Briggs 
 
 The Work of the 
 Benedictines of Solesmes 
 in the Plainsong Revival
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 MUSIC 
 LIBRARY
 
 [From the Transactions of the St. Paul's Ecclesiological Society, — Vol. IV.] 
 
 THE WORK OF THE BENEDICTINES OF SOLESMES 
 IN THE PLAINS0N6 REVIVAL. 
 
 H. B. BRIGGS, 
 
 Hon. Secretary of the Plaiiisong and Mediaval Music Society. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 FEINTED FOR THE SOCIETY BY 
 
 Harrison and Sons, Printers in Ordinary to Her Majestv, 
 
 St. Martin's Lane.
 
 ^t (pauf^ 6«fe0iofo^icaf ^ociet^< 
 
 FOUNDED IhBRUARY CHi, 1879. 
 
 ^rcsfijent. 
 THE VERY EEV. THE DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S. 
 
 Rt. Rev. The Lord Bishop of Argyll and 
 
 the Isles. 
 W. DE Gkay Biech, F.R.S.L., Hon. Sec. 
 
 B.A.A. 
 Rt. Rev. The Lord Bishop of Beistol, F.S.A. 
 Rt. Rev. The Lord Bishop of Cairo, U.S.A. 
 F. T. Dollman, F.R.I.B.A. 
 B. E. Feerey, F.S.A, F.R.I.B.A. 
 E. Freshfield, LL.D., F.S.A. 
 Veu. Archdeacon Giffoed, D.D. 
 H. RouMiEU GouGH, F.R.I.B.A. 
 Rev. H. R. Haweis, M.A. 
 Rev. H. Scott Holland, M.A., Canon of 
 
 St. Paul's. 
 
 S. Wayland Kershaw, M.A., F.S.A. 
 j J. WiCKHAM Legg, M.D., F.S.A. 
 ! Veu. Archdeacon of London, D.D. 
 I J. T. Micklethwaite, V.P.S.A. 
 i Rev. W. C. E. Newbolt, M.A., Canon 
 I St. Paul's. 
 
 j Rt. Rev. The Lord Bishop of Oxford. 
 
 F. C. Penrose, M.A. 
 
 Rt. Rev. The Lord Bishop of Pretoria. 
 
 Rt. Rev. The Lord Bishop of Salisbury. 
 
 Rev. H. C. Shuttleworth, M.A. 
 
 Sir J. Stainer, M.A., Mus. Doc. 
 
 Rt. Rev. The Lord Bishop of Stepney, 
 
 Rt. Hon. J. G. Talbot, M.P. 
 
 ©ouncil. 
 
 (£7- 'fed January 2Stk, 1899.) 
 
 Chahmm—'Rev Lewis Gilbrktson, M.A., Minor Canon of St. Paul's. 
 T'nisi/'-: — Piev. E, Hoskins, M.A., Rector of St. Martin Ludgate. 
 
 .Edw/—: Beli., M.A., F.S.A. 
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 Rev. E. S. Dewick, M.A., F.S.A. 
 Leland L. Duncan, F.S.A. 
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 Thomas Garratt. 
 
 James Horsbuegh. 
 
 E. C. Hulme. 
 
 G. W. Marshall." 
 
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 ^on. Sbccittnrj), 
 
 E. J. Wells, 4, Mallinson Road, Wandsworth Common, S.W. 
 
 F. Gill, 38, John Street, Bedford Row, W.C. 
 
 I^on. lEOftor. 
 Rev. E. S. Dewick, M.A, F.S.A., 26, Oxford Square, Hyde Park, W.
 
 
 THE WORK OF THE BENEDICTINES OF SOLESMES 
 IN THE PLAINSONG REVIVAL. 
 
 BY 
 
 H. B. BRIGGS, 
 
 Hon. Sccrctaiy of the Plainsong and Mcdiaval Music Socicly. 
 
