It is neither wise nor laudable to reduce everything to antiquity by every possible device.  Thus, to cite some instances, one would be straying from the straight path were he to wish the altar restored to its primitive table form; were he to want black excluded as a color for the liturgical vestments; were he to forbid the use of sacred images and statues in churches; were he to order the crucifix so designed that the divine Redeemer's body shows no trace of His cruel sufferings; and lastly were he to disdain and reject polyphonic music or singing in parts, even where it conforms to regulations issued by the Holy See. . . . obviously unwise and mistaken is the zeal of one who in matters liturgical would go back to the rites and usage of antiquity, discarding the new patterns introduced by disposition of divine Providence to meet the changes of circumstances and situation. (Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei, 62–63)

The word tradition denotes something that is handed over or passed down.  Some readers may be surprised to learn that traitor and betrayal are cognates of tradition—again, a handing over.  St. Gregory the Great is often depicted with a dove perched atop his shoulder, signifying the inspiration of the Holy Ghost.  This portrayal is not entirely unknown even in the East.  (Among the Byzantines, he is better known as St. Gregory the Dialogist.)  We cannot say with certainty that the chants of the Proper of the Mass in their present form date back to St. Gregory (†604), despite bearing his name, but there is a scholarly consensus that they were in fairly widespread use at the time of Charlemagne, around 800.  Our oldest sources of musical notation for these chants are from the ninth* century—which is not to say that there were no musical manuscripts before that, only that they have not survived or yet been discovered.  On the other hand, it is possible that the oldest extant manuscripts were deliberately preserved precisely because they were the oldest (although a colleague of mine called this proposition preposterous).  The simple fact is that we do not know when the chants reached their present form or when they were first written down.  What we can say with certainty is that they were notated in at least two places by the first half of the tenth century, or probably the last quarter of the ninth century.* [*I have revised these dates in light of recent scholarship.  P.W., 2024]

It is well documented that the authentic traditional rhythm had been lost by the end of the eleventh century and that the tempo had slowed down with the introduction of parallel organum.  I have attempted parallel organum in proportional rhythm with my choir and must say that my men and I found it very difficult to sing well.  I can see the advantage to a slow equalist interpretation.  Slow equalist plainchant persisted up to the early twentieth century in some places, and it is reasonable to say that it is the historically correct rhythm for the beautifully illuminated manuscripts of the late Middle Ages.  By the Renaissance period, mensural editions—the so-called Medicean editions—were in use alongside plainchant.  Accompaniment books published in the nineteenth century give a clear idea of how the note values were interpreted.  We should note here that the Medicean editions also included melodic alterations, sometimes rather drastic ones, which were considered “corrections" according to the theorists of that era.

Serious study of the oldest extant manuscripts recommenced in the nineteenth century with the Jesuit Louis Lambillotte.  Various theories concerning the correct interpretation of the rhythm were advanced, which were summarized by Rayburn.  St. Pius X entrusted the Benedictines of Solesmes with the restoration of chant according to the oldest sources.  Much could be written about that project, but I only wish to mention three points: 1. it was rushed; the Holy Father wanted about 50 years of work compressed into only five; 2. from the outset, the monks did not have all of the manuscripts at their disposal that we now have, or that they themselves would have a couple of years into the project; unfortunately, their editorial principals had already been solidified; and 3. they similarly had only incomplete or defective copies of the medieval theoretical writings available to them.  The rhythmic theories of Dom Mocquereau, based mostly on a faulty interpretation of the St. Gall neumes, were incorporated into the Solesmes editions; the pure Vatican edition contains no rhythmic markings except for the bar lines, which are strictly editorial.  Although Dom Cardine's theories were in some ways very opposed to those of Fr. Vollaerts and Dom Murray, all three of them undertook painstaking study of the oldest sources.  Many of Cardine's disciples have published important works, most notably Fr. Agustoni and Dom Göschl.  With the brief but dense articles of the late Jan van Biezen in recent years, we finally have an interpretation that reconciles the contradictory approaches of the semiologists (e.g. Cardine, Agustoni, Göschl) and mensuralists (e.g. Vollaerts, Murray, Van Biezen) with the interpretation than I have used as the basis of my editions.

