Beyond the Spire

E10 • Practice: Advanced Steps

• ⁠Canon Antoine Bunnens - ⁠⁠St Walburge’s Catholic Shrine • Season 1 • Episode 10

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0:00 | 15:12

Charles and Joshua return to “Beyond the Spire” to move from first principles to the practical craft of reading Gregorian chant well. The discussion turns to what lies beyond the notes themselves: bars, compound neumes, quilisma, dotted notes, ictus, and the subtle signs that shape phrasing and expression. Rather than treating chant like modern measured music, the episode shows how rhythm, breath, and emphasis serve the sacred text. The result is a practical introduction to singing with greater unity, intelligence, and liturgical sensitivity.

Content

  • Bars structure the piece, but they do not simply create mechanical breaks.
  • Compound neumes show that several notes can belong to one gesture, in relation to the text.
  • Quilisma and related signs add expression without rigidity. Their goal is to restore in a simple look the refinements of the ancient staffless notation.
  • Gregorian rhythm follows text and prayer more than measured beat.
  • The Solesmes ictus is presented as a means of achieving choir unity, by structuring the score with upbeats — elevated, floating notes — and downbeats — rest and tranquil notes.
  • Important words in the text deserve corresponding musical emphasis.

Guests

  • Charles Thompson
  • Joshua Mambwe Haines

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External Links

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SPEAKER_00

Welcome to Beyond the Spire, a podcast of the Save Our Secretance project here in Preston at the Catholic Shrine of St. Wahrd, supported by the National Lottery. In each episode, we go beyond what you see from the street. We explore the story and the sound of Gregory and chant the church's own voice so that this treasure of faith and culture is not just preserved, but lived and loved again. I am Canon Bernans. Whether you are a musician, a member of a parish choir, or simply someone curious about the Catholic faith heritage, you came to the right place. Let's begin. Today we are talking about the advanced steps of reading a score of singing Gregory and Chant, and we are delighted to have you both again, Charles and Joshua. Thank you, Ken. Thank you for having us back. So we talked about the basics yet. Now we want to sing the best we can. We want to achieve that shape the church has formed in that melodies, that particular melodies that we can read on the scores. So how can we do? I can see here the little bars. Yes. So what what are they?

SPEAKER_02

Yes, so the bars can vary in different shapes, but the the ones that we see on the end, um, they reference the end of the piece or the end of the uh whatever we're singing. You have a version of that with only half, so you have uh one bar, and that is simply a rest. And this is a time when uh the whole entire group of people singing, or if you're singing by yourself, you'll take a break and you'll take you'll take a take a breath. Um you have bars that are slightly smaller, um, and these uh these can also sign for the end of a phrase or the end of a certain uh uh movement of of words. Um and then you have uh the smallest versions at the top. Um but it's very important to know that these don't necessarily mean they're not all breaks and they're not all rests and they're not all times to take breaths, uh breaths.

SPEAKER_00

But they can structure the score itself. For instance, here we can see that the news are uh more readable. So compound news. Can you talk about that, Charles?

SPEAKER_01

Yes. So uh a compound new is where you have multiple news that basically form one big new. So for example, here you have uh uh Porectus followed by a climicus.

SPEAKER_00

Resopinus. Yes. Behind me uh we we see a very ancient version of the two as petrus tract, um, and we have here the modern version of the same melody, so kind of five centuries afterwards. Right. And we will just put it here. So those words are the same that the the frame here behind me. And here is a a full bar. What does it mean, Charles?

SPEAKER_01

A full bar. It uh indicates that there's a a sort of break in both in the music and in the the text. So it could be at a punctuation, for example, in the text. And it means that you can you can take a break and you can take a breath without breaking the rhythm.

SPEAKER_00

So the the bars are designed to to um split the music? No.

SPEAKER_02

I suppose that they're to structure, as you said, that they're to structure the piece.

SPEAKER_00

For instance, here we have two as Petrus, and Petrus is obviously uh uh a word very imp important in this uh particular feast. So Saint Peter is uh the major character in this uh feast day. When we have um a bar here, it follows a whole development on the single word petrus. So at the end of this development, we have like a breath, but this rest takes it takes a time, uh, but it doesn't break the melody, as it were. So it can't be very, very long. No, it's like it's like a second or it depends on it depends on the music. Oh yes, on and um speed. So let's turn the page. I see here a double bar. What does this mean?

SPEAKER_01

It indicates either the end of a phrase, sorry, a piece, or the end of a verse, for example.

SPEAKER_00

Or it could Oh, I'm sorry. Here we have a new verse. Yes. So that's what s signifies the double bar. Yes. So a new verse is a new uh piece.

SPEAKER_01

It's the same piece, but it's uh a new text, as it were, which is then put onto the which is then joined to the other text.

SPEAKER_00

And usually verses are uh uh sung by a small amount of of uh chorus singers. Called cantus. Called cantus, yes, okay.

SPEAKER_02

And you have the same in the at the start of the pieces. So before the stars, you have this group of singers that will kind of we call in tone, and so that they will uh they will bring about that voice initially, and then everyone else will follow after that star, uh after that star signifies.

SPEAKER_00

We can see that at the end of this verse we have a star here. This is also true, yes. So here the whole choir will come and sing the rest of the verse. Right. And we talked about expression. So we can't just do what we want when we are reading a score in Gregor Ancient. For instance, I see here a little scribble here and there. Those are called Quillisma. Quillisma. Yes. And they are like springs.