 In considering the Work of the Benedictines of Solesmes in the Plainsong Revival the 
 chief thing is to form some definite idea as to what they had to revive, and the difficulties 
 with which they had to contend. Plainsong is a system of music perfectly distinct from 
 modern measured music in harmony. It is essentially recitative music, founded on the 
 structure of a prose sentence, and developed from two original forms — the Psalm Tone and 
 the Antiphon. The Psalm Tone was in its turn a development of simple monotone by' 
 breaking off into a little cadence first at the end and afterwards at the middle of each verse. 
 The Antiphons, on the other hand, were recitative melodies, for the time-value of the notes 
 only depended on the length of the syllables, but they did not originate in monotoning, 
 but were little airs based on the rhythm of the prose text. These became very ornate later 
 on, as did also the psalmodic plainsong, so that it is only by a study of the structure that we 
 can decide whether a certain melody should be classed as psalmodic or as antiphonal plainsong. 
 )For all practical purposes we are obliged to go to monastic churches for the type of 
 worship in early times. On the one hand we know very little of what was done in ordinary 
 parish churches, and on the other we may assume tha't the services of the religious houses 
 would be first modelled on those in common use and afterwards serve as an ideal to be aimed 
 at. We must also remember that the music at monastic services was governed by different 
 conditions from those that ordinarily prevailed in parish churches. We may be sure that 
 somewhat similar influences have always affected these, though the fact of all church officers 
 having been in minor orders may have mitigated the objectionable surroundings of parochial 
 church music. But the Director of the Singers was probably not proof against the 
 seductions of a good teaching connection, and the choirmen were not unmindful of the effect 
 their sweet voices in a Gradual might produce on Cecilia or Chloe. And the congregations in 
 the fifth and sixth centuries did not consist only of Christian martyrs. In mediaeval times 
 they certainly approximated to our own people, for the ballad tells us how — 
 
 Little Musgrave stood at the church door 
 While the priest was at the Mass ; 
 But he took more thought of the fair ladyes 
 Than he did of our Lady's Grace. 
 
 No ! It is to the monastic sei-vices that we must look both for the ideal of public worship 
 and for an explanation of the growth of plainsong. Let us consider monastic conditions so 
 far as they concern the music. 
 
 8421f?<?
 
 244 THE WORK OF THE BENEDICTINES OF 
 
 The monks represented the general population. They were not trained musicians like 
 our Minor Canons and Vicars Choral, but just the men in the street. They were not there- 
 fore the counterpart of even our parish choirs, but rather represented our congregations. On 
 the other hand, they came regularly to church, day in day out ; were animated by distinct 
 Christian fervour ; and looked upon all secular music much as English people regarded it on 
 Sundays thirty or forty years ago. Music in regular time represented to them at least dance 
 music and love songs, if not the more dreadful strains of the Heathen Temple. They would 
 consequently have nothing to do with it, and developed their own style — plainsong — from the 
 primitive recitation of their offices. The main body of it was very simple ; and though, after 
 a time, the more florid music was confined to picked singers, the flexible voices of the southern 
 races enabled all to join in the portions that were not reserved for the cantors. Plainsong i.s 
 from its origin essentially congregational, and if the simpler music cannot be caught up by a 
 congregation, after of course due experience of it, we may be sure that it is improperly 
 rendered. 
 
 We may divide the history of plainsong into three periods : Creation, — until the year 
 600, when St. Gregory collected and edited most of the chant. Vigour, — until A.D. 1200, 
 when harmonised music began to be successfully practised. And Decay, — until this centur)-, 
 when the revival set in. 
 
 The origin of the Psalm Tones may or may not be Hebraic. I am as much disposed to 
 think it Silurian. They are so simple (the evidently earlier ones I mean) that they might 
 have been composed yesterday in a Kindergarten, or at the beginning of time. But what is 
 certain about them is that they are pure recitative, i.e. that the text of the psalm-verses 
 governs the rhythm of the melody and the time-values of the single notes. This being the 
 essential principle of the short chants from which all psalmodic plainsong was derived, we 
 must naturally expect to find it- animating the more elaborate forms, such as Tracts and 
 Graduals, where single syllables carry a considerable number of notes. If therefore we find 
 that this principle is violated in the execution of the elaborate melodies, we may have a 
 •shrewd suspicion that the rendering has been corrupted, and must endeavour to find some 
 method of execution that will satisfy the requirements of the origin of plainsong. This is 
 what has been done by the Benedictines of Solesmes, and though of course they do not 
 claim to have said the last word on the restoration of the Chant, they do claim, and I think 
 rightly, to have established the general principles on which students must work in the 
 future. 
 
