IN A RECENT POST, Jeff Ostrowski has responded to my last post in the rhythm-wars series, in which I considered the role the horizontal episema plays in Dom Mocquereau’s rhythmic theories. Jeff offers three complaints about my post:
- That I overstate the relative importance of Hartker’s Gradual within the context of the manuscript tradition of Gregorian chant.
- That I have set up a “false duality” between Pothier’s understanding of chant rhythm and Jeff’s.
- That my claim that Dom Mocquereau had permission from the pope (St. Pius X) to include his rhythmic signs in Solesmes printings of the Vatican Edition is not backed up by sufficient evidence.
I would like to write about all of these topics, but I would like to address them in separate posts and in reverse order. Today, I would like to address #3, whether the rhythm signs in the Solesmes editions are allowed, because this question is actually a prelude to the possibility of a fruitful discussion about different methods of chanting.
Does the Church Endorse One Official Performance Method for Gregorian Chant? • I have restated my understanding of the facts here and here on the blog and in my symposium presentation from 2022, which you can watch here. It will have been very clear to readers of our series that Jeff and I do not agree about the correct interpretation of the historical events surrounding the creation of the rhythmic signs and their inclusion in the Vatican Edition. I don’t relish disagreeing with Jeff on this point, and my disagreement should not be understood as disparaging either his views or his excellent and single-minded work on matters of Vatican-Edition rhythm. But there is a reason for me to insist on this point: we can hardly have a decent exchange of ideas on the vexed question of the rhythm of Gregorian chant when one of the interlocutors claims to be promoting “the official rhythm of the Catholic Church.” This claim rests on an authority that is, in my understanding, non-existent. No former or current pope has ever discussed an official rhythm. Cardinal Martinelli did speak in those terms, but whether that rhythm included or excluded the Mocquereau method is at least open to debate, on which matter see below.
It would be more accurate to say that a variety of rhythmic approaches have received various amounts of ecclesial sanction or endorsement since the council of Trent: Guidetti, Haberl, Pothier, Mocquereau, Cardine, and so on. The level of the Church’s involvement in performance practice has fluctuated over time. Undoubtedly, one of the two high points of that involvement was when they promulgated the Vatican Edition, throwing the full weight of the hierarchy behind the Solesmes method. The problem is that by 1905, there were two closely related but distinct Solesmes methods: the “Old Solesmes” of Dom Pothier and the “Classic Solesmes” of Dom Mocquereau, which also includes rhythmic signs. While the inclusion of these signs in the Solesmes editions was indeed controversial, it does not logically follow that this inclusion was illicit or against either the letter or spirit of the various ecclesial pronouncements on the matter. And certainly the subsequent passage of time has made the position that only the Vatican Edition without signs retains some official status more and more untenable. Still, let’s focus on the period during the reign of Pius X.
Was Solesmes Allowed to Print the Rhythmic Signs? • Jeff argues that Mocquereau’s editions are illicit on account of the way the rhythmic signs contradict what his “official rhythm.” In arguing this way, Jeff is clearly in agreement with several of Mocquereau’s strongest critics who were writing on the subject in the first decade of the twentieth century. Mocquereau, for his part, believed he had permission for his editions, and that Solesmes always complied strictly with every decree regarding the production of the Vatican Edition, eventually redesigning the signs after 1906 so that they would not be confused with the notes themselves. But what is the source of Solesmes’s supposed permission?
The Meeting • The heart of the matter is a meeting that occurred on 23 March 1904 (almost exactly 120 years ago). As Jeff points out, what we know about this supposed meeting comes from later claims from Fr. De Santi and Dom Mocquereau. Here is what Katharine Ellis writes about it:
As emerged many years later via De Santi himself, Pius X agreed at a meeting of 23 March 1904 that, in line with Solesmes’s wishes, their rhythmic signs would not be part of any copyright waiver offered by the abbey and that, while the signs would not feature in the Vatican Edition itself, they would nevertheless be permitted in any Solesmes version of it. The signs had implicitly achieved Vatican approbation the previous month, via the blanket endorsement of 24 February; now was not the moment to see that approbation removed. Moreover, if the signs were not to be adopted officially as part of the Vatican Edition, then the most important consideration for Dom Delatte, bursar Noetinger and Dom Mocquereau was surely that they should be safeguarded as a means by which the abbey could provide and benefit from ‘value-added’ in respect of its own products.