SPEAKER_01

Before a culisma, we we lengthen the note uh just before it? Yes. Slightly.

SPEAKER_00

We don't pause, but we're it's more like like yes, yes, like pushing the the the spring and then releasing. And releasing it as you go up the quillisma. Yes, exactly, exactly. And over this coulisma, we have a note with a little vertical bar, a little stroke. What does this mean?

SPEAKER_01

It's an epizema. And it it means that basically that note, you don't lengthen it a full beat, but you again you lean on it and you emphasize it almost to a degree.

SPEAKER_02

But it's helpful to know that, or maybe not so helpful to know, that it's not a set specific time that you hold it for. Unlike in modern music where a dotted note is is is geometrically what it is. So in in modern music where you would have a a dotted note that it shows it's is plus a half a note, it it doesn't work like this as it's not as geometric, um, or not as geometric, but as as mathematic. In Gregorian chant, where you, for example, where you have the the line above the note, like here. It doesn't necessarily mean it's it's it's it always has the same length added on to it.

SPEAKER_00

It's just like uh rallendendo in Italian, it would be just slow a bit to then add uh expression to the whole um syllable. Uh but we also have dotted notes, do we, on Gregorian chant?

SPEAKER_01

We do, yes.

SPEAKER_00

So is it a half no inch?

SPEAKER_01

In uh in Gregorian chant, when you have a a punctum that has a dot next to it, uh there's a dotted puncton, uh it doubles the the length of the note.

SPEAKER_00

Because the fundamental distinction between modern music and Gregorian music is that modern music can be divided. Yes. The times are divided. And in Gregorian chant time is not divided, it's just additive things, additive um elements. Yes. So we double the time. So we keep with the same regularity. Yes. There is no syncopation. Yes. So here we have an adorned piece, we just have on the the other page um another really developed melody called Alleluia. What's interesting here is that the melody itself is called back on different parts of the text. Of the text, yes.

SPEAKER_01

So for example, here you have the the allelujah, and then it finishes with the same melody. So here at the the mayhem.

SPEAKER_00

So here this is the same shape than here.

SPEAKER_01

And so it um yes, it is basically it it it mimics almost the the alleluia.

SPEAKER_00

I call that melodic formula. Yes. Yes. So I see that on this book we also have vertical strokes. We call that ictus. Can you can you say something about that?

SPEAKER_01

So an ictus is uh is a vertical stroke that's normally under the note, and it denotes where you have uh uh a downbeat on the the piece.

SPEAKER_00

That's a way uh Solem Abe wants us to interpretate the correct way, because these strokes are not available on the former notations. So why Solem decided to add that is to help the unity of the choir. The note with the stroke would be called a downbeat, which is different from a strong beat in modern music. Yes. And uh we have another type of beat which is the upbeat. Can we can we talk about that?

SPEAKER_02

Yes, so the upbeat is uh the opposite to the downbeat, of course, but it's the uh it's where sort of when you're singing um there's a kind of lift, lift up to this uh this this note, and it's kind of like you've described before, like like the flying of a feather sort of in the air, um, as as the note has a sort of lightness to it. Um but it doesn't necessarily mean that the that the downbeat has a heaviness to it. Um it's it's it's merely it's it's even lighter than than the lower one.

SPEAKER_00

It's like a rest or a tranquil note. Yes, a very we say in French posé, which means posed but also reposed. Yes. Rested. Yes. Okay, so this is completely different from the modern way of opposing beats, so strong and weak beats. Yes. There are no weak beats in Greg Ranchant, and there are no strong beats. Everything has um more subtility in the the calling itself. Yes. Because we need to maintain the piece, so even just the term beat is too hard to describe that. When we have a bar in Gregor enchant, the notes that follow the bar could be either way an upbeat or a downbeat. It's not like in modern trend we that we have a strong beat. Yes, okay. Uh so that means that the um the start after uh uh taking a breath would be kind of elevated and then coming uh in um floating way, or it comes from something more peaceful and more um Well, you said tranquility, tranquility is a good because tranquility in tranquility there's a groundedness to tranquility. Can we add some other expressions that are not uh written here on the scores? I'm thinking about the meaning of the text.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, yes you can.

SPEAKER_00

So the text itself has variation in intensity. For instance, well when we when we say two es Petrus, Petrus is uh the the key word here. Yes. Two es is good, but it's just driving to Petrus. So the melody has to to reflect that, and even the way we are singing express this uh drive. Um that is to say that the pace of uh a piece will not absolutely be metronomic or um mathematic. It can it can vary from a part to the other. And usually when the melody comes higher, we also have some louder expression, and when it comes down, it's more quiet. Softer. Softer, yes. Yes. And all that put together would be for the solemn method. Yes. The grand rhythm.

SPEAKER_02

Yes. I suppose now looking at the uh at the structure and studying the way that the chant is formed, uh, one would definitely like to hear how this uh how this chant sounds like and what it feels like to experience it.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, you're right. And as this is the end of this episode, well, in the next four episodes, we'll hear some examples of of Gregon Chant sung by the one who prayed it daily.

SPEAKER_02

Good.

SPEAKER_00

Look forward to that. Thank you very much for coming. Thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you again for having us.

SPEAKER_02

We will learn something here, I think.