 The right and wrong methods are distinctly shown in even a simple syllabic Antiphon 
 sung in the two styles. The psalm tones being mainly recitative on one note could not go 
 very far wrong, though in their development as Anglican Chants they have, possibly through 
 the use of vocal harmonies, sunk very low. The Antiphons, however, being recitations to a 
 melody, were more capable of corruption, even when syllabic. In most churches in France, 
 for instance; you would hear the Antiphon Confitebor sung with every one of its sixteen 
 notes as a minim, thus taking at least fifteen seconds. As the Solesmes Fathers sing it, the 
 duration of the notes varies according to the accentuation of the words, and the antiphon 
 takes eight seconds. 
 
 Let us now see how it was possible for the chant to become so corrupt in its rendering. 
 
 Students who had access to great public libraries were of course acquainted with the 
 earliest MSS. containing musical notation, but this notation was a mere puzzle until it was
 
 SOLESMES IN THE PLAINSONG REVIVAL. 245 
 
 solved on the revival of plainsong in France and Belgium in the forties. Dom Gueranger, who 
 was a former Abbot of Solesmes, was an active promoter of this revival, and consequently his 
 monks have become the present leaders of the movement in France. Students then learned 
 that the earliest notation in neums was composed of the acute and grave accents of the 
 grammarians, and consequently signified only that the voice was to ascend or descend, but 
 gave no pitch to the notes. It was in fact only a menioria technica to assist the singers in 
 remembering a melody which they had learned by ear. It was then shown that in the 
 eleventh centurj- these signs were put on to a stave, and formed the ordinary square notation, 
 giving the pitch of every note. And then it was proved that down to the end of the fifteenth 
 century all the MSS. of different- countries practically gave the same version of the chant. 
 We may therefore safely conclude that in the MSS. we have the melodies almost exactl}' as 
 they were sung in the ninth century, and probably as they were edited by St. Gregory some 
 two centuries earlier. 
 
 This was therefore the first work done by the Solesmes Fathers, viz. to pro\e that the.( 
 actual melodies in medieval MSS. are the original Chant. 
 
 But it may be asked. How could there be any necessity for proving what might almost be 
 assumed? Surely the printed books in use would in successive editions be merely transcripts 
 of the MSS. Nothing of the sort. Some French Dioceses were fairly conservative ; Lyons, 
 for instance, preserved its books free from corruption late into the eighteenth century, but 
 most were bitten with the mania for modernizing the chant. The ball was started in the 
 sixteenth century by Pope Pius IV, and it is not difficult to see the reason why. 
 
 Plainsong had been the creation of the monks for their own use. As long as they 
 practised it only themselves it remained pure, but in time they let in the professional musician, • 
 and corruptions followed. We need not think of the dangers surrounding even modern 
 choirs ; — we have only now to consider the history of the tenth century. At that time the 
 purveyors of music at fashionable churches found that the old plainsong was not sufficiently 
 up-to-date to please the class of people that corresponds to bur Sunday morning churchgoer. 
 and accordingly adopted the system o{ farcing, that is stuffing, the service with tropes. Between 
 every sentence of the Gloria in excelsis, for instance, they inserted another which they considered 
 was suitable to the day. The Engl^ Mass contains the last remains of this custom. First 
 comes the Kyrie eleison — " Lord have mercy upon us " — and then the trope " and incline our 
 hearts to keep this law." The craze for these tropes, which were inserted all through the service, 
 reached such a pitch in the tenth century that bands of singers — unfrocked monks many of 
 them — wandered about singing masses on festivals at churches where the choirs were not 
 sufficiently modern. Naturally, these special choirmen were not to be depended on for the 
 words they inserted, and the result was that these were often ribald and actually indecent. The 
 custom was therefore put down, but it had been the thin end of the wedge for the introduction 
 into public worship of other than the authorised music. It had probably not injured the 
 rendering of plainsong,- for these tropes were in the same style as the rest of the music, but it 
 paved the way for the next innovation. At the beginning of the eleventh century we find - 
 the first traces of harmonized music. Only a few examples remain, and we cannot read them, 
 because the notation was still the neumatic. By the beginning of the thirteenth century, 
 however, harmonized music had made great strides ; and a really fine example that still 
 pleases a modern audience survives in the six men's canon " Summer is a-coming in." It 
 was the only piece that was enthusiastically applauded at a performance I once heard of a
 
