Neume: Encyclopedia II - Neume - Solesmes notation

Neume - Solesmes notation

Various manuscripts and printed editions of Gregorian chant, using varying styles of square-note neumes, circulated throughout the Catholic church for centuries. Some editions added rhythmic patterns, or meter, to the chants. In the 19th century the monks of the Benedictine abbey of Solesmes, particularly Dom Joseph Pothier (1835-1923) and Dom André Mocquereau (1849-1930) collected facsimiles of the earliest manuscripts and published them in a book called Paléographie musicale. They also assembled definitive versions of many of the chants, and developed a standardized form of the square-note notation which was adopted by the Catholic church and is still in use in publications such as the Liber usualis (although there are also published editions of this book in modern notation). The Solesmes monks also determined, based on their research, performance practice for Gregorian chant, based generally on giving every note equal length, but the rhythmic practices of chant are a subject of deep dispute among modern musicologists.

Neumes are always used syllabically; a three-note neume, for example, indicates that (at least) three notes are to be sung to a single syllable. The single-note neumes indicate that only a single note corresponds to that syllable. Chants which primarily use single-note neumes are called syllabic; chants with typically one multi-note neume per note are called neumatic, and those with many neumes per note are called melismatic.

Neume - Clefs

Neumes are written on a four-line staff on the lines and spaces, like modern music notation. A clef at the beginning of each line indicates the location of C or F on any of the lines, as shown:

Note that chant does not rely on any absolute pitch; the clefs are only to help find the half and whole steps (see hexachord).

Neume - Single note neumes

The virga and punctum are sung identically. Scholars disagree on whether the bipunctum indicates a note twice as long, or whether the same note should be re-articulated as the name repercussive implies.

Neume - Two-note neumes

When two notes are one above the other, as in the podatus, the lower note is always sung first.

Neume - Three-note neumes

The fact that the first two notes of the porrectus are connected as a diagonal rather than as individual notes seems to be a scribe's shortcut.

Neume - Compound neumes

Several neumes in a row can be juxtaposed for a single syllable, but the following usages have specific names. These are only a few examples.

Neume - Other basic markings

Neume - Interpretive marks

These markings, although present in almost all early manuscripts, are subject to great dispute.

Other interpretations of the quilisma:

• Shake or trill -- Prof. William Mahrt of Stanford University supports this one
• Quarter-tone or accidental. The support for this interpretation lies in some early digraphic manuscripts which combine chironomic neumes with letter-names. In places where other manuscripts have quilismas these digraphs often have a strange symbol in place of a letter, suggesting to some scholars the use of a pitch outside the solmization system represented by the letter names. The trigon is a neume peculiar to St. Gall which may also have a microtonal meaning.

There are also litterae significativae in many manuscripts, usually interpreted to indicate variations in tempo, e.g. c = celeriter (fast), t = tenete (hold), a = auge (lengthen, as in a tie). The Solesmes editions omit all such letters.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Solesmes notation", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki