not the same thing. They’re related, but not the same.

Secondly, let’s look at the practicality of mandating Gregorian Chant to all Catholic churches.

Some people have give some excellent examples of how Gregorian Chants is not that simple for people who do not speak European languages and who may not even have certain sounds in their language. It may be like asking a Russian to say water without the V sound. It comes easily to some and other never get it.

Having said this, let’s do some math here.

20,000 Jesuits
75,000 Franciscan men
20,000 Salesian men and women
8,000 Missionaries of Charity, men and women
5,000 Brothers of Christian Schools
20,000 Poor Clares

and many others.

How would the Holy Father justify imposing Gregorian Chant on over 100,000 men and women religious who never used Gregorian Chant in their history, while at the same time he tells them to go back to their roots and recover the vision and charism of their founders?

While the Church can say that Gregorian Chant has the place of primacy, which is true, it would be a very unfair law to impose it on those who never lived with it.

Place of primacy does not mean that everyone has to use it. It means that it is the identifiable form of Catholic music or better said, that it is the norm for the Roman Church. Norm does not mean that it is the only form.

The Ordinary Form of the mass is the norm for the Roman Church. If we used this logic that since it’s the norm, it must be imposed on every Roman Catholic, the Holy Father would have to abrogate the Extraordinary Form.

We have to very careful that we don’t ask the Church to do something that would be unjust to many people and that we don’t corner ourselves in such a way that we say that the norm should become the only acceptable form, because that would send us right back to where we were before Bl. John Paul issued the indult for the EF.

In this case, Gregorian Chant is very beautiful, but it’s not part of every Roman Catholic’s tradition. If you were talking about Plainchant, that can be mandated, because that has been used by everyone. In addition, the Church never closes the door to the birth of new and reverent forms of art. She looks at art and says “This is good and helpful.” or “This is awful and does not help at all.” Throughout her history, she was always encouraged the development of the arts for use in worship, be it music, painting, sculpture or architecture. We should not believe that man is not capable of producing more great art for sacred use. It has not happened, but there is no law that says that it cannot happen. Smile and pray that we stop aborting children. The more children we have, the greater the chances of another Handel or Michaelangelo.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
I_Thirst said:
Thanks for the great response!

What about chant in the vernacular? For example, Adam Bartlett’s Simple English Propers (probably not too helpful for our Korean brothers and sisters). If Mass can be proclaimed in the vernacular, why not chant?
Click to expand...
Depends on the language I think especially the accentuation of the words.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top