 246 THE WORK OF THE BENEDICTINES OF 
 
 modern Opera where it was introduced, and of course the bulk of the audience did not know 
 that it had been composed nearly 700 years ago. In the twelfth century even we have 
 evidence that measured music in harmony had been introduced into the churches, for it was 
 already recognised as an abuse. The harmonies that were first used with the plain.song were 
 probably so simple that they did not much affect the recitative character of this music, but 
 the introduction of measured music must have had a very bad effect, because it led to a 
 confusion of the two styles. As the skill of the harmonists increased, there must have been 
 a continual temptation to treat the notes of the plainsong as if they had a fixed, instead of 
 an indefinite, time-value. We find that this was done, and a Benedictiis of the fourteenth 
 century exists in which the notes have all become semibreves. A facsimile of the original 
 forms Plate 40 in Early English Harmony (Quaritch). The plainsong is in the bass, and may 
 be seen in its proper notation in Sanctus III of The Ordinary of the Mass (ymc^n'i). The 
 right and the wrong renderings of this melody are palpably as different as they can be. 
 -V 'VWe cannot tell how far at first the application of harmony to plainsong corrupted the 
 rendering when it was sung in unison, but there can be little doubt that it did ultimately 
 destroy the art, and reduced the plainsong to long strings of semibreves, so that the service 
 was altogether intolerable. We have the evidence in Cranmer's wish for a syllabic plainsong, 
 and in the instructions given by Gregory XIII to Palestrina in 1579 to edit the service 
 books by abbreviating the chant. ^ He began on the Gradual, but scarcely completed the 
 Teviporale, and gave up the work in despair. The work was afterwards completed and 
 printed, but withdrawn. Another edition on the same lines was afterwards printed in 1614 
 at the Medicean Press under the auspices of Paul V. It has been reprinted at Ratisbon of 
 late years under a licence from the Pope to the printers, who have tried to make out that it is 
 the authorised Roman edition. Fortunately it is not so, or we should have to say. So much 
 the worse for Rome, for it is the greatest parody of plainsong that was ever issued. Let me 
 explain. I, The elaborate music of the Gradual may be considered to consist oi forituri (jU 
 certain prominent notes. It is, as a matter of fact, impossible to separate the notes of 
 ornament from their fundamentals without destroying the melody ; but let that pass — we 
 will suppose that it can be done. An abbreviation would consist in the omission of these 
 ornaments ; and if the same melody occurred two or three times to different words, it would 
 be simplified always in the same way, so that the resultant melodies would be uniform. You 
 will find in the MSS. that the melody to the Gradual Justus ut palvia occurs fifteen times 
 to different words, and save for slight variants, made according to the laws of plainsong, Ls 
 always the same. In the Ratisbon Gradual it is always altered in a different way, and very 
 materially, so that we have fifteen new melodies, not one of which would be recognised by 
 St. Gregory. | The Solesmes Fathers have shown this.. very thoroughly in their publication, 
 Palcographie Musicak, and effectually pricked the bladder of the authenticity of the Ratisbon 
 edition of the chant. But this is the edition that was first issued from Rome in 1614. It 
 was the first serious blow at the true version of the music, and it was brought about by the 
 corrupted rendering of the chant due to the introduction of vocal harmony. 
 