Given all of this history, how can we say what is really traditional?  Once something has been tampered with, it is an alteration and no longer truly representative of tradition in its fullness.  The Medicean editions are now generally recognized as an alteration or mutilation of the traditional Gregorian chant (which is not necessarily to say that the intentions of those responsible for them were wrong or misguided).  What are we to make of the still-official 1908 Vatican edition ordered by the Pope?  It is a restoration—imperfect, but a definite improvement.  The Graduale Novum and other restored editions, corrected according to the oldest sources, are also improvements, but a common criticism of Gregorian chant sung according to a semiological, rhetorical, oratorical, or accentualist interpretation is that “they all sound different," even though each of the ensembles may be singing from the same edition and claim to use the same style, based to a greater or lesser extent on the ideas of Dom Cardine.  Proportional rhythm offers less wiggle room for the idiosyncrasies of particular directors, singers, or ensembles.

Now to the topic!  I have given a history lesson in four paragraphs and reserved the actual point of this little essay for the beginning and end.  I opened with a quote from Pius XII's encyclical Mediator Dei.  Are we guilty of antiquarianism, i.e. discarding more recent and legitimate developments in favor of restoring a primitive usage?  I answer in the negative.  Although we are indeed attempting to restore a style of singing from at least eleven centuries ago, we are no more guilty of antiquarianism than St. Pius X or the Solesmes monks of the early twentieth century.  This edition is another step in restoring the chants “in their integrity and purity according to the testimony of the oldest manuscripts," according to the desire expressed by that same Pontiff.  Here and elsewhere, I use the phrase authentic traditional rhythm.  I am not unaware that I may appear to have contradicted myself!  No one would claim that the rhythm presented here is representative of how Gregorian chant has been sung for 900+ years.  Then how can it be called traditional?  It is traditional in the sense that it is a restoration of the authentic tradition, in light of the best scholarship.  And how does this differ from antiquarianism?  With chant, we are not dealing with a liturgical art form that more or less died out, but rather one that lost its original rhythmic vitality and was eventually altered intentionally.  We could trace many elements in Gregorian chant that were indeed handed down without interruption even in the Medicean editions, therefore we cannot say that the tradition as a whole was ever lost.  Let us do our part to sing “according to the testimony of the oldest manuscripts."  St. Gregory the Great, pray for us!  St. Pius X, pray for us!

Patrick Williams, November 2021

See also my 2022 article titled “‘King James Only’ Catholics.”

May 9, 2024 Addendum: Unity with Whom?

The claims of less Catholic and less obedient chant scholarship are more than a bit over the top.  They are the refuge of petty, closed-minded Catholics who are incapable of making a serious effort toward correctly interpreting the oldest sources, or who are unwilling or uninterested.  We are told by Frederes that, in a liturgical context, daring to render the Gregorian melodies in the same manner in which they were artistically conceived at their first beginning is an affront to Church unity.  Unity with whom?  Although his position regarding the rhythm remains nebulous, Frederes is apparently a proponent of the pure Vatican edition without the Solesmes rhythmic markings.  Would he have us sing the Vatican edition according to the equalist rhythm of Ostrowski or the nuanced rhythm of Pothier?  Worldwide, approximately what percentage of Catholics follow those two rhythmic approaches in the singing of Gregorian chant?  How would we even go about finding out those statistics?  One thing is quite certain: neither is used for Papal Masses in the Vatican!  Again: Unity with whom?

I am left scratching my head when Frederes writes of “the melodies of Gregorian Chant . . . having provided solace and refuge to the faithful for well over 1,500 years.”  Besides the name “Gregorian,” we have no good reason to think that our current chant repertory is more than about 1,230 years old.  Its antecedents might have borne some resemblance, but it is doubtful that they would have been recognizable to us as the same melodies as the Vatican edition.  So, Frederes is off by “well over” 270 years, I’d say.  As for the rhythm, we have no good reason to think our current chant repertory was sung with equal note values until the eleventh century.  Here he’s off by “well over” 500 years.  I’m even more puzzled by his claim that “organic development of the art of singing the Mass had essentially been suspended . . .  around the same time as the Council of Trent” (1545–1563).

