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| Musical Musings: Miscellaneous | Page 3 |
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Singing with the Angels (Part 3)Three Types of ChantFor the singers, the active life is represented by the articulation of the text, and the contemplative by listening in silence. In order to practice this discipline with chant that is musically more complicated, singers must know what to do with the different kinds of musical material contained in the repertory. That material is commonly divided into three categories: syllabic chant, which includes recitation using psalm tones and other formulas; melismatic chant, in which a single syllable may be embellished with a long musical phrase; and neumatic chant, which is a mixture of syllabic chant with words which are embellished slightly, with perhaps two, three, or four notes per syllable.I would like to regroup this material by considering the syllabic and neumatic chants as one category, and adding as a third a kind of material that is usually overlooked in musical discussions - silence. In any discussion of the chant, silence should be considered part of the music, and we must understand its significance and know how to handle it. Silence is most audible in the recitation of psalms, after the mediation and after the final of the tone in each verse. And the singing of psalmody is both basic training for all chant, and the area in which the culmination of the art lies. But for now let us simply say that it is in the recitation of psalms that the search for balance between speech and silence, action and listening, really begins. Corresponding to these three categories of musical material, we have three kinds of musical activity - recitation, melismatic singing, and listening. We have already understood something about the roles of recitation and listening, but what about the melismas? I would propose that melismatic passages act as a kind of meeting ground between silence and speech, a kind of bridge between the two, which can act as a guide to help us locate the authentic voice of recitation. It is as if the melismas show us how to be still while we are in motion, help us find exactly the right kind of energy. If we are to discover this character of living stillness in the melismas, we must sing them not as classical legato phrases, or as a string of choppy, percussive pitches but as a succession of still moments, coming from nowhere and going nowhere, as if the singers could stop and remain forever on any pitch, at any time. The musical line must have no forward motion, no drive. A choir which has begun to discover the contemplative balance of the psalmody will at first find the more complicated chants daunting. They will find that the stillness of psalmody seems to be ruined by these neumes and melismas, by too much musical difficulty. But as the singers gain experience and learn to orient themselves more simply toward the musical material, they find that a deeper, stronger voice for the text begins to be audible. The difficulties in fact begin to serve a positive purpose. The choir then is able to return to the psalms with a better understanding of the entire process. Toward a RevivalPerhaps we begin to see from this short description that there is a systematic, practical way to teach the chant so that its contemplative character is taken into account from the start. We don't know, of course, how this was done in the early Middle Ages. Our choirs in New York make no claim to have rediscovered the authentic practice of ancient monks. But I think there is no need to make such a claim. Exactly what method we use is not as important as what our aim is, and what our understanding is of the chant's nature and purpose. Whatever method we use, our technical means must fit the character of our contemplative ends. That is what is important. There can be no such thing as working on technique first, and working on the "music making" later. From the beginning, the aim must not be beautiful music, but the stillness of the prayer of the Word. Chant is not to be sung as an artistic performance for listeners, but as inner preparation for the singers.What we need, I think, is a second Catholic Revival, a new Oxford Movement, which will recover the comprehensive spirit of the Fathers which has been almost completely lost today. With that spirit we must recover a working understanding of the orthodox view both of human nature and its possibilities, and of the sacred character of Scripture. Such a revival might begin with serious study, in a few places around the country, of the ancient discipline of contemplative prayer and of the place of sacred Scripture, liturgy, music and the writings of the Fathers in that discipline. Through such study we might begin to reclaim what was called in early times "the way of perfection;" what Saint Gregory called the "way of our spiritual parents," the way on which our father Jacob encountered an angel. This article by Rembert Herbert appeared in the June 1995 issue of The Catholic World Report, PO Box 6718, Syracuse NY 13217-7912, (800) 825-0061. See CNP's Booklets of Chant and also CNP's Chant Index |
Back to Part 2: Images from Scripture