 We have seen the same cause working in our own Church, and within living memory 
 too, I believe. The Anglican Chant was originally plainsong in harmony, and was no doubt 
 at first correctly rendered in free rhythm without any fixed time, although the exigencies 
 of the printing press required the use of modern notation. But the use of harmony must 
 have crippled the freedom of the rhythm to some extent, though I have little doubt that
 
 SOLESMES IN THE PLAINSONG REVIVAL. 247 
 
 the traditional method of chanting survived, for Fetis, the Belgian musician, complains in 
 1831 that the chanting at St. Paul's and Westminster is very bad, because the choir do 
 not keep to the time in which the chants are written, but sing them according to the 
 length of the syllables. I suppose the grumblings of so great a man were listened to, 
 and the choirs were told to sing in time ; I have heard that the choir at Rochester were 
 thus specially instructed by a new organist. The next stftp has been to begin the fixed 
 m2asure at the end of the reciting note, and in many places the whole of the reciting note 
 is put into time. The effect is soothing and soporific, but it is not fair treatment for even an 
 Anglican Chant. 
 
 If plainsong in its simplest form could be so corrupted among us, we can understand 
 how it fared on the Continent during the birth of modernism in the seventeenth and 
 eighteenth centuries. Modern music had lost the crudities of the Middle Ages, and plain- 
 song had been robbed of all its life and vigour. The clever people who are always on 
 the alert to bring things that they do not understand down to their own level, which they 
 take to be the comprehension of the age, accordingly set to work to modernize plainsong. 
 Nivers, the organist of Louis XIV, in 1683, was a great hand at this. He slashed the melodies 
 about, put in accidentals where he fancied the tonality required them, and generally re-wrote 
 the chant to his great satisfaction. Millet and Bourgoing in the same century were also great 
 reformers in their own estimation, and they even got their mutilated versions accepted by 
 many Dioceses in France. 
 
 In the eighteenth century French organists amused themselves by writing masses which 
 they called plainsong, many of them, too, in harmony. As they gave a fixed time to every 
 note, they might just as well have printed them in modern notation ; but square notes were 
 ecclesiastical, so square notes they used. Many examples will be found in a volume first 
 published by La Feill^e in 1745 with Sequences, Hymn tunes, &c. He also gives vocal 
 harmonies to the Tones, turning them into distinct Anglican Chants by putting them into time 
 with the Tone in a middle part. French organists were also great in composing new Tones for 
 the psalms ; but as they were quite ignorant of the theory of the Tones, they are no better 
 specimens of plainsong than the worst Anglican Chants, — very often not so good. Unfor- 
 tunately many of our revivalists have accepted this debased plainsong as authentic. 
 
 The state of degradation to which plainsong had been reduced was bound to lead to a 
 revival. This began in 181 1 with a pamphlet published by A. E. Charon, a distinguished 
 musician, and the movement was aided by the adoption of the Roman Use in France, and 
 the disuse of the local service-books. But students were not satisfied with the music that 
 came from Rome, for it was not the music of the MSS., and the publication in 1848 of what 
 is known as the Mechlin Edition of the Gradual and Antiphoner brought matters to a head. 
 
 One would have thought that the simplest course for the Editors to take would have been 
 to transcribe some ancient Belgian manuscript ; but no, they must go out of their way to copy 
 the Gradual of Paul V. printed in 1614, the result of the abbreviations of Palestrina's successor, 
 Giovanelli, and for the Antiphoner they took the Lichtenstein Edition, printed at Venice 
 in 1580. A heated controversy immediately sprang up about these books, for every one who 
 had been studying the manuscripts of course rushed into the fray with the very plain argument 
 that the version was not an atom like the plainsong which had existed all over Europe until 
 the sixteenth century. The consequence was, that in 1 851 an edition was issued bytheReims- 
 Cambrai Commission, in which the Editors, taking for their original an early twelfth century
 
 248 THE WORK OF THE BENEDICTINES OF 
 
 MS. recently discovered at Montpellier, tried to reproduce the original chant. \ They were, 
 however, also infected with the idea of correcting what they considered the mistakes of 
 medizeval singers, so that though the actual notes are fairly correct, there are so many 
 alterations in the grouping, and so many omissions of phrases, that the edition cannot 
 be implicitly trusted. > Other editions, such as those of Dijon, Digne, and Rennes, were 
 reprints of the corrupt seventeenth century versions before referred to, and were taken into 
 use in different French Dioceses. At Rouen and Besangon, as the Abbe Bonhomme says, 
 "they set the words of the liturgy to a chant which is of recent introduction into the 
 diocese." 
 