Frederes lumps together the work and objectives of both mensuralists and Cardinian semiologists alike as an “antiquarianist movement” and further claims that we follow, with striking uniformity, the same reasoning as the Protestant Reformers!  The cancer is widespread, don’t you know?  Frederes would liken an interpretation founded on the clear, unshakable evidence of ninth-century manuscripts to Guéranger’s critique of sectarian “formulas that date only beyond the night, which are undoubtedly human, since the one who wrote them is still alive.”  According to his narrative, the earliest extant melodies and rhythm are subjective matters of belief, not objective historical facts, and we give preference to the oldest sources not on account of their precision, but solely because of their antiquity.  If that weren’t bad enough already, he accuses the Gregorian “antiquarianists” of wanting to chart their own path instead of praying in song with the rest of the Church.  What is there to say in reply?  Well, for starters, again: Unity with whom?  A large segment (i.e., the majority) of “the rest of the Church” vehemently eschews Gregorian chant along with the Latin language.  Are Frederes, Ostrowski, and other Vatican edition purists singing the same song as the Sistine Choir, where the Solesmes rhythmic markings and then some are observed?  Give me a break!

What about the Italianate Roman Latin pronunciation of Pope St. Pius X?  I was able to find one recording of Pius X, but his voice was mostly unintelligible.  Do we have good reason to think that his Latin pronunciation differed considerably from his immediate predecessor’s?  Listen to Pope Leo XIII pray the Ave Maria.  Does his Latin pronunciation respect the relatively higher pitch of the tonic accent?  No, and in fact, I hear the exact opposite on the words gratia, benedicta, Sancta, and ora.  I am, however, pleased to see yet another acknowledgement that the Vatican edition is a cento.  A cento, literally, is patchwork and therefore a new version, which in this case was probably never sung anywhere before its publication.  To portray the Vatican edition as a developed, mature reading of the chant far superior to the puerile scribblings of the first millennium is not only disingenuous but a veritable inversion of reality.  Let’s call a spade a spade.

Sooner or later, Frederes, Ostrowski, and the died-in-the-wool “classic Solesmes” adherents will have to come to terms with the inconvenient fact that the whole hierarchy of the Catholic Church called for a more critical edition of the chant books published under Pius X.  A reorganization of the chant books without melodic, rhythmic, or textual corrections does not constitute a more critical edition, and fanatical attachment to an outdated edition strikes me as a sort of last-ditch attempt to stifle real scholarship in favor of “the fantasy of a higher purity, perfection, and idealism,” to use Frederes’s own words against him.  Whether we like it or not, just as it was the prerogative of St. Pius X to change course from the state of chant under Pope Leo XIII, it was also the prerogative of the Second Vatican Council Fathers to give a new impetus to Gregorian chant scholarship.  Unfortunately, we know all too well how poorly the musical directives of the conciliar documents have been implemented by and large.  In fact, it was precisely that generation of clergy, brought up with the Vatican and Solesmes editions, who rejected every interpretation of Gregorian chant in favor of more contemporary styles of music for the liturgy.  Again: Unity with whom?

Above, I rambled about history for four paragraphs before finally making my point in the final paragraph.  Here, I append more comments after already having made my conclusion in the preceding paragraph.  My primary interest and the whole point of this website is the interpretation of the oldest extant chant sources.  It may be apparent to the reader that I’m just not that interested in outdated theories or outdated ecclesiastical regulations (and I emphatically don’t mean the rubrics of the 1962 or “pre-55” liturgical books and related legislation).  But I’m curious as to why anyone would consider the Vatican edition of St. Pius X to be an “organic development.”  I’m also curious as to why anyone would consider the introduction of organum and polyphony, the resultant loss of the authentic traditional rhythm, or alterations to melody and modality to be organic developments.  As for those of us who desire to return to the oldest sources, what would it be fairest to say that we reject: organic development, progress in the liturgical arts, or tampering with tradition?  I believe that a sober, objective consideration of the music program I currently run will reveal the correct answer.