What is the Tonic Accent?
We should define our terms. What makes a syllable accented, and what makes an accent a tonic accent?
Jesus said to them: “I have come into this world so that a sentence may fall upon it, that those who are blind should see, and those who see should become blind. If you were blind, you would not be guilty. It is because you protest, ‘We can see clearly,’ that you cannot be rid of your guilt.”
Dr. Charles Weaver is on the faculty of the Juilliard School, and serves as organist and director of music at St. Mary’s Church in Norwalk, Connecticut. His research interests include the history of music theory and the theory of plainchant rhythm. He lives in Connecticut with his wife and four children.—Read full biography (with photographs).
We should define our terms. What makes a syllable accented, and what makes an accent a tonic accent?
There’s nothing necessarily authentic about the “authentic” rhythm.
A brief historical survey of free rhythm in plainchant, as practiced from the modern monastic foundation of Solesmes (1833) to the present.
A few further thoughts on what ways of singing chant are “allowed.”
Ostrowski, wishing to avoid fussiness, may justifiably refuse this invitation. But to argue, as he has, that these signs and the prayerful and aesthetic movements they embody are “illicit” is just wildly off the mark.
What can medieval and renaissance music pedagogy offer to us now?
What happened to all that polyphony once Catholicism became illegal?
This can seem like a dry topic, but it actually often deals with practical issues faced by every choirmaster who wants to promote plainchant.
A look at Dom Pothier’s performance instructions for a communion antiphon reveals a great deal of complexity in this pre-Mocquereau interpretive approach.
This summer, there are several interesting graduate-level courses on offer at St. Joseph’s Seminary in New York.
Occasionally the Solesmes rhythmic markings are surprising, as in one of tomorrow’s alleluias. Can we make sense of this?
Today’s communion antiphon is a masterpiece of musical exegesis.
The early history of Solesmes plainchant research provides a historical parallel for responding to current Vatican liturgical rules.
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