 But French ecclesiastics went on working at the subject, and controversy raged as hotly 
 there over the music as here over vestments. Lambillotte, Nisard, and Raillard published 
 facsimiles of MSS. and their interpretations of the neums. In 1878 the Ratisbon edition of the 
 Gradual, alluded to before, appeared under the quasi-endorsement of Rome, and the excitement 
 intensified. Students said, " This is a parody of plainsong " ; the other party replied, " This is 
 authorised by the Pope, therefore it is plainsong." As events have since shown, Rome had 
 not committed herself. The Ratisbon edition is recommended but not ordered, and the 
 Solesmes Method is used in the French Seminary at Rome, with the special approval of 
 the Pope. 
 
 The time was now ripe for someone to shake the glass and crystallize the floating opinions 
 of students of plainsong. The Benedictines of Solesmes had traditionally been specially 
 interested in the controversy, and in 1880 Dom Pothier published Les MModies Gregoriennes. 
 In that book he boldly went to the root of the matter, gathering together all the results of the 
 antiquarian studies which had accumulated during the previous half century, and put the 
 study of plainsong on the secure basis of an appeal to the most ancient documents, both as 
 regards notation and rendering. Ever since the corruption of plainsong which followed on 
 the development of m.easured music, emendators of the current versions had tried to find 
 some connection between plainsong and modern music. Firstly, they put it into fixed time ; 
 and then, when the result proved too utterly dreary, they abbreviated and amended the chant 
 on the theory that the composers had not known what they were about. Dom Pothier threw 
 this all aside, and enquired simply, What was the origin of plainsong ? On a satisfactory 
 answer to this enquiry depended the correct rendering of the melodies, and an explanation of 
 what seemed defects to the modernizers. The answer was, that plainsong was originally 
 simple recitative to a prose text ; that a prose text has a rhythm of its own, quite distinct 
 from the measured rhythm of poetry or modern music ; and that the rendering of plainsong 
 must therefore follow ihis prose rhythm, and not be subjected to the laws of an alien art. 
 This had been, of course, indistinctly perceived before, but the influence of modern measured 
 music had been too strong to allow of its being properly followed up. We all know an 
 instance of this influence in Tallis' Responses, where the plainsong is in the tenor. If the 
 plainsong alone happens to be used in a church it goes fairly well, though the subtle remini- 
 scences of measured nmsic, often aided by modern notation, generally make it drag. But if 
 the full harmonics are used, every syllable of the reciting note of the plainsong has a fixed 
 time given to it, and the result is simply absurd and inartistic. It is like a man doing a five 
 mile walk in the step of a minuet. 
 
 Lcs Melodies Gregoriennes seemed at once to supply what was wanted. It put into 
 concrete shape the ideas which had been in the air, and solved difficulties which individual
 
 SOLESMES IN THE PLAINSONG REVIVAL. 249 
 
 students had found in every previous method. Whatever improvements on the Method might 
 be made, it was felt that here at least was a solid foundation to work on, and nineteen 
 years of controversy have not shaken that foundation. 
 