Where Jeff and I disagree is on whether De Santi (and Mocquereau) accurately recalled the content of the meeting, whether Mocquereau really had an understanding with the pope giving such permission, whether the pope would have fully understood the implications of Mocquereau’s request, and whether he acted in good faith according to that understanding in his subsequent actions. How can we try to come to an objective understanding of the truth of the matter, to the extent to which this is knowable?
Things we can agree on • Here are some facts that Jeff and I surely agree on:
- In 1904, Solesmes relinquished to the Holy See its claim to the copyright of material from its chant editions (including the gargantuan work of Pothier, from his time at Solesmes) that would be included in the Vatican Edition.
- Prior to this time, Solesmes was publishing books with the rhythmic signs (starting in 1900).
- Solesmes retained the copyright to the rhythmic signs, since it was agreed already in 1904 that the Vatican Edition would not include the Solesmes signs.
- In 1905, the decision was made to cut short the debates of the papal commission and just use follow Pothier’s previous Graduale (1895) as the basis for the Vatican Edition. At this point, the abbot of Solesmes resigned and Mocquereau followed suit by leaving the commission. This dispute seems not to be about the signs per se, which were already not going to be included except in the Solesmes prints.
- As soon as the books of the Vatican Edition were promulgated, there were also Solesmes versions of it with rhythmic signs added, beginning with the Kyriale. By this time, Mocquereau had resigned from the commission and seemed to be devoting the majority of his intellectual energy to his theory of rhythm.
- The rhythmic signs were frequently attacked (from about 1905 and for a couple of decades after) by proponents of the Pothier/accentualist school of chanting, including Widor, d’Indy, and other eminent musicians. This resulted in the withdrawing of the signs from any sort of official approval in 1906 (see Pothier’s letter to Widor) as well as the redesigning of the signs so that they would no longer touch the notes and could be easily distinguished from them.
- The rhythm signs were eventually granted widespread toleration not as an integral part of the Vatican Edition but as something added and allowed for private use by particular choirs.
In light of these facts, you can draw your own conclusion about Dom Mocquereau’s actions. While Jeff’s views are certainly possible, in an interpretation of these facts that casts Mocquereau in as negative a light as possible, I think it’s also defensible to conclude that Mocquereau was acting in good faith and with the blessing of the pope. This latter position undermines Jeff’s core assertion that his equalist interpretation of Pothier is the only “official rhythm of the Church.”
Did the Martinelli Letter Refer to Solesmes? • There is one other matter that must be addressed. Jeff writes: “It’s difficult for me to understand why Dr. Weaver refers to “obvious liceity” (!) in light of documents like the MARTINELLI LETTER (18 February 1910) . . .”
The monks of Solesmes never believed that the “Martinelli letter” referred to their editions, but was specifically addressing mensuralist versions of the Vatican Edition. Here is how Ellis (surely a neutral enough observer) puts it: “His [Mocquereau’s] system of rhythmic signs rendered chant so accessible in traditional musical terms that the SCR’s condemnation of Haberl’s metrical versions of the Vatican Edition in 1910 [the “Martinelli letter”] were misunderstood in France—Combe’s wording suggests wilfully—as also applying to the Solesmes rhythmic signs.” If you are interested in this, I encourage you to read the letter again, particularly noting its specific direction toward German musicians and its endorsement of both “free rhythm” and “new and useful researches by the more renowned Gregorian theorists.” I can see where Jeff’s point of view comes from, because he (like Widor, d’Indy, Dom David) really does not like the Solesmes rhythmic signs, but there is also plenty of evidence for Dom Mocquereau’s interpretation of the letter, since the Solesmes monks have practiced “free rhythm” continuously under Pothier, Mocquereau, Gajard, Claire, and ever since!
A Proposal • Just because I don’t think that equalism and/or accentualism are the only acceptable, licit, and “official” ways to perform Gregorian chant, that doesn’t mean that I’m not deeply interested in Pothier’s method and his ideas about rhythm. In my next post, I would like to take a closer look at the history and use of the mora vocis within the accentualist approach, because it has a direct bearing on Jeff’s second point of criticism to my last post. I propose that we consider Dom Pothier’s method without making an unnecessary appeal to authority.
