Missa de Angelis - Starting at the beginning

1/1/11  Missa de Angelis – Gregorian Chant

Music is well said to be the speech of angels.

.-Thomas Carlyle

Happy New Year!  When setting up this project, it was clear that the best place to start a year long survey on music history and repertoire would be chant.  The foundation of Western music, tonality, and more than a head nod to the heritage music has in the Church.  Wanting to further delve into those roots, I chose a mass setting to begin this journey.  This setting dates back to the 9^th century, predating polyphony or even homophony; monophony is it (unison voices.)  I use the term “mass setting” with a certain amount of liberty, as there is no structural vein (melodic motifs being the primary example,) tying the movements of the mass together; a development that I believe would have to wait for a couple hundred years at least.  Dr. Christopher Moore has compiled both recreations of the original neumes and modern-day notation (and simple organ harmonizations,) available at http://www.scribd.com/doc/16068643/Missa-de-Angelis . If you’re interested, it’s worth taking a look at.  (At some point, I may go back and revisit this piece further, music in hand.)

Listening to this, I put myself into the place of the average Catholic of the day; the Latin is familiar enough because I’ve heard it, even though I don’t always keep a running translation running through my head.  Not having a copy of the music in hand, (be it neumes or a transcription,) I am forced into passively letting the music pass over me.  It is a far cry from my contemporary notion that liturgical music is intended to provoke “full, active and conscious participation,” in that I am distracted on actually writing about it (which is its own paradox,) not singing along actively, and as stated, not conscious of all the text.  Likewise, I am listening in my own home, not in conjunction with a church service – although my lack of Latin training makes me wonder if I would be any less isolated if I were in a church full of likewise uneducated people.  

Nevertheless, there is a certain value to be gained by letting the musical phrases wash over you without the need to understand and participate.  On some level, ignorance may indeed be bliss, and there is a place (though not a predominance) for unconscious and passive participation.  Perhaps therein lies my own personal inclination toward Taize-style meditation and worship as a supplement to mass.  (Again, not a replacement by any means.)  Submersing oneself into music that transcends one’s understanding of both text and melody has a tendency to evoke an inwardly meditative state not called for in corporate worship, but valuable in its own right.

The music itself seems often unfamiliar, but accessible.  This of course comes as no surprise, as again, this is the cornerstone of music as we know it.  The antiphonal nature of a number of the chants gives a sense of structure and form beyond the oft ambiguous cadences due to both an absence of vertical harmony and textual inference.  It’s funny how my ear is inclined to fill out harmonic structures underneath the melodies, particularly the selections centered around the Ionian (major) scale.  Clearly this is a post-harmonic cultural bias, but interesting nonetheless.

The recording I’m listening to has a sampling of many other chants in addition to the titular mass setting.  While most are presented in plainchant monophony, there are a few that move into homophonic vertical structures (organum) and sustained drone accompaniment.  Also, the use of female voices seems to be somewhat anachronistic to an authentic “period” performance.  Unless I am mistaken and these are indeed boys voices…

A brief rant on iTunes.  The track listing here is laughably incorrect.  Even my scant Latin knowledge gets me that far.  I would be far more prone to comment on individual selections if I thought they were labeled accurately.  For example, I’m familiar enough with the melody Adore Te Devote to know that I was listening to it on the track listed Ave Maris Stella.  Fortunately, mid-rant, I tracked down a corrected list online.  I sincerely hope this isn’t a running issue with this project throughout the year…

Next up - New York Voices (self-titled)

Next week - Mass in B-minor (J. S. Bach)