 But though in an oaaz'o volume Dom Pothier might give the results of his studies, just as 
 has been done in English in T/ie E/e;ncnh- 0/ P/aiHsoii^, students naturally required proofs. 
 The Benedictines of Solesmes therefore undertook to publish such a series of ancient 
 manuscripts as would supply evidence that their teaching was correct. In 1S89 they 
 accordingly began to issue facsimiles of the principal MSS. in a series which they style 
 Palcographie Micsicale. Their first publication was a ninth or tenth century Gradual from 
 St. Gall in Switzerland, the earliest known to exist. This is written in what is called the 
 neumatic notation, which by itself is illegible, for the signs are only a memoria technica for the 
 music which had been learned by ear, but it can be translated by collating it with such a work 
 as the facsimile of a thirteenth century Sarum Gradual published by the Plainsong. and 
 Mediaeval Music Society. The two MSS. together give the chant as perfectly as any notation 
 can express recitative music. The square notes, it is known, have no time-value whatever ; 
 there is no such thing as longs and shorts in this notation, so that by itself it could not be 
 music. But the neumatic notation, although it does not express the pitch of the notes, 
 shows very plainly not only the longs and shorts in elaborate plainsong melodies, but a great 
 number of musical ornaments — trills, shakes, and turns— that were no doubt easy enough for 
 the first Italian singers, but have to be omitted by northern choirs. The Solesmes Fathers 
 have, however, used one of these ornaments to prove how observant the notators were of the 
 effect of different combinations of letters on the singing of recitative. If be sung two notes to 
 an open syllable like Ho in Holy, it will be found that a diff'erent effect is produced from that 
 by singing the same notes to the first syllable in Sanctus. With the open syllable the two 
 notes are both clearly produced, but in Sanctus the mouth closes for the purpose of sounding 
 the consonants net, and the second note accordingly almost disappears. Now this little 
 difference is indicated in the neumatic and also in the earliest square notation, and proves 
 two things : Firstly, that the composers and transcribers of the music were sufficiently skilled 
 artists to provide for this trifling detail. Secondly, that the music could not have been in 
 measured time ; for if it had been necessary to sing those two notes always in time, it would 
 have been quite possible, as in modern measured music, to have held the open vowel for 
 the time required, and let the consonants take care of themselves. The music was, however, 
 recitative, and the natural pronunciation of such a word as Sanctus required a different 
 rendering from such a word as Holy.: I happen to have compared an English with a Latin 
 word, but settings of the same melody to different Latin texts equally show that the notation 
 is altered to correspond with the syllable. 
 
 On completing the early Gradual the Benedictines next published over 200 facsimiles of 
 the same melody from as many MSS. of different countries and centuries. This was to prove 
 that the chant was practically uniform in all Westerfi Christendom until the corruptions of the 
 sixteenth century set in. Incidentally this publication showed that the Ratisbon Edition of 
 the Chant, which the publishers were trying to force on all our Roman brethren, was a mere 
 tissue of absurdities, and was no more like the song of St. Gregory than " God Save the 
 Queen " is like the " Marseillaise." 
 
 The next publication issued from Solesmes was another early Gradual in ncums, but 
 with the addition of some extra marks of expression termed Romanian Letters. In the text
 
 25P THE WORK OF THE BENEDICTINES OF 
 
 accompanying this volume, the Fathers went deeply into the structure of plainsong, showing 
 that the whole system of its phrases depended on what was called the Cursus. This is the 
 law of prose rhythm affecting the close of every Latin sentence. Those of us who were 
 brought up on King Edward VI's Latin Grammar will remember these rules at the end of 
 the volume. I am afraid I took less interest in them years ago than I do now. They are 
 treated of in a Tract just published by Vincent, Recent Research in Plainsong. 
 
 The volume of the Palcographie now in course of issue is a facsimile of a unique 
 Ambrosian Choir Book at the British Museum. The material it contains has not yet been 
 sufficiently examined ; but so far it proves that certain melodies exist in one form in the 
 Ambrosian, and in another in the Gregorian Plainsong. This at least puts back the origin 
 of the chant until a time when these melodies were in their original shape. A study of the 
 two different ways in which they have been developed must certainly prove of great value 
 to us. 
 
 Besides these works of antiquarian research, the Fathers have also issued an Edition of 
 the Service Books, the Gradual, the Antiphoner, &c., which give the Chant in the form in 
 which it is found in the MSS. Here and there we find slightly different versions from those 
 in the Sarum MSS., and in these cases I believe our English Books, as often as not, give the 
 correct reading ; but the Solesmes Edition for all practical purposes gives the chant as it was 
 sung, certainly in the ninth century, and probably in the seventh, after it had been edited b}' 
 St. Gregory. 
 
