PDF Download • Responsorial Psalm for the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)
“This argument from silence is wildly improbable.” —Father John Parsons (2001)
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“This argument from silence is wildly improbable.” —Father John Parsons (2001)

The idea of the tonic accent in Gregorian melody runs through the entire Solesmes tradition from Gontier to Pothier to Mocquereau to the present.

This week I attended part of an excellent academic conference in honor of William Mahrt.

Two recordings of the same chant from the Sacred Music Symposium 2023.

My thesis on how Dom Mocquereau relates to other theories of musical rhythm is now available for download.

As late as 1924, Dom Mocquereau mentioned Dom Desrocquettes “whose beautiful and discreet accompaniments I hear every day at Solesmes.”
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“If you begin by telling a man that in a word like 𝐷𝑒𝑢𝑠 the first syllable corresponds to the weak beat, the second to the strong beat of a modern bar, the only thing accomplished will be to bewilder him thoroughly.” —Father Bewerunge

The example chosen is the strenuous offertory (“Jubiláte Déo”) for the 2nd Sunday after Epiphany.

Father Ralph March wrote: “If any single man could deserve the title father of the renewed chant it would be Dom Joseph Pothier.”

… from the “Roman Gradual” (1912) edited by Max Springer, a famous Gregorianist of the Beuron school.
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A brief historical survey of free rhythm in plainchant, as practiced from the modern monastic foundation of Solesmes (1833) to the present.

This can seem like a dry topic, but it actually often deals with practical issues faced by every choirmaster who wants to promote plainchant.

This is the “pure” Vatican Edition—technically the only version of the rhythm allowed by Church documents!

“The symposium exceeded all of my expectations.” — Pediatrician, Choirmaster, and Mother of Six Children
Ostrowski Vs. Weaver: Solesmes Rhythm, Gregorian Semiology, Dom Mocquereau, Dom Pothier, Mensuralism, and more!
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