There is remarkable news about Gregorian chant: a long-awaited new edition of the Graduale Romanum is coming out next month, published by ConBrioVerlag and Libreria Editrice Vaticana.
This news comes from ConBrio via PrayTell.
The book’s melodies are corrected in light of several old manuscripts, and the text itself follows the example of the Graduale Triplex in printing Metz and St. Gall neumes above and below the four-line staff.
My thoughts:
1. This edition demonstrates a great vibrancy with regard to chant scholarship.
2. The pages themselves appear impossibility complicated and make chant look more inaccessible and scarier than ever before.
3. This edition could drive a deeper wedge between the ordinary form and the extraordinary form; I think it goes without saying that no EF community will use this edition. In fact, I seriously doubt that any OF community that uses authentic Gregorian chant will use this edition.
4. It will likely appear as a study edition and remain so for decades. That’s my prediction, in any case.
So I'm curious … I can read neumes as a basic skill (if I were singing in a congregation or using the music you give your schola), but never having studied chant, the other markings are a mystery to me.
Practically speaking, most any liturgical music is a matter of local interpretation, and a good leader can communicate the particulars at rehearsal. I think we all realize that outside of an early music conservatory or an advanced religious community that prays chant several times a day, no congregation will be concerned with interpretation.
So this edition is really dead, except as a reference work for scholars and directors, isn't it? What would a more usable edition look like?
My eyes nearly popped out of my head when I read this–what remarkable news!
I suspect that this might be a first official step toward the long anticipated "more critical edition" mandated by Vatican II. And it's long overdue for those who currently sing from the Graduale Triplex. What a treasure it will be for us!
To ease your concerns, Jeffrey, I think you are right that this is a study/director edition, and I don't think that it will be expected that ordinary singers will use this as their main singing edition. I suspect that the new complete Graduale will be along the lines of the new Antiphonale. There will only be square note notation, with some of the newer neume designs that contain more of the information from the manuscripts. And their will probably be the Triplex edition which will properly belong to director or the more highly trained singer.
The other curiosity is whether online editions will also remain available. I say "remain" because from the release it seems that this is essentially the same work that has been posted at "Gregor und Taube" for such a long time now. The only difference I see is in the addition of Laon notation above. It would be very forward thinking for the Church to allow for online editions to remain in place along side the printed edition!
This is such an exciting news!
I just noticed something – in fact, it has fairly retro four-line notation so you need the early neumes (above and below) for a semiological interpretation. I agree with Jeffrey, the page is a mess. I would prefer an edition with only four-line, but with episemas and augmented liquescents and all the rest as described in the foreword to the 1983 Liber Hymnarius. In fact every interpretation is somewhat local, so an edition such as this would give me and my singers everything they need to sing well. I thought that was the whole point of the revised notation of LH. We don't need a performance edition of the gradual with all these neumes above and below – we can get that from the Graduale Triplex. Or maybe they could have issued this thing in two editions, one with (for conductors) and one without (for singers) early neumes – both in revised four-line notation.
I'm going to ask why they're doing it this way. It suspiciously looks like that want to make everyone dependent on the early neumes – something which which only insiders, or those who come to their workshops and conferences, will ever know.
awr
You know, it seems to me that if this work is already done (i.e. the engravings are already complete) then this is no reason to bring Saulnier home to Solesmes.
Perhaps the late January publication will be a first step and Saulner will immediately begin work on producing the actual "more critical edition" which will include the entire Church year and will be in a notational style that is consistent with the new Antiphonale?
Who is/are the editor(s) of the NGR? Having the early neumes above and below is very messy as laid out. The GT is much more useful indicating where the early neumes originate. Are the early neumes in NGR derived from the GT or from some other place? Has anyone reviewed this new publication in a journal?
Myron – the work won't appear until Jan 31, so that's when it can be reviewed. The link at Pray Tell lists the editors. The early neumes would be from the manuscripts, I doubt they would be so lazy as to copy from GT (which would be a copy of a copy).
awr
I see they've allowed plenty of room for St. Gall neumes below the staff. Which makes it less messy than GT, I suppose — but also moves the Latin text too far from the notation, in my view. This will not help the singers.
awr
Adam – the two news stories are not related to each other in any way.
awr
The problem with the GT is that the stafless nuemes were added to the square notation of the GR as an afterthought. That makes the GT somewhat cluttered and the staffless nuemes often difficult to read.
In the above edition, it seems the first priority was printing the stafless nuemes clearly, and adding the square notation there only for comparison. In other words, the above edition may seem messy to some, but it is by far less messy than the GT. If one knows the Gregorian melodies well if not by heart, the square notation is not even needed. That the square notation is there offers, it seems to me, an excellent way to learn how to sing Gregorian chant from the staffless nuemes which have by far more information on how to execute the chant.
Fr Ruff's point of the text being too far from the square notation assumes that the point of this edition is to sing the square notation. If one can sing using the St Gall staffless nuemes then the text is very close. But one should also realise that this edition is not for amateurs. If you want text at a distance from the musical notation, take the English Hymnal where the music is on one page and the text on the other. Yet most Anglo-catholic SATB choirs are readily able to sing from these because these choirs are experienced and often composed of good musicians. The above edition clearly requires a certain level of proficiency in chant.
It's not a new Graduale Romanum it's a new private graduale.
Why are there sharps now??
Hi,
I did not see anywhere that the Libreria Editrice Vaticana is involved in this.
At least, the ConBrio website does not mention it.
Could someone please point me to the right place? Thanks.
J.
As someone who directs the music for a TLM, I might in fact take a peak at this and use some of the corrected melodies. I would judge this not on historical "correctness" (a false idol anyway) but rather on how beautiful the melodies are. Besides, it never hurts to have a little variety in the chant melodies.
"Besides, it never hurts to have a little variety in the chant melodies."
Now, that's what I call "Catholic sensibility." Thank you for that, Michael.
Just take in the subtle, different fragrances of the Heiligenkreuz rendition of the Requiem chants, as compared to other additions….
It's all good.
It seems to be more like the Graduale Triplex… a book which I've only had to use once to sing from when I lent someone else my GR!
JH, at San Diego Chant Intensive I had the good fortune of sitting near Pedro, whom I observed creating his own manuscripted editions from his Triplex. I was in awe.
I'll be sticking with "Square Notes for Idiots."