 The Fathers print these works and others on many abstruse subjects at their own 
 printing press, supervising the workmen that they employ, and managing everything in a 
 thoroughly businesslike manner. They vv'cre turned out of their Abbey for some time by the 
 French Laws, and were compelled to live in cottages in the village and hold their services in 
 the Parish Church, but they have now been allowed to live in their own house again, and 
 hold their services in their Abbey Church. This is a fine building on the banks of the Sarthe, 
 and the forty or fifty monks seated in the Choir sing the service well. Of course, only the 
 Schola Cantornm sings the elaborate chants, but the whole body of monks sings the ordinary 
 music. I always think they are so much more fortunate than our own poor Cathedral 
 clergy, who are compelled to attend services without once opening their lips. No wonder 
 that rules of attendance have to be made for them ! Listening to Psalms sung by other 
 people must be very dreary work. 
 
 The services at the Abbey now form the model for France, and every day the Solesmes 
 system of rendering plainsong is spreading through the country and is being taught in the 
 Seminaries. Visitors from all parts come to hear the singing, and correct the ideas that they 
 have formed from a study of the theoretical works the monks have published, for as the music 
 is entirely vocal, and independent of the notation, it is only by actual practice and experi- 
 ence that a correct tradition can be again created. At Solesmes even they find that slight 
 improvements can be continually introduced, and it is most interesting to discuss with Dom 
 Mocquereau the various little differences in method and phrasing which present themselves. 
 He and I, for instance, are not quite at one as to the tempo at which the melodies should be 
 taken, for he would take them rather slower than I like. The last time I was there I 
 complained that tlie Introit and Gradual had dragged a little. He replied, smiling, that the 
 choir had been rather slow, and he thought of hurrying them up, but remembered that I was 
 in church; so let them go on. The next day the tempo was, however, a little quicker — just 
 
 /
 
 SOLESMES IN THE PLAINSONG REVIVAL. 251 
 
 the pace I like myself. The French visitors to the Abbey are of course all accustomed to 
 the old lento style, and accordingly, as he says, complain that his choir sing too quickly. I 
 am, however, convinced from some special specimens that the Scliola sang for us, that the 
 rhythm and melody are lost if the tempo is not sufficiently quick. The whole effect of the 
 \owgfiorituri depends on the phrasing, and if the chant is too slow the phrasing disappears. 
 There is a great reaction now in France among the devout-minded against the Masses in 
 modern music which have been the fashion ; and though a Service in what is not the vulgar tongue 
 affords some justification for the use of music that one only listens to, there is little doubt 
 that plainsong, now that the revival shows that it is really effective and artistic music, will 
 come again into general use. The use of Latin also does not seem so strange to the French as 
 it would to us, for the likeness between French and Latin apparently enables even the peasantry 
 to sing the Creed and Gloria in exxelsis with understanding. The elaborate music of Introits 
 or Graduals is, for popular purposes, independent of the words and purely subjective, so that 
 it occupies much the same position as our anthems. The Benedictines have, of course, a great 
 advantage over us in forming a traditional rendering, for though the monks are moved from 
 one Abbey to another, there is continuity in the teaching. With us, in our parish churches, 
 a priest or an organist may be moved, and there is an end of everything, as with St. Barnabas, 
 Fimlico, but there is some hope of our being able to form a tradition in our Sisterhood Chapels. 
 Our monasteries have still to be revived ; but at the church of the Cowley Fathers a true 
 tradition is being formed, though as the Fathers in residence change oftener than the Monks 
 at Solesmes, they have to depend on boys, who unfortunately grow older and go away. I am, 
 however, glad to know that Cowley serves in some degree for us as Solesmes does for France. 
 All priests who go there are enchanted with the singing, and say how different it is from what 
 they have generally heard called Gregorian music. We may therefore look to them to carry 
 on amongst us the work of the Benedictines of Solesmes in the revival of plainsong. 
 
 542169
 
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 THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
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